Alan Duncan had a quarter of an hour to address the conference this afternoon - and by all accounts, he was furious at being bumped forward to speak after Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Duncan was supposed to be talking about transport, and he did devote a few hundred words to his portfolio. The fact that most of them were devoted to an attack on the objects placed in the way of motorists - "every council should appoint a clutter-buster" - bothered no one. What he was really interested in was the old-fashioned elements in the party which were getting in the way of the Tories' return to power.
"It just so happens I'm gay," he said, and the audience, for whom this was no revelation, clapped him lovingly. "Even now there are still some people who just don't realise how off-putting their behaviour can be," he added, describing councillors who tried to block civil partnership ceremonies on council property as "contemptible". It was a bravado performance, and the fact that it was almost completely devoid of policy proposals did Duncan no harm at all. Time enough for that later.
