Identity politics debate hypocrisy

Following on from the previous post, there were a couple of things in the debate last night that made me chuckle at the sheer hypocrisy of Brown and Clegg and I was screaming at the screen for Cameron to pull them up on it, but alas, he couldn't hear me!

For those who didn't watch, there was a moment when Clegg and Brown both turned on Cameron over the issue of the Tory withdrawal from the EPP and the group they belong to in the European Parliament. The smears are well known, but basically Clegg called the ruling party of Poland "nutters", "anti-Semites", "homophobes" and "climate change deniers" and Brown pretty much did an "I agree with Nick".

Now really, what Cameron should have done as Clegg ranted on, was point out that Clegg had refused to remove the whip from Baroness Tonge, who wanders around spouting untold numbers of Jewish conspiracy theories which have ranged from the control of global media to allegations that the Israeli Defence Force had been harvesting body parts from people killed in the Haiti earthquake.

Let us be blunt, the Lib Dems have their own "nutters" and "anti-Semites" too.

However, I'm digressing, the rather cute and amusing hypocrisy came when the next question, an absolute curve ball frankly, was about the Pope and whether he should be allowed to visit Britain even though he hates manlove, says contraception is wrong, and doesn't like abortion very much.

All three leaders said much the same thing, that they didn't agree with the Pope's views but that should not exclude him from coming to Britain as we're a terribly tolerant place and just because you don't agree with someones view it doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to them or work with them on other things.

Can you spot the hypocrisy yet kids?

Yes, that's right. The two men who had, moments before, chastised Cameron for working with homophobes were now saying how important it was to work with homophobes because whilst you might disagree on the question of man-on-man or girl-on-girl action, there are areas you will agree so you shouldn't just tell them to bugger off.,

Why the sudden about face? Well that's rather obvious really, there's an election on and you can't suddenly piss off all the Catholic voters right? Or in Clegg's case, guarantee yourself the sofa to sleep on when your wife gets annoyed with you because she's a Catholic.

This one single moment in the debate was a perfect illustration of the way identity politics is used and abused for little more than cheap point scoring.

Note: No more posts today. Typing takes to long.