David Cameron fails to mention "gay or straight" - this despite briefing the line in advance of his speech, and despite it being on the Tory party website.
David Cameron, in a speech to activists on the South Bank, claimed the Tories would be fighting the election “for the great ignored”, claiming his party was for “young or old, rich or poor, black or white…” But he neglected to include “gay or straight” despite briefing the line in advance of his speech, and despite it being on the Tory party website:
As Sunder Katwala of the Fabian Society tweeted, it is to be hoped this is just a lapse of memory, and not a message of support to Chris Grayling:
“Cameron dropping ‘straight or gay’ having briefed it surely memory error. But extends No Comment on Grayling & could reanimate it“
The fallout from Mr Grayling’s comments continues to drag on for the Conservatives, with a poll of 1,193 gay voters for the Pink News website showing support for the Tories down five points from 25% to 20%, with Labour unchanged on 28% and the Liberal Democrats up five on 29%.
The poll also revealed 30% of gay voters “felt less favourably” towards David Cameron following his recent Gay Times interview in which he failed to commit to a Lords amendment allowing civil partnership ceremonies to be performed on religious premises.
Meanwhile, Compass has launched a petition calling on Mr Cameron to sack Mr Grayling and “clearly state his party’s stance on discrimination” following the shadow home secretary’s remarks over the weekend in which he was secretly recorded telling a right wing think tank that bed and breakfast owners should be allowed to bar gay couples from their premises.
The petition says:
“Will the man who might be our next Prime Minister sit by and silently accept bigotry from his top Shadow Cabinet members, or will he reassure the people of Britain that he means what he says that his party has changed?
“Allowing certain business-owners to discriminate based on sexual orientation opens the door to discrimination based on race, religion, country of origin, and anything else.
“Sign our urgent petition to David Cameron, telling him to sack Chris Grayling and clearly state his party’s stance on discrimination.”
Sign the petition here
53 Responses to “Cameron fails to say he’s for “gay or straight””
SSP Campsie
RT @ciphergoth Cameron's speech for the cameras leaves out "gay or straight" http://short.to/2147k
blogs of the world
David Cameron fails to mention gay or straight – this despite briefing the line in advance… http://reduce.li/jkox2g #fails
Donovan Clarkson
RT @ciphergoth: Cameron's speech for the cameras leaves out "gay or straight" http://j.mp/dwWjvg
Robert
I think Grayling’s comments were none too clever towards the devoutly Christian, either, as I would imagine a very large proportion are not homophobic.
Being a Christian does not imply being homophobic, does it?
Lord Palmerston
But the Pink News poll wasn’t a fair one – the news article preceding the poll contained two negative comments about the Conservatives (and no positive or negative comments about any other parties) and the poll questions themselves contained anti-Tory questions before asking for voting intention.
It’s not therefore surprising that the poll gave this result. But don’t expect it to be accurate.