Ben Bradshaw’s holiday and rights group logic

Benjamin Bradshaw, the happy and gay British Cabinet member who was named the ‘Politician of the Year’ at the Stonewall Awards 2009 must have had a very good reason to pick Sri Lanka as his Christmas holiday destination this time.
The former BBC journalist-turned politician would have definitely known where he was going. And who cares, after all he is spending his own money for the trip and post-war Sri Lanka surely has been a hot tourist destination.
However given the manner the so called international rights groups and a section of British media have started vilifying the member from Exeter over his choice of holiday destination one wonders whether the world or rather rights groups and media are really losing their heads.
A charge sheet against the British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sports include the ‘gross crimes’ of spending a holiday in a country which has been condemned by the British government and making a contribution to global warming by taking a long flight to Colombo.
It is obvious that the second allegation is just an extension of the first one and one would not have targeted him over carbon emissions even if he landed in Antarctica instead of Sri Lanka.
Human Rights Watch on hearing the news of his visit to Sri Lanka has demanded that Bradshaw should travel all over Sri Lanka and express the disapproval of the British government over the rights situation here.
In short, Bradshaw should forget about his holiday and play the role of Secretary of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs despite his portfolio – Culture, Media and Sports has got nothing to do with diplomacy. Even David Miliband the Secretary of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs who visited Sri Lanka at the height of war did not do what the rights groups expect from Bradshaw today.
The international rights groups surely must have run short of ideas to make international headlines of a private visit by a British Cabinet member when there are so many neglected issues.
The media fury over Bradshaw’s holiday plans in Sri Lanka, as if it’s the biggest issue that has plagued Britain right now, also speaks of the hollowness of British media and its tendency to thrive on trivialities instead of real issues. After all didn’t Prince Charles visit Russia even when the House of Common deemed it a ‘rogue state’?
If British media wants to go to town there are enough issues around. The latest one hears from Britain is that Scotland Yard had warned that terrorists are gearing to launch a Mumbai-style terror attack on London in early 2010. Chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism sub-committee Patrick Mercer is on record that the threat was "very real".
Sri Lanka played the host to a long line of European and Asian politicians immediately after the war and many of them discussed alleged human rights violation cases with the government. Many others would have visited the country privately, spent a good holiday and left.
It’s amazing the way some rights groups and media react when they wake up from a deep slumber.