England Prepares To Move To The Right Of The USA

The British Labour Party has been a bit anemic for some time now, and it has just been handed a rather nasty defeat in recent Parliamentary elections. In the past, a Tory victory still placed the English government to the left of even a moderate American Democratic administration. Then came the Obama regime, and everything changed.

Poised for a national victory, the Tories (Conservatives) are enjoying mystifying the British mainstream press and confounding the Labour spinmeisters who contend that Labour is doing just fine.

When I was a junior in college, one of my political science instructors introduced a guest lecturer who was a lady Member of Parliament. She was brought in to give a delightful comparative politics lecture on British social and financial realities. She informed us that we needed to know that the British Tories were definitely not like our conservatives--nor even like our moderate Republicans. They fit best into the moderate wing of the American Democratic Party. She was a relatively unknown back bencher at the time. Her name was Margaret Thatcher.

Years later, as Prime Minister, Dame Thatcher got as close to conservative American government as any P.M. in recent memory during her close relationship with President Ronald Reagan. But the English government was still to the left of the Reagan administration on nearly every issue except common defense. Most of us thought that formula would never change. The moderate Clinton Presidency/Republican Congress remained to the right of England, as did the "compassionate conservative" big government Bush II administration. And then came November of 2008.

In what is an historical blink of the eye, the world economy went into a tailspin. America responded by tossing out the Republican administration and rejected their Presidential candidate. The Democratic Party had already been in the ascendancy for the past two years. The people rejected "more of the same" and elected not only a heavily left-influenced Congress, but also the soft-spoken messianic President Obama. The President has turned out to be the closest thing to a pure socialist ever to get within a mile of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In Britain, the opposite was happening. The first signs of a crack in the socialist Labour facade came not in the British Parliament, but with a British member of the European Parliament. He denounced not only Europe's monolithic government bureaucratic control of pretty much everything, but began to speak loudly against the Labour government in England and its leader, Gordon Brown. The discontent with the status quo in England has been the complete opposite of the reaction to the financial crunch in America. England lurched right, while America lurched left. And for the first time since at least the end of World War II, the two passed each other going in opposite directions.

Matthew D'Ancona, writing in the Spectator, said this of the English mainstream media and their pet Labourites: "In Westminster this week, I have felt like the boy in the movie The Sixth Sense. You remember the character and his famous line: 'I see dead people' he tells his therapist, Bruce Willis, 'walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead.' How often does the boy see these scary, deluded beings? 'All the time. They're everywhere.'" D'Ancona goes on to say that the press (his own newspaper excluded) and the Labour leaders are like those people who don't know they're dead.

After a crushing defeat, and European-wide ridicule, the Labour Party could only muster less than one-third of their members to call for their leader's resignation. Tony Lloyd, chairman of the parliamentary party, told the BBC "Gordon Brown is the prime minister, he will lead the Labour party into the next general election, and I can state that as a clear fact." The London Times, The Manchester Guardian and the rest of the Labour mainstream press applauded Brown's dive into the trenches. Unlike the Tory leader John Major in 1995, Brown does not intend to step down. But unlike America, where we have to wait for the next election cycle, it may not be his choice. The Brits have a little thing called a vote of no-confidence. That requires a much earlier election than would be the case if there were no potential change of power. The Tories, and it is rumored, certain influential Labourites, are considering bringing a vote of no-confidence before the Parliament as early as the beginning of July.

The Tories are proposing reductions in government spending, divestiture of government ownership of large segments of the business world, and a major overhaul of the national health care system to include major improvements in private medical insurance. And the signs are that the British people are listening favorably. Meanwhile, back in the States, government spending has gone to unimaginable heights, major banks and corporations have essentially been seized by the government or forced into submission, and private medical insurance is about to face a major government takeover.

Queer as a clockwork orange. The Brits to the right of the Yanks. Whoda thunk it? And by the way, when are the Brits going to learn how to spell "labor?"

Rendering of Gordon Brown and Labour Zombies courtesy of the Spectator UK.