In a letter to "The Daily Telegraph" in November 1998, Tebbit said homosexuals should be barred from being Home Secretary. A Conservative Party spokesman said Tebbit was "out of touch" and the official spokesman for William Hague, then Conservative Party leader, said Hague disagreed with Tebbit. However, Tebbit wrote in his "Telegraph" blog in 2013: "Do I still hold that a homosexual should not be Home Secretary? It gets a straight answer. No, our openness about homosexuality has changed the circumstances and my view has now changed too".