I’m here at Heathrow preparing to return to the U.S. while the voting proceeds in this country’s pretty dramatric election. I picked up a bunch of newspapers. The (Murdoch-owned) Sun has on its front page a massive graphic of Tory leader David Cameron, executed in the fashion of that iconic screen print of Barack Obama, over the words ‘Our Only HOPE’. The Daily Mirror is leaning more pro-Labout than ever, and has given over its first 20 pages or so to lots of exhortations to people to get out and vote Labour. On the front page is a picture of David Cameron, aged about 20, in a group photo taken at Oxford’s very upper-class ‘Bullingdon Club’, dressed along with his confreres there in a snappy bowtie and tailcoat.
The Independent, which seems lean a little cautiously pro-Lib Dem, is a lot more seriousin its coverage. It has a helpful two-page spread outlining what the three major parties have promised to do in various areas of policy.
Meanwhile, Greece has been burning, facing the EU’s monetary policy (and perhaps beyond that the whole world financial system) with a huge new challenge. Interesting days.
By the time I get back to Charlottesville– near midnight EST– we may have a good picture of how this British election will turn out. If there is no clear winner and if Cameron is unable to speedily form a majority coalition, then I gather that Gordon Brown stays on as PM until some party is able to form a government. However, several of his ministers may lose their seats today.
4 thoughts on “London, election day”
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Right. What a load. Three parties offering the same policies with minor differences, same as here. But go ahead and play up the kabuki as something real, Helena, like a good, tame alternapundit.
Writing before the results of the British election, I would say that the problem in Greece is a severe one. OK it is dramatic, three dead in a burnt bank. True that the left-wing rioters in Greece don’t have much hope of success. But there is an essential problem here, true everywhere. Greeks are being expected to pay for the deficits created by the wealthy exporting their riches to avoid tax.
This is a situation we can expect to see reproduced elsewhere.
Elsewhere, the precise financial problem is different. Bankers in Europe and the US talk about ‘victimless’ profits. This is not the truth. In the sense that money has its value based only on its buying power, ‘victimless’ profits cream off a proportion.
That proportion may be large. OK, the Greeks have rioted early, and may be unjustified. But I think we can see others doing the same.
Nobody sees why they should pay for Bankers’ adventures. There’s a lot more to come.
TRUTH, A DINOSAUR OF THE PAST:
AIPAC and OFFICIALS CRIME & CORRUPTION:
There was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.
Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.
Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”
Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.
Truth is inconvenient for ideologues.
What we do not witness from our government
officials from either political party.
A) Moral values. B) Ethics. C) Integrity. D)
Accountability. E) Oversight. F) Commitment
to American TAX-PAYERS. G) Fiscal responcibility.
Leaders of AIPAC who direct its affairs never miss a chance to flaunt their authority over the American politician. AIPAC fears absolutely nothing! Exposure of their criminal operations of campaign bribery only serve to intensify their grip on every representative we send toWashington. They all learn quickly to do whatever AIPAC representative tell them to do. Otherwise, the Jewish Zionist Press (90% of Americas media companies) will viciously attack the unwary and independent content on other issues not related to Israel until they are doomed to defeat.
Campaign finance reform without denunciation of AIPAC is nothing short of a ‘dog and pony show.’ How extremely awkward Senators appear as they cautiously avoid any reference to what they call in private “Jew muscle” as seen in the media and in the AIPAC bribes.
America’s duplicitous Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen are made into
out-spoken condemnation of “foreign” campaign money from China, Taiwan,
Indonesia and elsewhere, while refusing to even whisper the name of the
most illegal, corrupting, alien, election manipulators of all time, AIPAC, the
American Israeli Political Action lobby.
Federal Election Commission give the appearance that someone is watching the store
when the cruel truth is that nobody is watching the store. They will,
invariably, look the other way where AIPAC is concerned. All these hypocrites know that it is suicidal to ‘dare to speak-out’ against these
gangsters. Included in this cowardly silence is every facet of media which is Jewish owned, operated, and pro-Zionist/pro-One World Order.
One thing is absolutely certain about the Jewish Lobby-AIPAC: AIPAC WILL CIRCUMVENT ANY NEW LAW BEFORE THE INK DRIES
ON THE FEDERAL REGISTER.
It is time for revolt, time for a Third Party and a complete list of NEW candidates with no duel citizenship or foreign influence.
IS IT AT ALL POSSIBLE?
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Ho Hum
Well now the British have a government they have to figure out what to do with it.
Robin Nibblett at Chatham House despaired of the level of debate before the election.
http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/media/comment/leaders_debate/
His prediction that the Scots, Northern Irish and Welsh will be left to starve to fund the centre is frightening in its intensity.
Whichever party ends up forming the next British government, it will have to undertake the most painful retrenchment in social spending (as well as raising marginal rates of tax) in a generation. Cuts in defense spending will have to take place in parallel with cuts in social spending, despite the pressing need for Britain to upgrade its defense capabilities and human resources following a punishing seven years of military operations since the Iraq invasion.
A key question will be where to cut. There is only minority public support today for keeping British troops in Afghanistan (a poll for BBC TV’s Newsnight ahead of a “defense secretaries debate” a couple of months ago showed nearly two-thirds opposed to retaining British troops in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2010 and over 60 percent considered the war there “unwinnable”). And the Liberal Democrats have articulated concerns about an open-ended UK commitment to Afghanistan.
A new, untested Conservative or Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government under intense domestic political pressure, as a result of its program of savage spending cuts, could find it difficult to sustain a protractedly high level of troops and operational tempo in Afghanistan, even if this were expected by an Obama administration for which political-military success in Afghanistan will be a key test ahead of the 2012 [U.S.] presidential elections.
Have skills, will travel. Time to emigrate again.