Politicians have a lot in common with women who work in brothels. They never know who they are going to have to suck up to next. The door opens, in walks the next customer, and all they can do is politely enquire whether it shall be the nurse’s uniform or the schoolgirl outfit, and then pretend to enjoy themselves. It’s a bestial way to make a living.

Thus it was that David Cameron (a Lion for the purposes of my headline, not a reflection of my views!) dyed his hair an unconvincing shade of shocking pinko and set off to meet Johann Hari to give an interview to ‘Attitude’ – Britain’s best selling gay magazine.

He is, apparently, ‘here to woo a crucial electoral bloc’, so naturally doesn’t mince his words by discussing anything as trivial as the global economic meltdown, or the loss of trust in our elected representatives. He is a former corporate PR man, so he sits quietly whilst Johann makes the obligatory notes on his ’sleek, wired appearence’, and comments on his ‘cheeks’; these things are important to a ‘crucial electoral bloc’.

He is a ‘convert’, fresh from a Damascene conversion, who now makes it possible for gay people to vote for him. We have to understand that gay people cannot possibly make any choice in life based on rational decision, all must be seen through the microscope – or is it periscope? – of how it promotes their sexual preference. Nothing else has any relevance.

How he has achieved this is truly miraculous. He has posed for photographs in front of a cinema screening ‘Brokeback Mountain’. Truly amazing, and thus a crucial electoral bloc, ‘wary of falling into his arms’ (no really! I quote) can risk basing the next five years of their entire life on his leadership of the economy and legislature. Just think, had that cinema been showing the ‘Red Flag’, the entire Nu-Labour membership could have been turning blue. On such details are elections won and lost.

It might seem so far, that this ‘crucial electoral bloc’ is a little, how can we say, superficial? Self-obsessed? Missing the wider picture? It would not be true, now that adoption for gay civil partners is actively encouraged, they have joined the rest of us in worrying about our children’s education. Johann takes the opportunity to grill Cameron on these issues. No, not whether they can read or write when they leave school, but whether they will have been correctly schooled in sex education regarding Aids for gay children, and giving teachers the ability to stop homophobic bullying – something they were unable to stop allegedly, whilst Section 28 was in place. There are, so far as I am aware, no special laws in place that make it a crime to promote goldfish owning – but that has never stopped teachers from stepping in if a child is being bullied for owning a goldfish. Perhaps there should be, this could be doing ‘real harm’ to potential goldfish owners.

You can see why this should be an election breaking issue. A Stonewall study found that 42% of gay kids get beaten up – this figure is proudly furnished by Johann as evidence of homophobic bullying, but no evidence is produced to show that they didn’t get beaten up because they were self obsessed, superficial, goldfish owners who just got on every body’s nerves. 17% have heard the terrifying words ‘I’m going to kill you’ – quite possibly from their Father who merely wanted to watch the Six O’ Clock news in peace and quiet, we shall never know, but it’s all grist to Johann’s single-issue mill.

Words are important to Johann. The entire European question is reduced to one word in his hands. ‘Faggot’. Michal Kaminski, a Polish politician holds the view in his personal life, that gay people can conveniently be referred to as faggots. Not only that, but he has been captured on film uttering this dastardly slur. (To maintain balance in this article, I must point out that many gay people have been caught on film uttering the dastardly words ‘homophobic bully’, a term they find convenient to refer to those who don’t actively promote their lifestyle) Stanislaw Pieta, another Polish MEP has said that 43% of British paedophiles prefer children of the same sex as themselves, a patently homophobic remark, nay, blatantly anti-gay – in Johann’s eyes.

Cameron vainly tries to disengage himself from this line of questioning, but Johann is having none of it – he demands to know why Cameron won’t condemn soemone calling ‘us’ – by which he means gays – paedophiles. Er, Johann, pointing out that a minority of paedophiles prefer chidlren of the same sex as themselves is not ‘calling us paedophiles’. It is possibly suggesting that some paedophiles are gay.

Eventually Johann’s allotted hour comes to an end. His conclusion?

David Cameron is a hazy cloud of charm and platitudes: no matter how hard you peer into him, you cannot find anything solid to focus on for long. There are flickers of apparently real pro-gay feeling, but they are soon followed by excuse-making for some of the most anti-gay politicians in Europe.

Poor Cameron. An entire hour of his life gone, an hour when he could have been grappling with the serious problems facing this country, could have been laying plans to hit the ground running in respect of the economic chaos, and just because that cinema was showing ‘Brokeback Mountain’, he has to spend it being harangued by a whining big girl’s blouse. Better luck with the next customer David.

If you too wish to read the European question reduced to one word, I can recommend the full interview in Attitude, ‘coming out’ out next Tuesday.

1
JuliaM February 4, 2010 at 17:21

I’ll say this for Hari; he summed up iDave pretty well, didn’t he?

2
English Viking February 4, 2010 at 17:44

Just think how many votes he would win if he told the 3% of weirdos who are sexually attracted to other peoples bottoms what they could do with their votes!

3
T. P. Fuller February 4, 2010 at 19:03

“A Stonewall study found that 42% of gay kids get beaten up.” A Stonewall study. Completely impartial, then. Did Hari cite the paper this statistic is derived from, so that his readers can check up for themselves? Did the author(s) inquire into the number of all children beaten up? I should imagine it is in the region of 42% of the total. It may even be that 100% of those boys who have not, before puberty, been brainwashed into imagining themselves homosexual, but who are instead typically horrid specimens, have felt one of their peers’ fists in the moosh: the reduction to 42% (or thereabouts) being caused by the subtler and often less physical cruelties of girls.

FFS, I can’t remember how many punch-ups I was involved in before the age of 16! I was even threatened with a knife and managed to talk my way out of it.

4
The Slogger February 4, 2010 at 19:26

I have had a long-standing email correspondence with Hari, a man who (it seems to me) is ploughing the Tatchell field of uphill gardening. I too think the bloke has some insight – up to but not including any suggestion that he is anything other than absolutely right about everything.
As in most cases, the queer Left is illiberal, while the straight Right is merely ill-tempered.
Given they are equally spread around the UK, and we do not have a list-PR voting system, the Pinks are utterly irrelevant. The only way they could change this would be to eschew property ownership in favour of a peripatetic life flitting from one marginal to another.
I doubt this will happen.
xx

5
Joe Public February 4, 2010 at 21:12

Gay Kids? I thought there was a minimum age-of-consent that made that statement an oxymoron.

Of course if 100% of “gay kids” didn’t broadcast their sexuality, then a minority of them wouldn’t get beaten up. Unlike the 100% of kids who get beaten up just because they’re kids.

6
NotaSheep February 5, 2010 at 16:47

“doesn’t mince his words”, deliberate pun?

7
Gloria Smudd February 5, 2010 at 16:58

Almost certainly, NotaSheep, almost certainly! And a good one at that!