After Chris Grayling’s promotion to the cabinet as Justice Secretary, it’s worth recalling why he was left out in the first place. It was because in April 2010, the then shadow home secretary, was revealed to have defended the right of B&B owners to turn away gay couples. At a meeting of the Centre for Policy Studies, he said:
I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences. I personally always took the view that, if you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it’s a question of somebody who’s doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn’t come into their own home.
Grayling subsequently apologised but was left out of David Cameron’s first cabinet, instead becoming employment minister. That Cameron now believes it appropriate to make such a man Justice Secretary reveals much about his government’s shift to the right.
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