> it's just some weird UK puritanism or something It's politics. The Conservatives (David Cameron's party) are in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. We can

> it's just some weird UK puritanism or something It's politics. The Conservatives (David Cameron's party) are in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. We can debate the merits of the coalition (many do), but the upside is that some of the more extreme policies many Tories wanted to put through have been blocked. This creates a dilemma for David Cameron, not too dissimilar from that of the US Republicans right now: on the one hand, there's an increasingly vocal wing of the party that favors extremely conservative policies (such as pulling out of the EU completely, replacing the EU Human Rights Act, small government, big cuts, etc). On the other, there's the harsh reality that these policies have no chance of getting through a parliament where they don't have an absolute majority. So we are left in this situation where David Cameron announces, on a fairly regular basis, policies that are intended to appease his vocal right wing members (a "British Bill of Rights", a referendum to exit the EU, outlawing violent pornography, etc) that realistically have no chance of becoming legislation. In the unlikely event these policies actually do become legislation (such as forcing unemployed people claiming benefits to work for free) they normally end up being struck down by the courts. I wouldn't disagree with your assessment that the UK is rather more puritan than many of its continental Europe peers - but these policies aren't coming out of that. They're coming out of the fact an election is not all that far away, and the Tories desperately don't want to end up in another coalition government.