Tory conference not only boasted the Conservatives’ first gay pride event but a competing club night – “Tory Shame” – and not one but two attendant protests from gay activists and evangelical Christians.
Luke Pollard, Labour’s PPC for South West Devon, has set the pace nationally in terms of campaign videos for political candidates (check out the battle tractor). In a report from Tory conference in Manchester, Luke attends the rival events. He goes out of his way to be fair to the Conservatives (and kudos to Iain Dale for debating with the protestors) but finishes with these truisms:
“Equality is still a live issue in political debate. Tonight was an important step forward for the Tories but this is not the end of the process. They need to leave their grouping with homophobic parties in Europe and they need to use their MPs to vote for gay rights in the House of Commons. Until they do that all this ‘gay rights’ is just convenient PR fluff.”
Scrapbook can’t resist commenting that Luke deserves five stars for his sterling attempt to not sound progressively more merry – although this may have started to unravel in the last section!
You can stalk Luke on Twitter (@LukePollard), his website or YouTube.
