David Cameron’s cringe-worthy Gay Times interview revealed the double standards of the Conservative’s concerted efforts to attract the gay vote during their PR-heavy election campaign.

But even Saatchi and Saatchi couldn’t gloss over the cracks in the Tories’ pseudo-liberal facade.

As soon as Cameron was taken off his well-rehearsed script he asked for the cameras to be turned off rather than admitting that Tory MPs would not be whipped to vote against homophobic policies in EU localities.

The laughable appointment of Theresa May as Equalities Minister (that sinisterly Orwellian title) was appropriately attacked by the left with a Facebook campaign forcing her to admit on Question Time that she had “changed my view” on her previous vote against the repeal of Section 28.

It is not clear whether she has “changed her view” on a whole series of anti-LGBT votes throughout her parliamentary career.

May’s supposed change of heart may have played well to the QT audience but as recent as 2008 she voted in favour of a bill saying that IVF rights should require a male role model- clearly discriminating against fertility rights for lesbians.

However May is one of the new, smart breed of Tories who know how to talk liberal when things get tricky.

Those who bought Cameron’s pro-gay rhetoric only to see him choke on his words during a live interview may be harder to convince a second time round that the “new politics” is anything but, especially when it comes to LGBT issues.

So much for the Tories. We would perhaps expect more from the Liberal Democrats. Step up, David Laws. His excuse for appropriating Ôø°40,000 of tax payers’ money was that it was to keep his relationship with his partner, James Lundie, a secret from friends, family and colleagues.

Of course there are situations where people aren’t fully out in public, to family or to friends- it can be a difficult process, yet an important one.

But for a millionaire, liberal figure-head to hide his relationship from the world completely is a failure of his duty to be a representative and role-model to the LGBT community of which he effectively denied being a part.

It would seem that we can’t look to the political mainstream to defend LGBT rights. The Green Party, however, were the only party to launch a LGBT manifesto during their election campaign.

It was a significant achievement for the left and those concerned with LGBT issues that Caroline Lucas gained a seat in Brighton.

The Green Party, which passionately supports environmental issues and social justice, could be the progressive party that the Liberals have failed to be.

But politics doesn’t stop with politicians. Real, significant change has to come from a mass movement organised by the working class, students and the unemployed- not from career MPs.

It was the Stonewall riots which began to turn the tide against institutionalised, state-sanctioned homophobia in the US, a struggle which then spread to the UK and beyond.

The movement gained its strength from militant campaigns that drew on the working class struggle and saw identity politics as rooted in class divides.

As the ConDem cuts kick in it will be marginalised LGBT people who, like many other persecuted minorities such as Muslims and black people, bare the brunt of unfair, unequal and disproportionate attacks on the working class, the poor and the excluded.

Never has it been more important for LGBT people to organise to defend their community against homophobic discrimination in the workplace, in schools, colleges, universities and wherever else it arises.