So did you hear, America’s former ruler its their elections yesterday? And David Cameron, he of the Conservative Party and deflecting anti-gay grey matter, has been declared victor! That means Gordon Brown, the sitting prime minster, must step aside, unless he does something tricky like join up with the Liberal Democrats; for now, he’s staying put. But it’s not like the good times are over: Neither of the three major parties declared a victory in Parliament, giving way to the term “hung parliament,” which doesn’t mean what you think it does. Unless … it does. And I totally thought this was going to be the most boring election evah!
Now someone please explain to me when Britain is going to elect a new queen? Because its current one looks like she needs a nap!
Sam
The good news is that Philippa Stroud, an awful religious homophobic Conservative candidate, lost her bid to get elected, and a number of openly gay MPs have been elected from all three of the main parties.
John (CA)
Even though the Conservatives are regarded as the “nasty party” and “Neanderthals” by British standards, they are still light years ahead of the Republicans. David Cameron has said he has no intention of repealing civil partnerships or any of the anti-discrimination laws enacted by Labour. The Tories ran 20 openly gay candidates yesterday. They recruited about the same number of ethnic minorities. And around half of them won.
Compare that to the dismal state of conservatism in America. Which is so far off the scale of right-wing lunacy that it is actually defending racial profiling, murdering abortion providers, individuals owning weapons of mass destruction, and criminalizing homosexuality as legitimate “alternative policies.” There isn’t a single African American or Asian member of congress on the Republican roster. As for gay Republicans, they can’t even run from inside the closet without getting into trouble with the religious nutjobs.
If the Conservatives in Britain are Neanderthals, does that make the GOP Australopithecus?
William Day
Ahhh Gods above, Hung Parliament. Things are going to get MESSY this side of the pond.
Bill Perdue
@John (CA): The American party that’s most analogous to the Tories is the Democrat Party.
Both feed the rich with handout/bailouts.
Both support offshore drilling. Obama proposes opening ” vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time…” NY Times . The Tories propose tax breaks for multinational oil companies, and ‘streamlining’ of licensing arrangements, to encourage more offshore oil drilling – and they want to do it in some of Britain’s most sensitive seas. Both backed off temporarily after the Gulf of México was turned into an oil sludge by British Petroleum.
Both have a strategy that verges from ‘benign neglect’ to ‘malignant neglect’ towards the well-being and standard of living of working people. Thatcher busted unions and Obama busted the UAW.
Both support ecological degradation: the Tories with a mercantilist approach to their African neo-colonies that encourages single crop or single commodity production and the Democrats with NAFTA and the other FTAs that have create great environmental and economic problems in Mexico and Northwestern Latin America.
Both support the wars of imperial aggrandizement and oil piracy in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Both engage in immigrant bashing.
Both oppose same sex marriage and fight to delay full rights for LGBT folks.
The Democrats are far to the right of the Tories on the questions of socialized medicine and decolonization. The Tories seem to understand the concept of neo-colonialism while the Democrats rely more on the use of brute force to steal other countries resources. The Tories are to the right of Democrats when it comes to union busting although thats changing.
Tallskin
The vile christian woman, Philippa Stroud, who believes in demonic possession causing homosexuality, and who was a conservative candidate in the election, did not get elected.
And it seems that gay & lesbian candidates won or increased their votes during the election. -Openly-gay Margot James has become parliament’s second out lesbian after being elected the Conservative MP for Stourbridge.
Good news is that the vile northern irish unionist Peter Robinson, husband of the fanatical evangelical christian Mary ( who made a series of homophobic comments, citing her strong religious beliefs. She went on to have an extra-marital affair with a 19-year-old man), lost his seat.
However, on the negative side (over and above the fucking tories going to form the next Uk govt) is that Two Conservative MPs, whose views on gays have caused embarrassment for their party, have been returned to Parliament.
Current shadow home secretary Chris Grayling has won back his Epsom and Ewell seat while Tory defence spokesman and MP for New Forest East Julian Lewis has also retained his place in the Commons.
Grayling caused outrage at the start of the election campaign when he said Bed & Breakfast owners should be able to discriminate against gay couples – even though this is against the law.
The Conservatives had only just managed to move on when shadow defence minister Lewis suggested that gay sex was almost as dangerous as fighting in the front line.
In a letter to a constituent he said he had voted against equalising the age of consent due to “a seriously increased risk of HIV infection from male homosexual activity”. He said similar reasoning was why “we no longer allow 16 and 17-year-olds into frontline situations in the armed forces.”
But, the tories did suspend one of their candidates for making a comment that gays were not ‘natural’, so the jury is out on just how they’re going to behave during their days in government.
