Have a Good NEWS

• Gay policing minister Nick Herbert to address the crowd
• Cut-price Home Office float to have Moulin Rouge theme

When the Conservatives last had their hands on the tiller of power, none of their MPs would admit to being homosexual, they voted against lowering the age of consent for gay sex, and invented a law which made it illegal for schools to mention homosexuality.

How things change: tomorrow, eight years after Alan Duncan became the first Tory MP to come out of his own volition, Nick Herbert, the openly gay Conservative policing minister, will give a speech at Pride London about "how the Tories have come a helluva long way".

And that's not all. His department, the Home Office, has chartered a float at this year's event, which will wind its way down Oxford Street and Regent Street towards Trafalgar Square from 1pm.

theme "Pride 'at this year" Paint City Ruby Red ", dedicated to the 40-anniversary of the Gay Liberation Front, which was formed after the Stonewall riots, when police confronted with a gay demonstrators in New York.

The Guardian can reveal that the Home Office float, officially commandeered by Spectrum â€" the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual (LGBT) support group within the department â€" will be going with a Moulin Rouge theme this year.

Sadly, this does not mean the million people lining the streets will catch a glimpse of Theresa May in a saucy bustier and feather boa as well as her trademark kitten heels: the Home Secretary is not attending, and anyway, the float is only for civil servants in the Home Office, UK Border Agency, Criminal Records Bureau and Identity and Passport Service.

Herbert said he wouldn't be following the sartorial lead of Boris Johnson, who famously wore a pink stetson when leading Pride two years ago, and will march again on Saturday. "I'm not telling you what I'll be wearing," said Herbert, preferring to talk about how seriously the government was taking the reporting of homophobia as a hate crime.

Last year Spectrum's effort was voted "the best float in the history of Pride", said Paul Bradley, Spectrum's chair. "We went for a Shakespearean theme â€" because many people think that he might have been bisexual â€" and I was Oberon from A Midsummer Night's Dream, sitting on a real rope swing. There was a also balcony with Romeo and Juliet on it, plus a fully working fountain."

This year, disappointingly, the Spectrum float will be an altogether more muted affair. "We have to be sensitive to the public purse," said Bradley. "We're going for a make-do-and-mend approach, so some people might recognise elements from last year's float," explaining that no one on the float had any desire to end up in the Daily Mail as an example of government profligacy in a time of crisis. Colm Howard-Lloyd, one of Pride's organisers, said he was surprised how keen the new government was to get involved with Pride: "They were falling over themselves to make sure senior people like Nick Herbert and equalities minister Lynne Featherstone were there".

James Asser, co-chair of Labour's LGBT group, notes that despite Tory enthusiasm for attending the event, they have been less keen to fund it: "Boris Johnson has cancelled the annual Pride reception at City Hall, which Ken Livingstone always used to have," he said.

Nonetheless, it is a marked contrast to the previous administration, said Howard-Lloyd. "I think the surprising thing is that Labour put out a lot of great legislation but they were much more reluctant to support [Pride] on a personal level. We had very few senior politicians come along â€" in 2008, just a few days before the event, we still didn't have anyone at all confirmed from the government, and at the last minute they sent Harriet Harman."

Labour MP Chris Bryant, a veteran of "at least" 20 London Prides, said it was "utter drivel" to suggest Labour hadn't supported Pride, and asked why there were no cabinet ministers speaking this year. "Why isn't the home secretary there? Why are there just junior ministers? This will be the first time in five years that there hasn't been a cabinet office speaker at Pride." Another Labour spokesperson said: "As a Government and party we have consistently supported Pride events and last year Sarah Brown and Harriet Harman attended. We think introducing progressive legislation [on civil partnerships, allowing gay couples to adopt and repealing Section 28] â€" often in the face of Tory opposition â€" is what we will be judged on."

The coalition is so pro-gay that not only have they has set up a cross-government programme of work addressing LGBT policy, but they have promised "additional action for transgender equality" - exactly the sort of initiative the Tories used to mock Harriet Harman for daring to suggest when she held the equalities brief. To return to the Home Office float's Shakespearean theme of yore: "The wheel is come full circle."

The road to rights

1967 Sexual Offences Act decriminalises homosexual acts between two men over 21 years of age "in private" in England and Wales.

1972 First UK Gay Pride Rally held in London.

1984 Chris Smith, MP for Islington South in London, becomes the first MP to come out while in office

1989 The campaign group Stonewall UK is set up to oppose Section 28 and other barriers to equality.

1994 Parliament votes to reduce the gay male age of consent to 18. However, an amendment to reduce it to 16, on a par with heterosexual sex, is defeated.

1997 Angela Eagle, Labour MP for Wallasey, becomes the first MP to come out voluntarily as a lesbian.

2000 Labour government scraps the policy of barring homosexuals from the armed forces.

2001 Age of consent reduced to 16.

2002 Same-sex couples are granted equal rights to adopt; Alan Duncan becomes the first Tory MP to admit being gay without being pushed.

2003 Section 28, which banned councils and schools from intentionally promoting homosexuality, is repealed.

2005 Civil Partnership Act comes into force, giving same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as married heterosexual couples.

2007 The Equality Act makes discrimination against lesbians and gay men in the provision of goods and services illegal. Holly Bentley