Don’t you just hate it when an MP votes for one thing and says another?
We do. It makes our job very tricky. So tricky in fact that we’re asking someone else to do the scoring for us – you.
Whenever we find cases of contradictory MPs we will call in the jury and ask you to vote how we should rate the MP on the issue.
This week’s ‘Quote or Vote’ debate focuses on the LGBT rights record of shadow health secretary, and Cambridgeshire South MP, Andrew Lansley.
His profile shows he currently scores a 2, the standard mark for an MP who has voted a mixture of for and against equal gay rights, but closer scrutiny raises the question of whether this is an accurate assessment or should past discrepancies lead to a lower grade.
In 2002 Lansley tabled an amendment that that would extend adoption rights to unmarried couples but not homosexuals. In a radio interview at the time he said: “I want the legislation to be constructed in way that it reproduced the form of natural parenthood wherever possible. Natural parenthood is essential a couple, a man and a woman, living together.”
Such views warrant downgrading, but since then Lansley seems to have done an about face on the issue of gay rights.
When the Commons later voted to reject the Lords-backed exclusion of homosexual couples Lansley was one of only eight Conservatives who agreed, supporting the removal of the ‘married-only’ element to adoption laws.
Since then he has also voted in favour of the Civil Partnerships Bill in 2004 and the Equality Act in 2007.
It is clear that past indiscretions will prevent Lansley from every achieving a high score for LGBT rights – but the question for our poll is simple.
Should his views in 2002 class him alongside clear homophobes in the Tory party or are we right to grant him a score of two for his supportive stance since?
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