The party’s culture spokesman, John Whittingdale, told Guardian Unlimited Politics he was “not persuaded” of the case for a public service website and that he was “not convinced the BBC needs to do all the things it is doing at the present”, including providing “more and more channels”.

“As a free-market Conservative, I will only support a nationalised industry if I’m persuaded that that is the only way to do it and if it were not nationalised it would not happen.”

(Source: The Guardian)

I know the BBC has it’s detractors, and I have had problems with it from time to time as well, but as a sometime license-fee payer and UK citizen, I feel quite strongly that the BBC should carry on expanding it’s services, particularly online. I can’t comment on the digital channels, but the website is generally an excellent resource – a point conceded by Whittingdale.

He goes on to say that this is because it has had “a lot of money thrown at it”. So? It’s worth it, Mr. Whittingdale. The market introduces it’s own biases into the media, and despite the odd problem the BBC might have, or be seen to have, it is at least subject to a different set of constraints and can provide us with a view from a different angle.

On a related note, anyone seen any Conservative response to Dyke’s speech on the archives yet? I had a brief look throught the Conservative Party website, but couldn’t see anything. Or any of the parties, for that matter.

I find all the debate over the electability of the Tory Party rather pales into insignificance when you see views like those of Peter Cuthbertson expressed openly. Granted, Peter is just starting out on his career as a Tory but in the post linked to above, and in the subsequent debate held in the comments, he displays contradictory attitudes towards homosexuality and it’s position in society that really take the breath away. Robin Law expresses this criticism far better than I could:

‘I certainly would oppose treating homosexuals as second class citizens or anything like that’

An utterly extraordinary statement from someone who neither supports gay marriage (on the grounds it undermines the institution of marriage) nor supports any kind of formalising of gay partnership rights (on the grounds that if we gave any kind of partnership rights to gays we would also have to give them to co-habiting straights and that undermines the institution of marriage).

Or are you going to argue that denying rights to gay partnerships does not treat them like second class citizens?

Just because a leopard denies his spots doesn’t mean others cannot see them.

I’m aware that views like Peter’s are held by more people than I’d hope, and probably by a lot of Tory voters, but even if I ever came around to agreeing with Tory policies on the economy and the Welfare State, an approach to social issues along these lines would be more than enough to drive me off forever.

It’s all very well supporting the institution of marriage, and no doubt very noble at that, but it ignores the fact that there are many people who live differently and have different needs. A strong, vital society should embrace this diversity and cater for it in it’s social policies, not disregard it because it doesn’t fit into some narrow idea of “normality” that many left behind years ago.

On a more general note, I get annoyed when people go on about how the breakdown of the family and the loss of respect for the institution of marriage are behind our current social woes. These changes have had effects, some no doubt negative, but some have been positive too. In the past, these institutions trapped people in misery for their whole lives. It’s not so long ago that homosexuals of either gender could never come out at all without facing massive levels of opprobrium and being ostracised. It’s not that long ago that women found themselves trapped in abusive and loveless marriages because of the social stigma surrounding divorce. I know of people from older generations for whom some of these problems were real. The old ways had their flaws, let’s try and develop some new ones that retain what was good and fix what was broken – we’ve still got a fair way to go yet, too.