PRETTY GIRL

A book detailing the history of homosexuality in the Conservative Party and how its attitudes to it have changed over the decades is to be published by Biteback Publishing next year.

As reported on the blog of Journalist and former political lobbyist Iain Dale, who is also managing director of Biteback Publishing, Michael McManus, author of the book – which has the working title Over the Blue Rainbow – is keen to hear stories or relevant views on the issue. Mr Dale added: "Michael is a hugely accomplished author, having written a superb biography of Jo Grimond and assisted Ted Heath with his autobiography".

According to the blurb, the book will be "authoritative but accessible" and will cover the time period from the postwar years to today.

It continues: "The book will draw upon extensive primary research and numerous exclusive interviews to chart the party’s progress from an unwillingness to decriminalise homosexuality, via Section 28 in the 1980s, to the current Liberal-Conservative Government, which has produced the first comprehensive statement on equal rights in British history.

"This will all be presented in the context of contemporary social and political developments. The book will be accompanied by a short documentary, which will tell the same story in a very different and complementary way."

Only last month, Tory MP and prisons minister Crispin Blunt came out as gay and announced that he had separated from his wife.

Last week, the foreign secretary William Hague denied internet rumours that he had been involved in a gay affair with a ministerial aide, Christopher Myers, 25, who resigned last Wednesday.

Alan Duncan, the first Conservative MP to voluntarily come out as gay, said to the media that he considered their manner of coverage of Mr Hague's personal life "contemptible".