Cameron Brings Change to the UK; Let's Hope So

In ending the Labor Party's 13-year rule, congratulations are in order to Conservative Party leader David Cameron on becoming the UK's new prime minister. Of course, "Conservative" is a far more watered down concept in Britain than here. And because the Conservatives (a/k/a the Tories) fell 20 seats short of a parliamentary majority in the 650-member House of Commons, they were compelled to form a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats to get them over the top--which included the ascension of shifty LibDem leader Nick Clegg to deputy prime minister.

The LibDems were also negotiating with Labor (in what was called a "coalition of losers"), but in the end, the two left-wing parties were unable to strike an agreement that would have kept Labor in control of 10 Downing Street, although without the hapless Gordon Brown continuing as prime minister.

In the final results, the Conservatives won 306 seats in parliament, 258 seats went to Labor candidates, and Liberal Democrats captured 57 seats (one constituency is in a recount, and the remaining members of parliament were elected by minor parties).

Under a parliamentary democracy, the executive and the legislative branches in general are one and the same. And in forging the coalition government, Cameron had to negotiate away a number of the Tories' public policy positions, which created heartburn for many members of his own party. In fact, Conservatives and LibDems alike are unhappy with certain aspects of the deal in view of the stark ideological differences between the two parties.

Cameron ran on a platform of "change," but given the huge problems facing Britain, an incremental, two-party approach may be best. As a practical matter, it may also be helpful to have the LibDems' fingerprints on some very difficult deficit reduction decisions that Cameron will have to make soon--although who knows how long this coalition will hold together.

London Telegraph columnist Janet Daley writes that the May 6 election signaled the end of Labor's welfare-state policies. Let's hope so.

Can we not finally agree – roughly 20 years after the collapse of Communism – that state-driven, command-economy solutions that attempt to control a country’s economic and social outcomes are dead?

The idea is finished, kaput, discredited even in its less totalitarian forms, and those who cling to it are the true reactionaries. To go on arguing about this ideology is a pernicious distraction: to continue to label those who defend it as “progressive” is absurd. Today’s real progressives are those who are trying to find ways of dismantling the monolithic structures left behind by the theology of state power.

Let's also hope that the UK general election is a precursor to the results of our elections in November 2010.

Arizona Law Not On Holder's Reading List

You probably thought that Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano was the most incompetent official in the administration. Here's the video of Attorney General Holder admitting that he hasn't even read the Arizona law about which he has been so critical.


Blogger Neo-Neocon sums it up perfectly:

[The law] is neither especially long nor complex, as statutes go. The fact that Holder has not read it yet is unconscionable, bizarre, negligent, outrageous—especially since he has long been voicing an opinion on it in his official capacity as Attorney General. He seems to also be unaware that there would be anything odd or wrong about this time lag.

Steve Nash and The Suns: Please Stick to Sports

Led by two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash, the up-tempo Phoenix Suns are perhaps the only team in the NBA worth watching, especially in the increasing meaningless regular season. The Suns were literally seconds away from winning the championship in 2007 if it wasn't for that crazy, unfair suspension of Amare Stoudemire under the league's arcane disciplinary rules. You may recall that the Spurs' Robert Horry ("Cheap Shot Bob," formerly "Big Shot Bob") knocked Nash down at the end of the Game 4 of the semi-finals; because Stoudamire wandered a few feet from the bench area following the collision, he was suspended. Absent the suspension, the Suns would have defeated the Spurs and cruised through the championship round. In the world of sports, this was a grave injustice.

Nash's playmaking, ball-handling skills, and shooting epitomize team play in the otherwise me-first NBA. However, Nash and the Suns unfortunately just made it very hard to root for them against the Lakers by publicly opposing Arizona's new immigration law. Even Phil Jackson, who is a big liberal, said that sports and politics don't mix. And as Dennis Miller aptly points on FNC (starting at around the five-minute mark), the Suns and other of the law's opponents have conveniently forgotten about the innocent Arizona rancher (among others) who was murdered by a criminal alien:


Update: Phil Mushnick's New York Post column makes an excellent point about the hypocrisy of the Suns:

What if the owners of the Suns discovered that hordes of people were sneaking into Suns' games without paying? What if the owners had a good idea as to who the gate-crashers are, but the ushers and security personnel were not allowed to ask these folks to produce their ticket stubs, thus non-paying attendees couldn't be ejected.

