When the Conservatives last had their hands on the tiller of power, none of their MPs would admit to being homosexual, they voted against lowering the age of consent for gay sex, and invented a law which made it illegal for schools to mention homosexuality.
How things change: tomorrow, eight years after Alan Duncan became the first Tory MP to come out of his own volition, Nick Herbert, the openly gay Conservative policing minister, will give a speech at Pride London about "how the Tories have come a helluva long way". And that's not all. His department, the Home Office, has chartered a float at this year's event, which will wind its way down Oxford Street and Regent Street towards Trafalgar Square from 1pm.
The Home Office float, officially commandeered by Spectrum – the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual (LGBT) support group within the department – will be going with a Moulin Rouge theme this year. James Asser, co-chair of Labour's LGBT group, notes that despite Tory enthusiasm for attending the event, they have been less keen to fund it: "Boris Johnson has cancelled the annual Pride reception at City Hall, which Ken Livingstone always used to have," he said.
Pride's theme this year is "Paint the Town Ruby Red", to mark the 40th anniversary of the creation of the Gay Liberation Front, which was formed after the Stonewall riots, when police clashed with gay demonstrators in New York.
the Guardian
