Double Standards of the Tories Over Gay B&B Comments

Example 1: A Conservative shadow Home Secretary says just the other week that it should be acceptable for a gay couple to be turned away from a B&B should the proprietors say they want to on no other grounds than their sexuality.

Example 2: An Ulster Unionist B&B owner from Antrim is prevented from going forward
to the UUP v Conservative decision to stand as the MP for Antrim South for saying in 2006 he felt 'uncomfortable' having same sex couple stay in his B&B, before the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007.

Quite rightly Antrim Mayor Adrian Watson who had the backing of 90% of the local Ulster Unionist party is pointing out that Chris Grayling has gone further than him. Yet he is being barred from standing possibly on the same grounds that Grayling has yet to even be censured by his own leader. He says:

"Are they going to veto their shadow home secretary now? Is Owen Paterson [Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary] going to go back to London and say we have set a precedent in Northern Ireland? If there is no disciplinary action against him then it is serious discrimination, David Cameron talks about equality, where is my equality?"

Shouldn't the same standards be set for Epsom and Ewell as for Antrim South?

What News from Cameron on the Acceptability of Same-Sex Couples in B&Bs

Chris Grayling's the Conservative shadow Home Secretary comments about it being acceptable for B&B owner to turn away same sex couples first came to light late on Saturday evening. That has given leader David Cameron a whole 36 hours to issue the following comment (I'm posting it in full):

"









."

Grayling himself has issued the following apology:

"






".

Has this had an impact? Well Pink News were in the middle of running their second monthly poll on the LGBT community's voting intentions and it certainly has done. The Lib Dems are now the most popular in the overall LGBT vote on 29% up 5% while the Tories are down 5% to 20% a direct swing as Labour remain unchanged. Amongst first time voters they also drop 5% to 35% just ahead of the soaring Lib Dems at 32%. The poll was about half way through when Grayling's revelation came to the attention of the press, as Pink News says:

"The PinkNews.co.uk poll had already begun prior to the publication by The Observer of comments by the shadow home secretary Chris Grayling where he appeared to back the rights of bed and breakfast owners to ban gay couples. But the swing from Conservative to Liberal Democrat did increase markedly in the early hours of Sunday."

So the swing Conservative to Lib Dem may well be bigger than that indicated as a result of Grayling's comments but for people already casting their vote. The Conservatives have kept silent at the top end too long over this, they are haemorrhaging votes that they are unlikely to regain in the time between now and the election from a part of the electorate they had been courting.What is encouraging for the Liberal Democrats and Nick Clegg is that the support appears to be shifting straight over to us, with no leakage to Labour.

Grayling Not Fit to be Home Secretary

The Observer is reporting that Chris Grayling has told bed and breakfast owners that are totally within their rights to turn away same sex couples from their establishments. This really is turning the Tories back to the bad old days of the 80s. Also contravening the equality laws that Labour have brought in over the last 13 years.

What next?

Will they stop our schools protecting gay pupils from homophobic bullying? If they want to.

Will they allow employers to sack people purely on the basis of their sexual orientation? If they want to.

What happened to the Conservative party that March Pink Times said was making most impression with first time gay voters?

Maybe that David Cameron slip up with Gay Times (below) was merely the slipping of the mask about the true level of Conservative acceptance of homosexuality.



Updat with Fact Check: Iain Dale says he had to disagree with Grayling but has also gone for the following defence:

Do I believe Chris Grayling is homophobic? No, I do not. Do I believe that his views, as expressed, will be damaging. Yes I do. He has just issued the following statement...

"Any suggestion that I am against gay rights is wholly wrong - it is a matter of record that I voted for civil partnerships. I also voted in favour of the legislation that prohibited bed and breakfast owners from discriminating against gay people. However, this is a difficult area and on Wednesday I made comments which reflected my view that we must be sensitive to the genuinely held principles of faith groups in this country. But the law is now clear on this issue, I am happy with it and would not wish to see it changed."

Which would be well and good only They Work for You tells us that Grayling has voted moderately against equal gay rights. So just how has he voted on those issues.

