So today David Cameron’s spokeswoman has defended David Cameron from accusations he was nasty about Lesbians and Lithunians.
Here’s her quote in full
“He [Cameron] was making a serious point about where lottery grants are going, it was not meant to offend Lithuania.
“David [Cameron] did not use the word lesbian, he said that lottery grants should go to the right causes and not to ‘one-legged Lithuanian dance troupes’.
So, it’s official, David Cameron doesn’t think one legged people should be taught to dance. He’s not intending to be rude about Lithuanians. He just meant to be rude about monopeds. The filthy lottery grant demanding swines.
I pick up on this story because I think it says a lot about who David Cameron is and about the rhetoric of new Conservatism. Cameron is of course telling a joke. Yet it’s a joke with a serious message as his spokeswoman says. I think we can safely say the serious message isn’t about Lithuania or even the Baltic states more generally. No, he’s asking the Arts Council not to support odd, or extreme groups. So why this target? It’s not as if there’s a political issue with funding one legged lithuanian dance troupes.
What Cameron’s doing is stripping away the offensiveness from an old 80’s era right wing gag. The old joke was about the tendency for lefties to give grants to disabled, black, pregnant lesbians. Everyone in the audience, would have been familiar with that critique. Cameron can’t say that, so “Black” becomes “lithuanian” and “lesbian” is transmuted to “dance troupe”. I wonder why he left “one legged” in place.
What Cameron achieves by telling a joke like this is give the audience a clear message about his priorities without exposing himself to the political risk of being discriminatory. No-one in the audience could have failed to pick up what this joke really meant but the rhetorical device allows Cameron to distance himself from old cons ervatism.
In this way, this little joke is a perfect vignette of New Conservative rhetoric. New Conservatism is all about stripping away the offensiveness of the statement, but leaving the meaning fully and wholly intact.
6 Comments
October 30, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Right. It’s a chirpier tune than Michael Howard played, but it’s still a dog whistle.
I wonder, though: “one-legged Lithuanian dance troupes” doesn’t alliterate nearly so well as the reported quote.
October 30, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Dodgy jokes aside, there is though a legitimate question to be asked about why we have so many schemes and grants that in essence create powers of patronage for politicians and political appointees on quangos.
These powers are highly open to abuse, take the so-called ‘Union modernisation fund’ for example. It’s simply a transfer, of about £1.4m so far, from taxpayers to Labour donors, for something that cannot be credibly described as a public service.
To put it in context were a Tory government to set up something called the ‘Gentleman’s club modernisation fund’ to help sexist largely Conservative-supporting institutions to learn to deal with the modern world by letting women in, there would, I hope, be outrage.
There is a danger of institutional corruption in having a system of government that defines public service as simply ‘whatever the government does’. It might be better if there were some independent regulation of government spending that applied a public-service test based on a few basic principles.
October 31, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Whoooah! I’ve seen some non sequitors but this one from the maverick Mayer is surely one of the barmiest and most ridiculous in the world, ever.
Cameron made a stinking joke with or without reference to lesbians in it and all you can do Mr Mayer is change the subject to support for BOTH sides of the social partnership.
Employers in fact get far more money to change and adapt than unions do. Are you complaining about that? No you’re not because you’re a Tory at heart.
But anyway … is there any corroboration Hopi for Cameron’s one legged, lesbian, non-Lithuanian, ha ha female as well spokesperson’s assertion that it was dance troupe?
The grant and change schemes I’d be worrying about Mr Mayer are those that are patently failing to change the rancid equality failure in the Lib Dems.
Loads and loads of white middle class men and a few white middle class women as MPs. Far and away the WORST party on equality, ignoring one or two of the tiddlers who have an excuse.
We can hardly berate Galloway for a lack of one-legged lesbians in a party of one. There are the beginnings of a lycra clad dance troupe.
October 31, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Chris, a delight as ever. You can read my views on the challenge of improving diversity in the Liberal Democrats here:
http://andymayer.blogspot.com/2007/06/scale-of-our-diversity-challenge.html
On your other point, it’s a little odd to justify bungs to one set of donors to the Labour party by highlighting another source of potential patronage abuse for which Labour has also been criticised alongside the Conservatives. Isn’t that a sort of ‘all snouts in the trough together’ defence?
In respect of both though a public service test would surely ensure higher standards of justification for such policies or prevent them taking place?
October 31, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Andy, not exactly sure what the union modernisation fund has to do with jokes about arts funding..
Are you arguing for no state support of arts funding, or no state interference in arts funding (in which case the black, one legged lesbians would probably be delighted…)?
Anyway, on the union modernisation fund, – do you really want me to list the number of grants that go to farmers, stately homes, country clubs, local heritage associations and the like- because supporting them is seen to be a social good? Let alone all the tax breaks that are provided to private industry for other things (like training) that are regarded as a social good- should Unions be excluded from this funding of things society deems worthwhile? if so, why?
October 31, 2007 at 5:38 pm
In all those cases I’d see that as a matter of testing what is being supported against the criteria of an agreed public service test.
The public service case for ‘Union modernisation’ I would suggest is extremely thin. What evidence has the government provided to suggest that ‘Union modernisation’ is a) necessary, b) could not happen without government support & c) of general benefit to the public as well as the private membership of various Unions… for example…