Curious...
Just wondering if anyone has any (semi)-serious thoughts as to why the mainstream media has gone quite so spectacularly and ubiquitously and magnificently homoerotic with this election/pairing? I'm not old enough to properly remember any UK election pre-Brown/Blair, but I can't really imagine any previous coverage that compares to this. Is it because homosexuality is more socially acceptable now, so they can use that metaphor and have fun with it without worrying that people will sue? Because the first press conference was held in the Rose Garden? Because Nick Clegg is so dreamy that the fantasies of everyone, male and female alike, just coalesce around him lovingly and combine to ship him frantically with the nearest person in sight, which in this case just happens to be David Cameron? Because slash has worked its way insidiously into the mainstream via new media? I'm just interested that basically every single facet of the press has taken up this angle. We've had fanvids on The Politics Show, wedding pictures in The Spectator, marriage analogies in, fer crynoutloud, The Financial Times. I mean it didn't happen with, for example, Obama/Biden.
ETA: Just to sum up some of the answers so kindly provided:
1) because the Brits aren't used to coalitions
2) because pink gay fluff is vastly, vastly preferable to another story about how everything everywhere is going to shit
3) because Clegg is hot
4) because the media is bored (see 2 above)
5) because the public is bored (see 2 above)
6) because the British press love them some Carry On-style innuendo
7) because the Brits love their public schoolboys in lurve (insert Brideshead reference here)
8) because the marriage narrative is the most interesting/relatable way to describe what's happening, and most people care more about bonking/sexy love-triangles than they do about politics AM I RIGHT
ETA: Just to sum up some of the answers so kindly provided:
1) because the Brits aren't used to coalitions
2) because pink gay fluff is vastly, vastly preferable to another story about how everything everywhere is going to shit
3) because Clegg is hot
4) because the media is bored (see 2 above)
5) because the public is bored (see 2 above)
6) because the British press love them some Carry On-style innuendo
7) because the Brits love their public schoolboys in lurve (insert Brideshead reference here)
8) because the marriage narrative is the most interesting/relatable way to describe what's happening, and most people care more about bonking/sexy love-triangles than they do about politics AM I RIGHT