Alan Duncan defends Miss California murder quip

Alan Duncan and Carrie Prejean (far right)

Senior Tory jokes on Have I Got News For You that he would like to kill Carrie Prejean for beauty queen’s views on gay marriage

FIRST POSTED APRIL 27, 2009

A senior Conservative politician, Alan Duncan, has had to defend himself after joking on television about murdering the American beauty queen Carrie Prejean for being homophobic. The shadow Leader of the Commons, seen as a contender for Home Secretary if the Conservatives win the general election, was a guest on Friday night's BBC1 show Have I Got News For You when he made his comment in response to Prejean's much publicised views on gay marriage.

The 21-year-old Miss California contestant had been asked by celebrity journalist Perez Hilton at last week's Miss America pageant whether she believed every American state should legalise gay marriage. She replied: "I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offence to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised and that's how I think it should be - between a man and a woman."

Duncan, an openly gay politician who is married to 40-year-old press officer James Dunseath, said he didn't agree with the blonde beauty at all and went on to label her a "silly bitch" before commenting: "If you read that Miss California has been murdered, you will know it was me, won't you?"

The 51-year-old's comment appeared to shock other contestants on the show, with comedians Katy Brand, Frank Skinner and Paul Merton balking at the suggestion. "That's a hell of a statement to be making on camera there Alan," Brand said before Merton chipped in: "For someone planning to be Home Secretary." It seems viewers failed to see the funny side, too. Both the BBC and Ofcom received complaints after the show.

The Metropolitan Police have also been dragged in to the row after the leader of a religious group that opposes homosexuality reported Duncan's remarks. George Hargreaves of the evangelical political party The Christian Party said: "A senior politician suggesting, even as a joke, that it is OK that Miss Prejean should be murdered for her evangelical Christian views is totally unacceptable. How can we stop gun and knife crime when the man who thinks he will be the next Home Secretary makes death threats?"

If the Tory MP is at all worried about the implications he is hiding it well. He has urged the public to consider his remarks in the context of the BBC1 show. "Of course it was in jest," he said. "It is a comedy show after all. I'm sure Miss Prejean's very beautiful and that if we were to meet we would love each other. I have no plans to kill her. I'll send her a box of chocolates - unpoisoned."

FIRST POSTED APRIL 27, 2009

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This was a joke - not a good one - but it must have been enough of a comment to get to those christians with thin skins and low IQs - the evangelical christians, blinkered religious nazis who hate anybody else disagreeing with them, to come out from beneath their stones. Did they actually watch the programme? No, thought not.

Posted by William Tayleur at 3:12pm on April 27, 2009

Come on, it was just a joke! Although I think he should let the girl have her views, he was just kidding. Of course he's not really making a death threat. Why would anyone take that seriously?

Posted by Katy Docherty at 11:28am on April 28, 2009

Agree with William, these sad one eyes need to get a life and stop trying to be thought police for the rest of us, the Met are already doing a good enough job in that direction. This show trades on being funny [very] AND outrageous, and anyone of a sensitive disposition with a closed mind should avoid it. I avoid Celebrity Come Dancing, I don't write to complain about it. I saw the funny side of the remark and the follow ups, but the dim complained and are noticed. The actual remark made no mention of 'wanting to kill the silly bitch' or of intent, it stated '... you will know it was me, won't you?' A flippant question based more on jumping to conclusions than anything else.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 12:35pm on April 28, 2009

I remember the good old days when if someone was Tory they kept it to themselves.

Posted by Fred Smith at 12:54pm on April 28, 2009

It is very sad that the Tory party has come to the state where people like Duncan are welcome. It is not his sexual proclivities which are worrying, it is his inability to be a gentleman. There are many who would not agree with his view on sexual matters but who are sufficiently tolerant to accept that it is a matter of little or no importance. It becomes much more difficult when he exhibits such intolerance himself. He is not Home Secretary material. He is not even ministerial material.

Posted by John Clare at 12:05am on April 29, 2009

John Clare. No, it was the silly girl who was intolerant, she's a darling of the extreme neo-con right in the US, very intolerant people. I'm glad we have tories who are not just gay, but can go on comedy shows and joke, who actually have a sense of humour. We simply don't have the level of right wing hate that America is plagued with. I think the writer of the article is trying to stir something up however, in giving the loonies of the Christian Party a voice, however marginal.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 3:31pm on April 29, 2009

It amazes me how the left Socialist engineered machine criticises anyone who has an alternative opinion. It is vulgar people with their low IQ who throw any hopefully civilised conversation into a witch hunt. Look at America? Since embracing multi-culturalism, liberalism, globalisation and the free sex ethos it has fallen on its knees. When I was a child America was seen as wholesome and clean and its TV programmes reflected that but today the US revolves around gossip, sex, infidelity and drug use.......what a spectacular decline!

Posted by Nicholas Folkes at 8:40am on May 1, 2009