We’re not going to pretend to make sense of British politics. They have political parties with names like Tory and public officials with no real power. Sure, they know how to sometimes illegally spend taxpayer dollars just like America’s politicans, but we’ve got a hard enough time figuring out this country’s power broker system. But we do know who David Cameron is: He’s the main opponent to sitting United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He takes shots at Brown any chance he can get. Oh, and he hangs around with homo-haters!
At least that’s the story being pedaled by The Guardian, which says Cameron has teamed up with crazypants right-wing Polish nationalist Urszula Krupa, who believes being gay is a “pathology” that undermines family. Oh and she hates Jews!
Not so, claims somebody else, who just happens to be The Guardian‘s main competition: The Daily Mail. Just because Cameron and Poland’s Krupa teamed up doesn’t mean the British conservative hates gays and Jews! The paper claims: “The Guardian has said that Urszula Krupa, a back bench MP for that Party, had made anti homosexual remarks. The Guardian added that she had once worked for a Catholic radio station Radio Maryja, and that someone else who worked for the radio station, Jerzy Robert Nowak, had made anti semitic comments. This is carrying guilt by association to the level of farce. The newspaper also attempts to portray a Latvian party as being Nazi sympathisers because it has members who attend veterans’ reunions for having fought against the Soviets during the Second World War. Initially they fought during the Nazi-Soviet pact but latterly in alliance with the Germans.”
The story is getting plenty of press across the pond, with politicians’ agendas (supporting or knocking Cameron) as rabid as the media’s (selling newspapers by taking opposing sides). For us, it’s an exercise in seeing whether the Brits hate when their politicians get in bed with anti-gay folks as much as we do.
Steven
Tory is an abbreviation of Conservative, and has been in use since 17th century or so.
And I don’t know who you mean by ‘public officials with no real power’ unless you mean the queen. If she really has no real power, then its funny how foreign leaders fall over themselves to please her.
Obama, Sarkozy and Brown have been backpedalling like mad when they realised she wasn’t invited to the D-Day ceremony, even though she didn’t seem to want to go especially…
Random
I hate Poland. I want to move to Spain where I could live without the fear of being beaten up by “true patriots”. And I hate Radio Maryja because they are the reson most elder people hate gays.
Darrien
Cameron has said a lot about equality for gays and done a lot of outreach into the gay community. And he’s got quite a few openly gay Shadow Cabinet ministers. However, his grassroots supporters are still pretty homophobic and the faction he’s setting up in Europe represents that grassroots opinion. I get the impression that Cameron would do nothing to reverse equality laws in the UK, but looking at the voting record of Conservative MPs over the last decade, they’ve never voted en masse to increase equality. Cameron hasn’t done much to vote for greater equality, either, actually. To be honest, I think Cameron is pulling a confidence trick between what he says publicly and how he actually votes. I’m pretty sure that Cameron will hold his nose while he commits his members of the European Parliament to vote with the homophobic MEPs from other countries. But the nose-holding won’t stop him from voting with them.
GarylovesGary
cute puppy.
Steven
@Darrien: I think you may be right.
I wish there was a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party alternative to vote for.
Andrew W
@Steven: ‘Tory’ is from an Irish word meaning ‘pursued man’. It’s not an abbreviation of Conservative – that wouldn’t really make sense! The Tory Party became the Conservative Party early in the 19th century, but the old name stuck around.
Steven
@Andrew W: Good point. Abbreviation was not the right word.