Any smear will do

The latest is from the New Statesman, and discussed by Iain Dale in "Total Politics" from an interview with Michal Kaminski. Some is published on the former's blog today.

It is very difficult to defend yourself when people have distorted what you have said.It is very difficult to defend yourself if fellow countrymen were guilty of the things you are smeared with.

The charge is of being homophobic, and also anti-Semite.

Kaminski admitted that his position is one which many Christians and others of the right in politics would hold - accepting and being prepared to vote for civil partnerships of same-sex couples, but wanting to insist that this would not be marriage. For religious reasons, or others, marriage performs a function which is not within civil (gay) partnerships, - procreation and nurture of children within a setting with both male and female role models and influences. (For this reason Kaminski and many others are concerned about adoption by same sex couples.)

Kaminski has tried to defend himself, pointing out his contacts with Israel (- that he is no anti-Semite), as well as correcting the record on what he was alleged to have said privately to another person. What else can he do - he has homosexual and Jewish friends, would his detractors like signed affidavits from them?

I suspect that affidavits would not convince his detractors, because their interest is not to learn the truth but merely continue with a vendetta. The real target is, of course, the new centre-right grouping at the EU, and discrediting the Tories while they are at it. While the centre-right were in the acceptable pro-EU EPP group there was little interest.