But I confess, that, after I had been a little too copious in talking of my own beloved country, of our trade and wars by sea and land, of our schisms in religion, and parties in the state; the prejudices of [the Brobdingnagian King's] education prevailed so far, that he could not forbear taking me up in his right hand, and stroking me gently with the other, after a hearty fit of laughing, asked me, "whether I was a Whig or Tory?" Then turning to his first minister, who waited behind him with a white staff, near as tall as the mainmast of the Royal Sovereign, he observed "how contemptible a thing was human grandeur, which could be mimicked by such diminutive insects as I.
-- Gulliver (Part Two, Chapter 3 paragraph 9)

Importance: This is important because Gulliver is shown that his political parties are just as ridiculous to the Brobdingnagian King as the Lilliputian's politics were to...