Redwood opens rape row with blog blunder

Former Tory cabinet minister John Redwood is at it again, making provocative comments on his blog - and this time his party leader is unlikely to be amused. Redwood has written that the government is wrong to regard 'date rape' as seriously as assaults by strangers, adding: "Young men do not want to have to take a consent form and a lawyer on a date."

He made the comments only weeks after David Cameron, the Tory leader, made an impassioned speech, welcomed by campaigners, in which he condemned the findings of a study that showed one in two men believe there are some circumstances in which men should be allowed to force a woman to have sex.

Cameron pointed to statistics showing that three-quarters of raped women never reported the crime. Of those reported, 5.7 per cent produce a conviction.

Amid calls for Cameron to force a retraction from Redwood, Heather Harvey, manager of Amnesty International's UK Stop Violence Against Women campaign, said: "There's very little difference between rape by a partner and rape by a stranger - both amount to sexual violence and both can leave a woman deeply traumatised. Instead of splitting hairs, Mr Redwood should concentrate on the real issue, the appallingly low conviction rate for rape in Britain."

As reported here, Redwood recently used his blog to suggest that if the government wants to protect the environment it should ban Christmas tree lights rather than bothering car drivers like himself. ·