overyourhead

Tory MP Alan Duncan is gay. Big deal...
Hugo Young, as ever, makes a lot of sense in today's Guardian.

"Almost everything you need to know about the Tory party is encapsulated in the revelation that Alan Duncan is gay. A banal detail is elevated into first place in the news. A dreary social commonplace is treated by both the party and the media on a par with the discovery that the Pope has a secret wife. How much further behind the curve can an organisation get than feeling obliged to declare its 21st-century relevance by means of this amazing item? How devoid of content does a party have to be if the best way it can think of proving its openness, its revolutionary departure from type, is by showing its tolerance for Alan Duncan being gay?

The only interesting thing about this disclosure is that it's the big thing the Tories have to say about themselves. It underlines rather than diminishes their predicament. It is a headline they could do without because it distracts from everything to do with their real problem."