I still can’t believe that Cameron wasn’t prepared. Did he think that the Gay Times wasn’t going to ask questions about gay issues???

Re: Andrew Ducker @ 7.40am

Maybe he thought it would be another round of softball, like he had with Mumsnet.

Sadly I think that the Telegraph’s very public criticism of Dave’s poor performance on this occasion had very little to do with changing public attitudes on homosexuality. It was a warning to him and the Cameroonians that if they screw up they will be toast.

Since Christmas the Tories performance is risible – akin to the slow motion car crash – . the most recent was Cameron’s pitiful . performance in response to the Budget where all he could do was huff and puff. What is now apparent is that Dave and the Cameroonians have failed to do the necessary detailed policy analysis to take on an experienced front bench and to convince a sceptical public. While they have focused on building a grand narrative – call for change- they have not formulated in the public’s imagination the question to which the answer is Dave and the Tories. Lastly, they are at risk of being squeezed between the social market neo-liberalism of New Labour and the bonkers UKIP.

This is a mark of the type of, sometimes subtle, changes to our society that having a Labour government helps bring about*. It also demonstrates why political leaders sometimes have to be bold enough to be slightly ahead of “public opinion”** rather than always striving slavishly to follow it…

*and of why my proverbial glass remains much more than half full wrt the Labour government.

**rather too often confused with the opinions of a few tabloid hacks and their proprietors.

‘Broken Britain’ indeed… Oh for the good old days eh Cameron?

As recently as 2003 Cameron supported the viciously homophobic Tory-introduced “Section 28?, which banned teachers from “promoting” (which in practice meant even discussing) homosexuality in schools.

On a three-line whip, which had been pushed as being decisive for the leadership of IDS. And when he was a front-bencher. If he had voted against, he would have had to resign from his first shadow post within a few weeks of having started it. It’s possible to see why he didn’t.

I still can’t believe that Cameron wasn’t prepared. Did he think that the Gay Times wasn’t going to ask questions about gay issues?

Well, the question that he struggled most on was to explain a specific abstention by MEPs on a vote concerning Latvian politics. That’s really a procedural question – and a fairly esoteric one at that – at a time when it’s pretty reasonable that his attention is focused elsewhere.

Of course there remains a long way to go. Most of the trash dailies did not carry this story.

I suppose it’s just possible that there are more important political stories right now than “David Cameron struggles in interview with magazine”. Budgets? Elections? That sort of thing.

For an interesting insight into Cameron’s approach to this issue, I recommend Sunder Katwala’s recent post at Next Left on Cameron’s positioning on the effort to give religious groups the right to register civil partnerships on their premises:

http://www.nextleft.org/2010/03/does-david-cameron-still-oppose-waheed.html

The letter Sunder discusses in this post shows Cameron trying desperately to sound sympathetic to the concerns of gays and lesbians while at the same time, without offering any reasons, he commits himself to oppose an extremely modest reform on their behalf, a reform that is not simply a matter of gay and lesbian rights but of religious liberty.

That’s a good article Stuart is linking too, definitely worth a read

(Stuart: apparently Phillip Blond recently gave a talk to a bunch of American libertarians and declared that: “as soon as you have a rights-based society, you have a society based on power.”

I find this hilarious. Presumably Blond thinks that non-rights-based societies eschew power entirely? More at FreeThinkingEconomist:

http://freethinkingeconomist.com/2010/03/25/because-i-feel-much-more-comfortable-being-on-the-same-side-as-paul/)

Wrong link, for some reason the bracket got included. Use this:

http://freethinkingeconomist.com/2010/03/25/because-i-feel-much-more-comfortable-being-on-the-same-side-as-paul/

There was me worrying about my job, or British culture becining obsolete in the face of crass popular culture and mass immigration. I was also worrying about home grown terrorists, and the country’s shambolic transport network. Silly me. I should have been worrying about the leader of the Tory party discussing gay rights. Gay people are not discriminated against by the law in this country. Does subtle discrimination exist however? Yes of course it is, as it does for just about every section of the community in some shape or form. Get your priorities right, there are more important things going on in this country, and in the world, today.

