He did not tell his party he was gay until after he was selected. He said: “When I made it known I was gay, the constituency party said it didn’t bother them, and it means I can campaign openly.”Mr Gold’s stand against official Tory policy may embarrass the leadership, but he will provide an answer to Labour claims that the Tories are turning to right-wing Christian orthodoxy in pursuit of the “family” vote.Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development, last night accused her Tory opposite number, Gary Streeter, of threatening to cut overseas aid for abortion.Labour supporters at the launch of a Tory Christian newsletter claimed he had said a Tory government would look carefully at planned parenthood initiatives on the overseas aid budget. Last night Mr Streeter, a pro-life supporter, said he was opposed to coercive abortion.Ms Short said: “A reduction of funding in this area would put thousands of women’s lives at risk.”. William Hague will make his most populist appeal yet when he claims today that Britain would become a “foreign land” after another four years under Labour.

William Hague will make his most populist appeal yet when he claims today that Britain would become a “foreign land” after another four years under Labour.
In a bullish speech to the party faithful in Harrogate, the Tory leader will risk accusations of playing the race card by defending Euroscepticism and the Conservatives’ tough stance on asylum in such contentious terms.But Mr Hague will insist that he is “the champion of popular opinion”, arguing that his party’s messages “chime with the instincts” of 10 million swing voters.”It is about people being strangers in their own land,” a Tory aide said. “He [Hague] is conveying the message and the image of Britain becoming a country where its people feel uncomfortable, where its people feel alienated.”Mr Hague will say: “Let me take you on a journey to a foreign land – to Britain after a second term of Tony Blair. The Royal Mint melting down pound coins as euro notes start to circulate Our ability to set our own interest rates, gone for ever. The Chancellor returning from Brussels with instructions to raise taxes still further.

Britain’s forces have been committed to operations as part of the new European army outside Nato and to the dismay of the United States. The Atlantic alliance in crisis.”And in a fiercely Eurosceptic speech the shadow Foreign Secretary, Francis Maude, is expected to say today that a future Tory government would close off the “one-way street towards a European superstate”. Mr Maude will say that the Conservatives in power would use this summer’s EU summit in Gothenburg to call for a renegotiation of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and last December’s Nice Treaty.The shadow Chancellor, Michael Portillo, also focused on Europe in his keynote speech yesterday, saying that the Tories see the coming general election as a fight against the single currency.Even Tim Yeo, the shadow agriculture minister, turned the foot and mouth crisis into a European issue, calling for the Government to ban meat imports from any European countries with confirmed cases of the disease. He also called on the European Commission to ban the export of all German livestock following reports that consignments of meat from Germany had been found to contain spinal cord.The hard line on Europe is certain to reopen old wounds in the Conservative Party, but Mr Hague will make it clear there will be no backing down. The Tory aide said: “It is a strategic decision about the nature of the campaign we are going to run. Far from being deterred by attacks on Hague for being an opportunist, his speech will signal an attempt to raise the temperature.