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This is Analysis presented by Robin Aitken.

I'm burdened with what sometimes seems a shameful secret.

As someone involved in running a large food bank, I have often prompted bafflement and

sometimes hostility because of it.

In polite company, my admission provokes the awkward pause the non-plus silence, and there are many others

like me who labour under the same social handicap.

People like Mark McGregor.

It's an odd thing. You go to a dinner party, you don't meet people, and politics comes up.

And certainly there was a period in the early part of this century

where acknowledging it just seemed to be slightly embarrassing.

People would almost take a sharp and take a breath. Oh, you're that.

Mr. McGregor's shocking secret is that he's a Tory, a very senior one as it happens, a former

chief executive of the party. I too am a Tory, though in my case

merely a sympathizer, not an activist or even a member. So why the stigma? Many consider

Tories to be morally inferior.

...