Cameron's arrogant two-fingered salute to the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s shows poor judgement compared to Brown's lifelong progressive values.
When Gordon Brown was 23, as a post-graduate student and Rector of Edinburgh University, he was an active and vocal opponent of apartheid in South Africa. His opposition to apartheid then reflects the progressive values that he now takes into this election campaign.
When David Cameron was 23 he went on a free trip to South Africa, funded by a lobbying group founded by a former member of the South African military intelligence to bust sanctions against South Africa, and organised by a member of the Monday Club. This doesn't suggest that as a Thatcherite researcher in the Conservative Research Department in 1989 David Cameron was a supporter of apartheid, although some of his party's MPs at the time were. Nor does it suggest that he agreed with his then-party leader Margaret Thatcher that Nelson Mandela was ‘a terrorist.' Nor does it even suggest that Cameron supported his party's opposition to sanctions against the apartheid government (although there is no evidence that he didn't.) But it does suggest poor judgement, and at best ambivalence towards the situation in South Africa in the late 80s.
Friday, 16 April 2010
What can a visit to South Africa tell us about Cameron? | Columns | Progress
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