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He will be starting from third place, with only 16.9% of the vote
Gay Tory candidate Matthew Sephton
Gay Tory to stand against Hazel Blears at next election
The Conservatives have chosen a gay man to challenge former communities secretary Hazel Blears for her Salford seat.
Primary school teacher Matthew Sephton, who is chairman of LGBTory, the party's affiliated gay group, was selected at the weekend for the newly created constituency of Salford and Eccles.
Salford and Eccles combines about 38,000 voters from Hazel Blears' Salford constituency with 35,000 from the existing Eccles constituency. Blears will defend a notional majority of 10,707 over the Lib Dems, with Sephton starting in third place with 16.9% of the vote.
Blears was embroiled in the expenses scandal earlier this year when it emerged that she had twice sold a London property funded through the second home allowance without paying capital gains tax. Although she had not broken any rules, she agreed to pay HM Revenue around £13,000 to cover the unpaid tax.
After Gordon Brown described her behaviour as "completely unacceptable", Blears announced that she was resigning as communities secretary the day before the local and European elections, angering some Labour activists who believed it was damaging to the party's interests. There was subsequently an attempt to deselect her, with local residents mounting a 'Hazel Must Go' campaign.
Sephton said: "Local residents have been badly let down and taken for granted by Labour and Hazel Blears MP - at the next election there is a clear choice between five more years of Gordon Brown and Hazel Blears, and a fresh start with the Conservatives."
Sephton also claimed that his party was in the vanguard of political LGBT representation. "As Ben Summerskill of Stonewall recently said, the Conservatives after the next general election are likely to have the biggest number of openly LGBT MPs than any other party, and I'm proud to be selected to stand as one of many openly LGBT candidates."
