The Tory hating Ben Bradshaw and the so called gay hating Tories by Garbo
Recently I have been fairly harsh on the Tories when they make sweeping unfounded statements that do as much damage to politics itself as it does to the individuals the, sometimes quite vicious, personal attacks are aimed at.
I think the lazy and liberal use of the liar word recently by a number of the parliamentary Conservative party and also the wider party and their supporters are stepping over the line in almost all cases. It makes them look mean, it is a personal attack rather than an intelligently argued point and it ultimately reflects badly on all politicians and politics. In short it is crude and lazy.
Throwing about the L word is not something we want to hear every time a member disagrees with another one or interprets an issue differently. The result will be a devaluing and debasing of all political argument.
Ben Bradshaw’s comments today are in serious danger of falling into this same category. His basic message is that all Tories hate gays and therefore anyone who is gay or not homophobic should not vote for them. It is cheap point scoring and a devastatingly lazy argument. Like the liar accusations, ultimately it just drags down politics.
In the same way the liar accusations sparked off retaliations about who is the biggest liar – Mandelson dragging Osborne down by accusing him of telling “untruths” – so we have a debate now about who is the bigger hater of gays, the Tory party or the Labour backbenchers.
Do we really want to hear politicians having such negative arguments? “You lie more than we do” or “You are more homophobic than we are”. I strongly suspect not. It is childish, playground stuff and actually quite offensive too. Most significantly, it is a meaningless, pointless debate as it does not get the heart of any issue whatsoever.
Parts of Tory party, including former leaderships, do have a very unpleasant history when it comes to homophobia, but Bradshaw’s attack is so unsophisticated and sweeping it is merely an easy cheap shot providing nothing for the electorate other than a confused, desperate sound bite.
I suspect Bradshaw’s comments have little do with his concerns about gay hating Tories and are more about him hating the Tories and using a well worn, out of date cheap shot to bring them down. Easy cheap shots do not score any points with me and I suspect they do not score many points with the electorate either.
Categories: All WW, Politics Decoded
What gets me with Bradshaw is that when it comes to gay asylum he has a blind spot. I also don’t recall him being a particular champion of LGBT rights.
Iain Dale says on his blog that ‘common cause’ should be made and I agree. It’s ‘good for the gays’ that the Tories have changed but that’s not what Bradshaw is interested in.
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Garbo – why is calling somebody a ‘liar’ taking cheap political shots when it is demonstrably clear that they are telling untruths?
I am not a fan of euphuisms and if someone is caught telling lies then they should be called liars. Simple.
I would rather see far more stringent evidence of lying than the hypotheses that are provided at the moment.
What I find, in particular, a little unpleasant is the growing use of it as a tactic rather than more investigative and sophisticated methods of holding MPs and the government to account. It sets a nasty precedent and is a very lazy. The lines are being blurred between differences of opinion, spin and out and out lying. The Tories tactic seems to be at the moment to paint Brown as a liar – it is very personal and not policy focused.
I suspect (though I don’t know, of course) you think that many people in the government are lying – Gordon Brown in particular – but serious politicians should not need to resort to such a base level. What evidence is there for a lie being told? In many ways we will not know whether anyone is lying without hindsight. There are some strong hypotheses – some I happen to agree with, particularly with regard to spending cuts – but calling out liar is just not good enough. It cheapens political debate. Both sides should be above this, but once one fall below the standards it becomes very easy for that to become the new lower standard in the future.
I can see why the Tories have resorted to this – Gordon Brown is being very obtuse and stubborn and not answering questions; his own figures suggest that he is at the very least spinning the line about spending cuts. But I would still hope the Tories would rise above it and not reduce themselves to the desperate level the government is at.
A far more effective and positive attack would be to focus on why the government are wrong and what Tory policy would be: i.e. where their cuts are going to be. Of course, that is also far more sophisticated and more open to scrutiny that simply shouting “Liar”.
The Commons and political debate by our parties should not be on the level of pub debate and it should follow and keep certain standards. I fear that those standards might be slipping at the expense of policy debate.