It's Not Tactical

No, the Metro-Cons really are as mad as hatters. Consider Francis Maude’s claim that Lady Thatcher made his brother catch AIDS.

No, seriously.

Frankie’s theory goes something like this: Lady Thatcher made gays feel excluded so that drove them to have rampant, promiscuous sex. Using the same logic, I conclude that Blair must really hate Premiership footballers.

Never mind anything else, just think what a train wreck Maude’s view of Conservatism must be, if he seriously thinks that governments should, or even can, dictate how socially acceptable particular sexual practices are (and didn’t Liberals used to want to get the governments out of our bedrooms) ?

See, this is the difference between Left and Right. When Conservatives claim government policies are leading to unnecessary deaths, the theory of causation goes something like: mad axeman released from prison early, kills someone. With Liberals, there always seems to be a bit missing: Lady Thatcher opposes the gay agenda, gays indulge in rampant promiscuity. Huh ? Did they miss step two out ?

Since Frank brings the subject up, if any side of the political spectrum helped to spread AIDS in the 1980s, it was the Left. It was their insistence that everyone was at risk equally, that meant resources went into distributing condoms to OAPS and school children instead of the folks actually at risk. The media was primed to report on an imminent epidemic even while an actual epidemic was devastating gays.

The inevitable corollary to hyping the threat to 68 year old widows was the downplaying of the threat to promiscuous homosexuals. The Left might not have wanted to single them out, but HIV didn’t mind at all. Liberals were so terrified about stirring up anti-gay feeling they forget to let gays know that a deadly virus was sweeping through their ranks. Plenty of homosexuals died hideously, but on the plus side, at least they weren’t made to feel uncomfortable.

See, we’re back to what I was on about above. The Right says that PC (as no one called it back then) meant resources were wasted and dangers downplayed. You may agree, you may not, but at least it's an actual argument. The Left says AIDS spread because Lady Thatcher opposed kids being taught about fisting. That’s not an argument, that’s just slander. This is the central humbuggery of the whole thing. Metro-Cons claim to be outraged at the harsh rhetoric of the Right, even while accusing real Conservatives of helping to spread a deadly disease.

The truth is Metro-Cons gave up making sense years ago. The only coherent theme in their rhetoric is that they really, really hate actual Conservatives. It’s not a posture or a pose – this isn’t some carefully worked out plan to appeal to the ‘Conservatives spread diseases’ demographic. There are no votes in insane conspiracy theories, they simply hate the Right and will use any slander to abuse them. These are the people hoping Conservatives will keep voting for them.