Thursday 7th February

Well apart from some gay couples who really want to get married I suppose.  It seems to me that the only ones who really care are that hard core of right wing Conservatives who feel they are fighting a rear-guard action against an ever-encroaching modern world.  A world that will have no place for right-thinking people like them who are simply trying to maintain standards, to keep up the moral backbone of the country – the very same people who voted down the ordination of women in the recent Church of England fiasco.

But who are these people?  They mostly live in the country; most city dwellers are so used to seeing openly gay people that they have accepted them as completely normal.  I came from the country too and had I stayed rather than run away to London at 17 I too would probably have the same attitude.  They are daily drip-fed their dose of venom by the Daily Mail and rarely see black or gay people or indeed anyone other than themselves.

And the great thing is that they are becoming less and less relevant as the decades go by.  In America the failure of the Republicans to win the Presidency was accompanied by many articles exposing their diminishing appeal to the majority of people.  And I believe the same thing is happening here.  Opinion polls put acceptance of Gay Marriage at about 56%, roughly the same proportion as MPs who voted for it, but only 18% opposed. The public are actually far more tolerant than their politicians.  Tony Blair was terrified about bringing in a smoking in public ban because he feared the public’s reaction; in fact it was overwhelmingly in favour, even smokers got it.

One interesting fact, which may of course have no long-term relevance, is that during the 13 years of Labour being in power the Tories could rarely muster opinion poll figures above the mid-thirties, which was all they got in the end in 2010.  Three years after a most humiliating defeat and with a leader who blatantly lacks charisma Labour have been on over 40% for about eighteen months.  Even Cameron’s sabre-rattling over Europe hasn’t dented this lead.

Could it be that as time goes on the Tories are more and more out of tune with the mood of the country; which may well be why Cameron tried to modernize them again with gay marriage.  Unfortunately for him more Tory MPs voted against than for, so the perception is again that they are out of touch.