This is getting worse, I’m watching D-Cam stumble and fart his way to this election through my fingers.

Oh the joy!

Re: Tim J @ 9.47

“I suppose it’s just possible that there are more important political stories right now than “David Cameron struggles in interview with magazine”. Budgets? Elections? That sort of thing.”

Oh yeah, because that’s all the Sun, Express and Mail have printed this week. Go stand in the corner, thickie!

Re: Charlie @ 1.12.pm

So gay rights aren’t a part of british culture? To the corner. Now.

Charlie @ 10

You’re not gay, are you?

Funny how you’re so keen to tell people to “get their priorities right”…when they’re not your priorities.

Idiot.

Oh yeah, because that’s all the Sun, Express and Mail have printed this week. Go stand in the corner, thickie!

Of their political coverage? I don’t read the newspapers in question, but I’d have assumed that (especially for the first two) what political coverage they have provided has been dominated by stories about the budget, about strikes and about the upcoming election. Stories about a press interview given to a small magazine would rather have slipped under the radar.

Especially as that story seems to be ‘Cameron doesn’t know offhand why MEPs didn’t vote on a measure concerning the internal politics of Latvia despite being asked the same question several times.’ Call me apathetic, but it doesn’t get me jumping up and down.

Re: Tim J @ 2.56pm

I agree, in the narrow space put aside for political news. It’s a shame none of them could shelve one article about soap actresses’ bottoms in order to make the space, though.

16 – well quite. But surely Princess Diana’s effect on house prices is more relevant?

I think all it showed was that Cameron only has the vaguest idea what his MEPs are debating, which is fair enough as most voters don’t even know who their MEPs is, let alone how he/she voted in some obscure debate about gay rights in Lithuania.

“16 – well quite. But surely Princess Diana’s effect on house prices is more relevant?”

Aye.

And Maddy McCann has been spotted in the North Pole, I hear.

wayward:

I think we could do without such bigotry and racist nonsense, where everything is to blamed on immigration and (sigh) Islamification.

Ian:

I think you’ll find wayward is.

Postmaster:

Show me Marxist nonsense.

Show me where anyone has said nothing bad can be attributed to immigration and Islamification.

You’re a troll.

@ 21 – Islam isn’t a race – criticising it cannot be “racism”

@ 26 – You were a sad loss to the diplomatic service, if not the post office….

Ian:

That’s a terrible generalisation with little bearing to reality, a myth, no basis in fact at all, only your opinion.

Islamification? We’re currently 2.7% Islamic. I’m more concerned about Christian opposition to homosexuality at this point.

To all those smug straight people out there who constantly think all other issues are naturally more important than gay issues, I guess they are to you, but not to us, OUR HUMAN RIGHTS ARE FUCKING IMPORTANT TO US AND INCLUDE THE RIGHT TO NOT BE PUT DOWN BY SMUG HETEROSEXUAL WANKERS LIKE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is enough now of the hate speech. All those who can’t make comments sensibly and nicely, go somewhere else. Shouting, swearing and resorting to childish insults devalues your argument – wherever you stand on these issues and other matters.

I come to this site to be informed and yes to have my values challenged but not to have to put up with offensive language and shouty comments.

A bit of tolerance in these debates and in society more generally would make life a bit more pleasant. And critically, is essential for society and the survival of our mature democracy.

why does #26 remain, yet the mirror post from a hetrosexual perspective is deleted?

And @26, you thinking ‘Gay issues’ are more important than all other issues is bad enough, but then to claim you speak for every homosexual people on the planet is incredibly arrogant.

Why? Because this site is really just an extension of Cultural Marxism rather then a genuine Liberal site and this demonstrated every time an opposing opinion is posted with effect and the illiberal measure of censorship is applied.

Diversity is welcome apparently, except diversity in opinion.