You will no doubt recall that the illiberal Mr Laws was suspended from his local party following his public appeal for the openly gay Tory parliamentary candidate, Ashley Crossely, to be dumped prior to the last election. The furious row split local allegiances and led to another former Tory MP standing as an independent to hinder Mr Crossely's chance of election. He survived a confidence vote on the issue within the local party at the time, though Mr Laws claimed that Mr Crossley only survived because of "the manipulation of Conservative Central Office" who had agents "present in large numbers to stage-manage proceedings".

The Conservative party has refused to comment on the issue - no big surprise there!