Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Chaos in the UK
I have a piece up at Pajamas Media on the Lib-Lab pact that wasn't. Needless to say it's being overtaken by events - I had to rewrite it twice and things have moved on again since. Outside the regular news outlets, good places to go for reaction are the Spectator's Coffee House blog and Conservative Home.
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Enjoy your blogging and wish you would post more often. You might look at the Canadian experience of the last few decades. Genetically 98.2345678% the same Parliamentary setup as Westminster (But our Provinces are enormously more powerful. No one Canadian city has the influence of London. Scotland, Wales etc do not put the wind up as does Quebec in federal thinking. Quebec is not the violent sectarian challenge as Ulster is. Easily mutable riding (constituency) boundaries. Divergent histories etc.). But essentially Mother and eldest of the transoceanic progeny (pace Bermuda etc.). We have had a number of minorities over the years ( average span 18 months) and are currently in the 3rd year of a successful minority Conservative one. The only times we have suffered Coalitions have been times of dire war; and those were more informal than carved in stone. Right now the Tories preserve themselves by a masterful display of good policy that earns popular support.ie immigration clarification ( but media odium), tacking to the left of centre on selected issues ( ie soft spending or prematurely pulling out of Afganistan) that pisses all in the base off [ but where now can we go after the civil war that was the battle between the Progressive Conservatives ( themselves the result of an earlier fight between the Conservative and Progressive ( Farmers) Parties of the 1930's)and the Western based Reform party of the 1990's] yet by going so far into unexpected territory shocks the muddled middle into rethinking their prejudices about Tories; the meme currently is for Conservatives to at least tolerate each other and to stop forming inward facing firing squads... and brinksmanship that dares the oppositions' ire but instead displays the Grits, Dippers and Blocheads lack of gonads.
Why on Earth was Cameron playing footsie with the damp squib and why oh why did Cameron make squib his Deputy PM? And what does that mean? Does squib become a Privy Counselor? Answer PMs' Questions on the Front Bench? Chair the important Cabinet committees in Camerons' absence? Can squib help with the coming fiscal tempest? And at what price? Over here in Canada the perpetually brain dead hypocritical losers of our own third party are always whinging on about Proportional Representation because it would insure a permanent place at the big table ( instead of the kiddies korner). First past post at least provides a rally point; win or lose this is our voice in power and a corrective feeling of "Get over it Princess"; if you are so pissed then step up with the bat and take y'er rip.
Power cannot be divided and if those who are supposed to wield it cannot; then the functionaries, while trying to hold things together, will exercise it instead.
Oh well; best wishes, plod on!
Robert Albin
Calgary Canada
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