THE GUARDIAN: Most senior gay member of Conservative party sent to Poland to encourage EU allies to abandon homophobic views
David Cameron is to dispatch the most senior gay member of his frontbench team to Poland to encourage the Tories' rightwing allies in the European parliament to abandon their homophobic views.
In a move designed to defuse criticism in tonight's leaders' television debate that the Tories have allied themselves with extremists in the EU, Cameron has revealed that the shadow environment secretary, Nick Herbert, will attend a gay rights march in Warsaw in July.
Cameron told the Guardian that Herbert's trip to Poland is designed to persuade the highly conservative Law and Justice party to embark on a "journey" to moderate its views on sexuality.
The party was founded by the late Polish president Lech Kaczynski, who died earlier this month in a plane crash in western Russia. Kaczynski banned gay rights marches in Warsaw when he was the city's mayor.
Nick Clegg, who supported British membership of the euro, and Gordon Brown are expected to use the second TV debate tomorrow night to embarrass the Tories by highlighting the party's links with hard-right groups in the European parliament. >>> Nicholas Watt and Patrick Wintour | Wednesday, April 21, 2010
