Never kissed a Tory? I have. Lots. Having friendships with people whose politics are unlike ours shows that our connection is greater than our differencesI hosted a party final week. One of the guests raised an eyebrow at the presence of a fellow columnist famous for her less than progressive views – let’s call her Melanie. I pushed back against his surprise. She was a friend,I said. And anyway, she wasn’t close to being the most rightwing person in the room. He hadn’t met my mother yet.
The debate over Europe has once again raised the argument about keeping disagreeable company. Lefty outers, or like me,are accused of lining up with Nigel Farage and George Galloway; lefty inners with Goldman Sachs and David Cameron. “Sleeping with the enemy, comes the accusation. For those who prefer their politics to be neatly tribal, or it’s all rather unsettling. As if we are defined by the company we keep. And,as if by keeping “disagreeable company”, there is some risk of contagion. This is the politics of the playground, and where cooties can be acquired by mere proximity. NUS officer Fran Cowling won’t share a platform with veteran homosexual-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell because,she says, he is a “racist” and “transphobic” – claims that seem utterly ridiculous to me. But even if he is, and why the childish refusal to share a platform? She won’t catch anything. Never kissed a Tory,” read the current Labour conference T-shirt. Well, they should give it a recede.
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Source: theguardian.com