For that Tory biggy repealling section 28 he was actually absent from the vote. He was actually a teller for vote agaist allowing same-sex couples to adopt. He'd also voted for there being an other sex 'role model' as part of the embryology and fertilisation bill consistently saying that a male and female are required in a family model.

However, in Chris's own words he voted for civil partnerships, that is only part of the story, he did vote for it in 2004 but on the 21 October 2001 he voted against bringing such a bill before the house.

Lies, Damn Lies and Tory Crime Statistics*

Working as I do with data day in and day out the one thing you learn is that you have to compare like with like to get an actual comparison. There are little comments all over our spreadsheets which say when something started, moved or a calculation was changed. It not simply for us to keep a track on changes but also so that we know if data from different periods is comparable simply from the raw figures.

In 2002 what happened with violent crime statistics was that instead of the incident being recorded as violent at the discretion of the desk sergeant police were told to record every complaint.

This is what Chris Grayling the Shadow Home Secretary failed to tell us when he was whipping up a storm with his some British town's as becoming like The Wire.

Sir Michael Scholar, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority sets the wayward Tory right by writing to him saying:

"I do not wish to become involved in political controversy but I must take issue with what you said about violent crime statistics, which seems to me likely to damage public trust in official statistics."

He included a note from his agency which said:

"It would not be appropriate for the Authority to seek to intervene in political debate directly. However, where we see that official statistics have been presented or quoted in a way that seems likely to mislead the public, we will publicly draw this to the attention of those involved."

Here are the actual figures, there is a kink up in 2002-3 and then the downward trend continued under the new recording criteria.

Grayling has said he would take the Statistics Authority memo into account, before then dismissing it totally by saying he would:

"continue to use recorded crime statistics, because they reflect an important reality; that the number of violent crimes reported to police stations, and particularly serious violent crimes, has increased substantially over the past decade, even taking into account any changes to data collection".

* There was just no way to top The Independent's headline.

How Rainbow are the Tories?

Answer not much. In the Guardian today Chris Huhne Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman reveals how he fears gay rights would "grind to a halt" under a Conservative government. This is based on evidence of their voting records in Westminster.

• Ten out of 32 members of the shadow cabinet voted against at least one piece of gay rights legislation. The shadow Europe minister, Mark Francois, voted against all four.

• David Cameron, Kenneth Clarke, Mark Francois, Chris Grayling, William Hague, Francis Maude, Patrick McLoughlin, Andrew Mitchell, George Osborne and Sir George Young voted against legislation to repeal section 28, which had banned local authorities and schools from "promoting" homosexuality, in 2003.

• Nineteen members of the shadow cabinet joined the attempt to block the equality bill, which included a requirement for all publicly funded bodies to promote equality.

• Seven members of the shadow cabinet voted to allow only heterosexual married couples to adopt in 2002.

• Four of the shadow cabinet voted against powers which passed through the house in March 2007 giving the secretary of state the ability to bring in regulations with a new definition of discrimination and harassment on grounds of sexual orientation.

• Thirty-five Tory MPs voted to allow only heterosexual married couples to adopt in 2002 and a third also voted against the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations in March 2007, allowing the government to make regulations defining discrimination and harassment on grounds of sexual orientation.

Add to this their partners in Europe and you have to ask yourself where under the rainbow does the Conservative Party really position themselves. When David Cameron said in his New Year message:

"between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats there is a lot less disagreement than there used to be."

He ignored just where those differences actually come. As Nick Clegg said of Cameron in his interview with Attitude he is a confection. Indeed he seems to be just the soft centres the easy sweets to digest. He and his party haven't taken on the hard centres well. Indeed some of his party leave them to the side. Even key ministers have shown that they aren't on the same yellow brick road with Dorothy.

Even Dave, as I've said before, took a whole week to realise he hadn't included civil partnerships in his marriage person allowance. Not sure whether the Conservatives need to meet the wizard for a heart, a brain or the courage over gay issues, but certainly are a long way from home when they do seem to want to talk about them.