A QUIET revolution took place this week in the heart of true-blue Conservative West Sussex. The Tories’ favoured candidate to succeed Howard Flight, ousted MP for Arundel & South Downs, announced that he was gay.

It was news even to some who knew Nick Herbert well, but not a problem for the new-look Conservative Party, which has finally caught up with modern sexual mores. Winning this safe Conservative seat means that, at the very least, there will be a doubling of the number of gay Conservative MPs.

Alan Duncan, foreign affairs spokesman, outed himself three years ago. But there are three further openly gay candidates in seats at the top of the Tory target list: Nicholas Boles in Hove, Iain Dale in Norfolk North, and Ashley Crossley in Falmouth & Camborne. Most are fighting in rural constituencies deemed to be least tolerant of homosexuality, as parodied by the “only gay in the village” sketch in the television comedy show Little Britain.

Margot James, a millionaire businesswoman, is the first openly lesbian Conservative to be selected as a candidate, in Holborn & St Pancras.

All declared their sexuality at their selection meeting, except Mr Crossley, who said that it was well known to the party. Some members of the local party made him undergo a vote to deselect him last year. Michael Howard stepped in to defend him, stating that homophobia was unacceptable in the modern Conservative Party. Last year more of the Shadow Cabinet voted for the Civil Partnerships Bill, allowing gays similar legal rights to married people, than the Labour Cabinet.

Mr Howard tried to show that he is a changed man since he voted for the Section 28 legislation in the 1980s, so unpopular with gay voters. He gave interviews to Attitude magazine saying that he was wrong about Section 28, and organised a big feature with Bent magazine.

Mr Boles said that this election marked a shift in Tory attitudes to homosexuality, which had until recently been tolerated in candidates, as long as it was kept private.

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