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The Conservative Party has compiled a list of out lesbian and gay candidates who will stand in the next general election.

The party, which has already issued lists of women and ethnic minority candidates, sees lesbian and gay prospective parliamentary candidates (PPCs) as a key tool in the campaign to present a more caring, modernised Tory Party.

The list, sent to the Daily Mail, specifies the 20 out gay PPCs who will stand in the impending general election, 11 of whom told party leader David Cameron that they were happy to be named. According to shadow minister for the environment Nick Herbert, who is gay, if all the candidates win their seats, it would mean the total number of out Conservative MPs would be greater than rival Labour. Currently there are just three gay Tory MPs who are out and in parliament – Herbert himself, Alan Duncan and Greg Barker. He said: “A successful political party ought to look like the country it seeks to govern.”

There is only one woman on the list, Margot James, who is standing for Stourbridge in the Midlands. She looks likely to join Angela Eagle, Labour MP for Wallasey, as the second out lesbian in Westminster, and only the third ever in Westminster history. The first, Labour’s Maureen Colquhoun, came out in 1976 and left parliament in 1979.

Other names on the list include Mark Coote, Nick Boles and Iain Stewart, who are standing in safe seats, with Simon Nayyar and Matthew Sephton less likely to be successful.

Posted in: Campaigns & Politics |