Furthermore, what if Suns' ownership was expected to provide those who sneaked in with complimentary eats and drink? And what if, on those days when a gate-crasher became ill or injured, the Suns had to provide free medical care and shelter?

...If charity in Arizona begins at home, why not at home games?

American's Governor, Chris Christie

If you're privy to the inner-working of any organization, you can see disarray even in the most well-run enterprises. It's amazing, isn't it, that so-called reporters who cover the hugely inefficient and incompetent public sector on a daily basis still believe in an intrusive government bureaucracy. Chris Christie, the new Republican governor of New Jersey, is serious about thwarting the out-of-control tax and spend agenda of the Democrats in his state, and among other things is at loggerheads with the greedy bosses of the state teacher's union. Here he "schools" a clueless reporter about the definition of "confrontational":

Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone'

Obama Nominates Moderate to Supreme Court--Hey Buddy, Wanna Buy a Bridge?

WEEI talk hosts Dennis & Callahan this morning reported that "Chaz Bono" was nominated to the Supreme Court. It turned out, however, that it was her possible doppelganger, Elana Kagan, currently U.S. Solicitor General and formerly Harvard Law School dean (where she famously barred military recruiters from the campus). The media as expected is falling over itself to describe her as a moderate, but any reasonable person knows that assertion is totally bogus. Moreover, as many have or will be noting, she has no experience as a judge or in private law practice.

In general, wouldn't it--for once--be worth considering a qualified legal practitioner for the High Court who has real-world rather, than Ivy-world, experience?

Terror Plots Less Isolated, More Connected

New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin is properly calling attention to the administration's strange and ultimately self-defeating tendency to call every terrorist attack an isolated incident. It's kind of like those ordinary criminal defense lawyers hanging around the courthouse arguing that their client is a good kid who merely got involved in bad crowd. If every kid is good, where does the bad crowd come from?

One of the most troubling tics of Team Obama is the frantic rush to declare that every terror attack on American soil is carried out by an isolated individual with no connection to al Qaeda or other groups. It was the gist of their rapid response to the failed airline bombing on Christmas Day, to the Fort Hood shooter and, most recently, to the plot by Faisal Shahzad to set off a car bomb in Times Square...

It's a reasonable theory, but it has a problem. The claims have been dead wrong in all three cases. Each "lone wolf" was quickly shown to have had contacts with or received training from a terror group abroad.

British Labor Party Accused of Ballot Stuffing

The Conservatives (a/k/a Tories) led by David Cameron are vying with the Labor Party and the Liberal Democrats for control of the British parliament in Thursday's election. The Conservatives are expected to capture the most seats in the House of Commons, but may fall short of a majority needed to elect Cameron as prime minister. Particularly in a close election of this nature, ballot security is most important.

However, in addition to a socialist agenda, the Labor Party in England and the Democrats in the U.S. share another trait: an affinity for vote fraud. The DailyMail has the story:

Voter fraud could determine the outcome of the general election as evidence emerges of massive postal vote rigging. Police have launched 50 criminal inquiries nationwide amid widespread cases of electoral rolls being packed with ‘bogus’ voters. Officials report a flood of postal vote applications in marginal seats. With the outcome of the closest election in a generation hanging in the balance, a few thousand ‘stolen’ votes there could determine who wins the keys to Downing Street...Labour supporters stand accused of packing the electoral roll at the last minute with relatives living overseas or simply inventing phantom voters.

Update: The London Times says that the a mere 16,000 votes prevented the Conservatives from winning an outright majority in parliament. As a result, they find themselves in difficult negotiations with the third-place-finishing Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government.