Personally, I think because the Tories are a minority in Parliament they are going to have to form an alliance with the liberals. Then in this alliance their more extreme aspects will be moderated. And then they’re going to become very unpopular implementing the necessary cuts in public services to serve the interests of the international bankers – ie redistributing wealth from the poor and the middle classes to enrich the very rich in order to pay off the national debt caused by bailing out the banks. And a rejuvenated Labour Party, hopefully much more socialist in orientation, will be re-elected in a few years.
Well, I can dream, can’t I?
Tallskin
Oh, here’s some information on the gay results during the election:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/07/philippa-stroud-conservatives-gay-vote
Bill Perdue
@Tallskin: Do you know if it’s likely that we kept the Tories from winning a majority?
Tallskin
Bill, I have written a much longer piece above,which is blocked because -“Your comment is awaiting moderation. Our system might have erroneously auto-flagged your comment as spam; if so, we’ll fix it quickly. Or maybe you previously abused your commenting privileges, violated our Comments Policy, included a link to a known SPAM/harmful site, posted comments that detracted from the conversation, or have been repeatedly flagged by other users for being a jerk — in which case we won’t publish your comment.”
It seems my anti-religious comments have drawn the ire of the religiously afflicted who phone each other up and tell them flag my comments negatively!
Having such a stupid Flagging system is open to abuse by organised christians who patrol gay sites such as this one.
But anyway, to answer your question. I don’t think so. I think the results of the election are indicative of 1) people being sick of Gordon Brown and his fucking the UK economy, but having no realistic electoral alternative 2) the sheer unpopularity of the tories – people are shit scared of the fucking tories, who have openly said they intend re-distributing wealth to the rich by tax cuts and cuts in public services.
Of course I think we had an effect and we turned against the tories en masse, and possibly our families, friends etc, as did people sick of gordon brown who were considering voting tory as a change.
Bill Perdue
@Tallskin: The only problem is they don’t fix it.
I suspect the flagging system, the little thumbs up/down and the system of multiple clicks necessary to look at skin pics are all meant to encourage lots and lots of clicks which look good when talking to potential advertisers. Money, money, money!
The problem, as you point out, is that jebuz jumpers hate gays and really hate gay atheists and as things stand now they can censor us and get away with it.
Thanks for your comment. I followed the election thru the Guardian but I’m sure you and others who were immersed in the election have a much better feel for the outcome.
Bill Perdue
@John (CA): regarding your Neanderthal comment: Neanderthals were a well developed human species and there’s evidence of cross breeding of Sapiens and Neanderthalensis. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article448345.ece
As a separate species they probably suffered from marginalization due to rapid climate change and a loss of territory due to the explosive growth migrating populations of Sapiens. There is lots of evidence that they suffered from predation by Sapiens.
We ate them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/17/neanderthals-cannibalism-anthropological-sciences-journal
The Tories, Democrats and Republicans are definitely Sapiens, not Neanderthals.
Tallskin
We have no illusions about the Liberals, who are a strange mix of the progressive and utterly reactionary – but who like to think of themselves as being liberal and progressive and who portray themselves as such.
What we are wondering is if they will go into alliance with the tories, knowing what the tories have planned for the country. But as I write this Saturday morning it seems that the lure of power and the offer of seats in a the tory govt will entice the liberals into the cameron cabinet.
If they do go into alliance with the tories then whilst they may gain credibility as a party fit to govern (blah blah) they will have betrayed their followers and will never again have credibility.
Although, the may moderate the more rabid aspect of the reactionary tories. and may, eventually, succeed in obtaining electoral reform. (we can argue about the first-past-the-post electoral system vs proportional representation!)
Oh, I forgot to mention that another aspect about the tories is cameron and his pals are from the top, top, upper classes of the UK, and some of cameron’s clique are aristocrats. At least Heath and Thatcher came from poor backgrounds and had to claw their way up the greasy pole. Cameron and co were born with silver spoons in their mouths and have this sense of entitlement. People were infuriated by this sense of entitlement that cameron and his pals have been expressing, that they should be ruling the country.
Tallskin
For those of you interested in the international banking crisis here’s an interesting BBC Radio 4 programme that sheds some light on the subject.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s3fzq
The man being interviewed is a geographer, who’s a marxist, who seems the be the only economist with a suitable theory explaining our current predicament.
http://davidharvey.org/
Bill Perdue
@Tallskin: Only 5 weeks to see your comment. Internet sharks – rightwingers, religious nuts, zionists and Obots – regularly patrol Queerty flagging and doing their silly thumbs down thing.
I’m glad Queerty got around to uncensoring you.
Really Queerty, you outght to change the system. If something gets flagged it shouldn’t disappear before you’ve looked at it but after.
It may seem like a small change to you but if you’re understaffed or just way too busy it’s a change that would eliminate a lot animosity.