In case you need a reason not to vote Tory tomorrow

I’d like to write a whole screed on the election, but as you’ve may have noticed from my recent inactivity, a new job has somewhat curtailed my blogging capacity for the time being. So I just want to point you to this article from the Observer highlighting the deeply disturbing transphobic and homophobic credentials of one of the Tories’ leading social policy makers. Philippa Stroud, who is likely to be elected MP for Sutton and Cheam, is head of the rightwing thinktank Centre for Social Justice and is said to have had a strong influence on Cameron’s views on the family. She is also the founder of two churches and the author of a book that view homosexuality, transsexualism and addiction as demons:

Abi, a teenage girl with transsexual issues, was sent to the church by her parents […]

“[Stroud] wanted me to know all my thinking was wrong, I was wrong and the so-called demons inside me were wrong. The session ended with her and others praying over me, calling out the demons. She really believed things like homosexuality, transsexualism and addiction could be fixed just by prayer, all in the name of Jesus.”

“T” said he moved to Bedford because he believed the church could help him stop having homosexual thoughts. “I was trying to convince myself that a change was possible but, at the same time, a part of me didn’t believe it was possible,” he said. “The church’s approach was not that it was sinful to be homosexual but that it was sinful to act on it. The aim is to get a person to a position where they don’t have these sinful emotions and thoughts.”

It frightens me that this woman could have a place in the Houses of Parliament by the end of the week. If she joins forces with the similarly evangelically-inspired Nadine Dorries – who will waste little time in pushing her anti-choice agenda if Downing Street turns blue – we really will have our work cut out for us.