AXE SECTION 28

Millions of people are yearning for the Tory party to get its act together and provide a more audible opposition. It almost brings tears to the eyes of some supporters, therefore, to read that the party is determined to have a row about the square root of nothing. It is reported, perhaps unreliably, that there is yet another feud at the top about Section 28 of the 1986 Local Government Act. This is the measure, readers may remember, which forbids the promotion of homosexuality in schools. It is said that advisers of Mr Duncan Smith have urged him to acquiesce in the scrapping of Section 28, while supporters of David Davis are warning that their man may walk out of the shadow Cabinet in protest. If there really is such an impending dust-up, the whole lot of them should be locked in the garden shed, and told to concentrate on the questions that really bother the electorate.

Of course Section 28 should be repealed; but not because it is the touchy-feely Portillo-ite thing to do. Conservatives should vote against Section 28 because it is incompatible with sensible conservatism. This Sunday, virtually the entire parliamentary party, in the company of hundreds of thousands of their constituents, will march to Whitehall and demonstrate in favour of liberty. It is absurd for the same protesters to uphold a weird and pettifogging piece of Whitehall diktat about what counts as sex education. No one, or hardly anyone, wants children to be taught, at the public expense, that gay marriage is just as desirable as heterosexual marriage. Hardly anyone wants teachers, in the words of Section 28, to back the ‘acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. In that sense the regulation is still in tune with the public mood. But as a piece of legislation it is unnecessary, and an ugly intrusion by politicians into schools.