Kaczynski killed

Polish president and co-founder - with his twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski - of the "traditionalist Catholic" right-wing Polish Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc party Lech Kaczynski, was killed this morning at 6.56 GMT when the Tupolev aircraft he was flying in crashed into trees near Smolensk in Russia. At the time of writing the crash is said to have claimed 96 lives, many of them PiS figures, though Russian reports have put the death toll at 130.

Lech Kaczynski, 18th of June 1949 - 10th of April 2010.

Image from Wikipedia, used in accordance with GNU Free Documentation licence.

Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc, as regular readers of this 'ere blog will know, is one of the groups with which the British Conservative Party in Europe has allied itself under David Cameron's leadership by becoming part of the European Conservatives and Reformists (which also includes the SS-glorifying Latvian LNNK party) - the cause of much controversy due to the Polish group's rather dubious history which has seen them accused of homophobia and antisemitism. Whilst mayor of Warsaw, Lech banned a gay rights march and then allowed a "Parade of Normality" - a fact that led former Minister for Europe Denis MacShane to accuse the Tories of having links "with gay-bashing homophobes." Jaroslaw, meanwhile, has claimed that homosexuality "will cause the downfall of civilisation" and another PiS member said that President Obama's election would spell "the end of the civilisation of the white man."

Gordon Brown, who has been busy in his native Scotland trying to talk people into voting for him, took a break from the campaign trail to express his condolences. "I think the whole world will be saddened and in sorrow as a result of the tragic death in a plane crash or President Kaczynski," he said. David Cameron said that Kaczynski "...always stood up for his beliefs..."

The whole world, except those who don't share Kaczynski and his loathesome party's revolting homophobic and racist beliefs, may well be saddened but please forgive those of us who are unable to regret the loss of such an unpleasant and dangerous man.

The new caring, sharing Conservative party

We wrote yesterday on the subject of David Cameron, his apology for the notorious Section 28 legislation, his previous support for that law and other moves aimed at restricting gay rights. Further research on the topic led us to Gay UK News, who brought to our attention the rather worrying fact that Conservative MEPs Giles Chichester, Ashley Fox and Julie Girling are about to enter into a EU Parliament alliance with Poland's Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc ("Law and Justice") political party, which is widely considered to follow a homophobic, racist, anti-semitic and sexist agenda.

Mr. Cameron met Mr. Kaczyński in Warsaw this year. "Together we fought for freedom," said Cameron, referring to the Polish pilots who fought for Britain in WW2. "We are the modern conservatives," Mr. Kaczyński claimed, summing up what a lot of people must now surely be beginning to suspect about Cameron's party.
Both images from Wikipedia. Kaczyński image by Tadeusz Rudzki, used in accordance with GNU Free Documentation Licence. Cameron image by Christian Guthier, used in accordance with Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license.

The party's chairman, Jarosław Kaczyński, has stated publically that "the affirmation of homosexuality will lead to the downfall of civilization. We can't agree to it." Ex-chairman Lech Kaczyński (Lech and Jaroslaw are identical twin brothers), while mayor of Warsaw, banned the Equality Parade (a gay rights/pride march) in the city but has since permitted a homophobic "Parade of Normality."

William Hague says that the PiS have "changed their attitudes to gay rights" - this is not the case according to Polish gay rights activists, one of whom says that Mr. Hague's statement is "unbelievable – nothing has changed."

The PiS has strong links to the Polish radio station Radio Maryja, which has been accused of intolerance and anti-semitism. Though it bills itself as a Catholic station, the Vatican's webpage says that Maryja has become "much more involved in spreading risky politics than in spreading the Gospel." The station is run by Tadeusz Rydzyk, a priest who - according to political scientist Olgierd Annusewicz - is "is a guy who is against Jews, against homosexuals, against all liberal thinking, against privatisation." Rydzyk also controls a television station, a newspaper and a media training college but amongst Poland's rural poor, it is the radio station that holds most influence. "If you think that David Cameron has an alliance with PiS, you could really say that Cameron has an alliance with Father Rydzyk," says Mr. Annusewicz.

The party also chooses not to believe in global warming, which is a source of much worry to environmentalists as Poland is home to a number of companies involved in the production of cars, locomotives, electrical equipment, ships, aircraft and several other areas commonly identified as sources of high levels of pollution.

These do not seem to be the sort of people that the Conservatives, who Mr. Cameron says have become "far more diverse" and which he claims in no longer "a white middle class middle-aged party," should really be seen hanging out with if they want us to believe they represent equality and freedom. Homosexuals, Jews, people from other ethnic or religious groups, women and anyone who believes in a human being's right to live their life free of oppressive and restrictive government would be wise to look very carefully at the Conservative party's new image - because it might just be a thin veneer hiding something really quite unpleasant beneath.

While we're on the subject, Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw has claimed that "a deep strain of homophobia still exists on the Conservative benches."