GAY VOTE:THE CONSERVATIVE candidate who founded a church that tried to "cure" gay people by driving out demons failed in her attempt to become an MP.
Philippa Stroud, the high-flying Tory hopeful who was tipped to take Sutton and Cheam from the Liberal Democrat Paul Burstow, was narrowly beaten into second place in a 73 per cent turnout.
The Observer reported on Sunday that Ms Stroud, executive director of Conservative think tank the Centre for Social Justice, had set up an evangelical church in Bedford where homosexuality, according to ex-members, was ascribed to demonic influence.
Despite David Cameron’s apology last year for section 28 (a Thatcher law that banned local authorities from portraying homosexuality in a positive light) and his recent claims that his party had “been on a journey” in its attitude to gay rights, successive polls by PinkNews.co.uk, Europe’s largest gay news site, found Tory allegiance among its readers down from 39 per cent last June to 9 per cent days before the election.
Comments by Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, that he had sympathy for BB owners who turn away gay customers, provoked a fall from 25 per cent to 20 per cent. Several Tory candidates accused of homophobia during the campaign did less well than hoped in their constituencies.
Mr Grayling held his seat in Epsom and Ewell despite a 2.1 per cent swing to the Lib Dems. In North Ayrshire and Arran, Philip Lardner, who was suspended from his party after opining on his website that homosexuality was “not normal”, came third with a 2.7 per cent fall in his vote from 2005.
And in Wallasey, the Tories were kept at bay after a Wirral councillor Denis Knowles was suspended for writing on Facebook about “limp-wristed” boys leafleting in his area. Labour’s Angela Eagle, a lesbian, increased her vote to win with a 8,507 majority.
Gay trust for Cameron personally also fell, according to the site’s polls. A week ago, 74 per cent of a 1,000-strong sample said they did not believe Cameron’s gay-friendly rhetoric. Following the Observer article, that number rose to 81 per cent. However, Tory Margot James became Britain’s second openly lesbian MP after her convincing victory in Stourbridge.
James Hargreaves, a 22-year-old gay man from Scarborough, said: “I was going to vote Tory. But the final blow came with the Philippa Stroud story.