Well said, Dave Cameron

Good, solid stuff from "Dave" Cameron on two political hot potatoes today - sometimes it's hard to believe this guy is actually the Tory leader. He seems to the left of Tony Blair quite a lot - although that's not very hard.

Firstly, Cameron publicly supported the anti-discrimination law on gay adoption, against the wishes of the Catholic Church, and many in his own party. (To be fair, Blair has also decided to support the law.) This makes Dave considerably more progressive than Ruth Kelly, for instance (which isn't difficult.)

Secondly, Cameron made a speech today in Birmingham likening Muslim extremism to the British National Party. To quote:

Those who seek a sharia state, or special treatment and a separate law for British Muslims are, in many ways, the mirror image of the BNP. They also want to divide people into us and them. And they too seek out grievances to exploit.

Cameron puts his finger here on the very important point, made eloquently by Richard Dawkins in his excellent recent book The God Delusion (which I must post a review of soon) that religious extremism and racism are cut from the same cloth. They are both irrational philosophies which seek to attack that which is different to ourselves.

Of course, let's not get too carried away in this wave of enthusiasm for HM Opposition: Cameron still has very few policies worked out to make the "big changes" he calls for in his speech which will "take down all the barriers in the way of a stronger society" - he may well have a 'policy flavour', as the opposition PR guru famously declared in The Thick of It special earlier this month, but it's vanilla-bland; or simply incoherent. But, compared with the arse that Gordon Brown has been talking on Britishness, it's a model of eloquence. "Genuine" Conservatives must be tearing up their membership cards and reaching for the UK Independence Party joining number on their mobiles now, because if this guy is for real, he's a Tory, but not as we know it, Jim.

I must admit to being one of the rather sad people who will opportunistically back Cameron in casual conversation with colleagues, friends and impressionable strangers alike, for no real reason other than that I hate Blair and Brown so much that I would find it highly amusing if Labour took a real pounding at the next election. Criminally, I was half hoping there would be a surprise result last time round. But f*** the lot of them, it's the Greens for me at the next election. And the one after that... until they pull the plug on the whole thing 'cos no-one's bothering to vote and it's costing too much to maintain the charade. Don't mind me, it's late and I've been watching too many Alex Jones DVDs...