Daveybloke and the Pink Triangle

Daveybloke, the Cuddly Conservative, has been doing his socially liberal thing again. Asked whether he agreed with the Liberal Democrat leader that children should be taught that homosexuality is "normal and harmless", Daveybloke said that education "should teach people about equality and the sort of country we are - that we treat people the same whether they are straight or gay, or black or white or a man or a woman", though not whether they are rich or poor, well born or humbly born, or married or unmarried. On the other hand, Daveybloke also said that the style and content of sex and relationship education should not be "dictated from on high in Whitehall and Westminster"; translated, this means that however much Daveybloke himself may have approved of gay rights since it became expedient to stop thinking what Michael Howard was thinking, he has more important things to do than try to impose his will on every homophobe in eastern Europe and every faith school on the mainland. Among other things, he has to continue, possibly for as long as the next five months, with this delicate triangulation between his fairly recent repudiation of Clause 28 and his natural urge to avoid alienating his gay-bashing allies in Europe and his own parliamentary prefects and fags.