Don't come out, warns Tory grandee

Deep divisions in the Tory Party's attitudes to homosexuality were exposed yesterday when a leading activist criticised Alan Duncan for announcing he is gay.

Jean Searle, a former president of the party's National Convention and ­ until earlier this year ­ the woman in charge of parliamentary candidate selection, said many elderly members of the party, especially in the North, would have preferred the Tory foreign affairs spokesman's private life to remain private.

"What concerns me is the Conservative Party is getting slightly North-South divided," she said. "South of the Watford Gap people accept homosexuality as a norm. I don't think the North of England has quite accepted it in the same way. What disturbs me is people feel they have to come out and say what they are. We don't come out and say we are normal and happily married with 2.4 children," she told Radio 4's World at One.

Iain Duncan Smith welcomed Mr Duncan's revelation but Ann Widdecombe was lukewarm. She said the party should spend less time worrying about its "ideological purity" and concentrate on attacking the Government.