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Wednesday 6 February 2013

Gay marriage again


I have no strong views on Cameron’s gay marriage adventure per se, but I do dislike are his political distraction games – especially clumsy and carelessly divisive ones like this. In my view Prime Ministers should show a touch of finesse in their play.

Yes there must be political calculation behind it all as I've posted before, but since then Cameron has had a bash at shooting the UKIP fox by promising a referendum on the EU, but only if we are gullible enough to stick with him for another term.

Which of course we aren't if the polls are any guide to his political ineptitude - and I think they probably are.

from ukpollingreport.co.uk

However, I tend to assume there is a certain traditionalist overlap between EU sceptics and those opposed to gay marriage, but that doesn't fit in with Cameron playing both these games at once. Unless the guy is dim or misguided, or unless these two groups have no great overlap which seems unlikely to me. After all, loathing for Cameron and his ilk will surely unite them now.  

Before Cameron fingered it as a useful ploy, there was no substantive gay marriage issue in the UK apart from the ambitions of a few fringe churches and a comparatively small number of gays. At least that’s my impression. The issue is largely artificial as are most political issues - created for a purpose.

Unfortunately those in a position to pull the strings of public debate have always been able to create issues out of thin air and as the political need arises. Moral men and women resist the temptation. Amoral men and women don’t and those apparently weaned on a diet of PR and the main chance don’t even see the problem.

I can't help feeling that the old boy network should have been more help to our floundering Prime Minister on this one. Maybe public school products aren't what they were though. Certainly if modern politics is any guide, then quite a few are in it because Pater and Mater wouldn't let them anywhere near the family business. 

It’s not that I have any desire to foster a dictatorship of the majority on the issue of gay marriage, but I think many folk are beginning to notice the powerful clamour of minorities favoured by the whims and fancies of political calculation.

Maybe majorities need to wise up to the fact that even they need tactics. Maybe they need to wise up to the dangers of voting for the same party, of being a dependable voter effectively disenfranchised by misplaced loyalty.

Because it is surely this dependability that raises the electoral significance of minorities way beyond what they would possess an purely numeric basis.

After all, climate change is a minority issue and look what pits of insanity that dragged us into.

3 comments:

James Higham said...

However, I tend to assume there is a certain traditionalist overlap between EU sceptics and those opposed to gay marriage,

It's called a conservative, AKH.

James Higham said...

Just read Bruce Charlton on it:

Simple: because the infliction of deep and permanent damage on society is a feature not a bug of this legislation; it is not an unintended by-product but the actual motivational core of the movement.

A K Haart said...

James - it is, but are there any left in politics?

James - I'd like to think it isn't so, but suspect it is.