More Rain; Politics

We are regularly visited by partridges. They look like large pigeons.

Another day of drizzles and threats of rain, so we mostly stayed home today.

We went to the gym to work off last nights pig-out and then did some food shopping at Tesco. While in the checkout line, a woman said to me "Is that an American accent I hear?". In the resulting conversation, she told us that she has visited San Francisco a number of times and loves it. She commented on how friendly Americans are. When we told her we thought the same thing about the English, she looked like I had spit up a hairball on her; she thought Brits were way too reserved. We discussed this for a while and the clerk said "I don't understand why anyone would want to live in Britain". I guess you don't value what's familiar to you.

POLITICS

If you're not interested in a political comparison between the US and UK, then stop reading here.

We don't get a lot of US news here, mostly just a few comments about Iraq and a little about the election. We have to get our news about home from the web. So I'm paying a lot of attention to British national politics.

They have a parliamentary system where the people elect their Member of Parliament (MP) and Parliament elects a leader (Prime Minister) who then appoints his cabinet (mostly other MPs). The Prime Minister (PM) will be the leader of the party that has control of Parliament and is chosen by party insiders at a convention held well before the election; the "people" get no direct say in this. If the leading party does not have a majority, then they must 'form a government" by attracting support from one of the minor parties, usually by offering cabinet seats or other concessions. This has not been necessary in recent years. There are two main parties, the Conservatives (or Tories) and Labour. The Liberal Democrats (Liberals) are often a power but of lesser influence than the other two. There are other minor parties (Green, etc.) that make little impact normally. These major parties are usually called centre-left (Labour) and centre-right (Tories); they don't have the extreme left and right like we do. Both of these parties would fit into our Democratic Party.

The UK calls itself a constitutional democracy, but they do not have a constitution. Their laws have been passed by parliament and decided in court cases. By law, there must be an election at least every five years, but the PM can call an election at any time; usually at a time advantageous to his party. Losing a vote of confidence in Parliament can also force an election.

The cabinet is similar to ours, with a number of "ministers" who run the various departments; these ministers are usually MPs, but not always. They have a Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury), a Foreign Secretary (State), a Home Secretary, and others.

After World War II, Labour got into solid control and nationalized a bunch of stuff and stifled business and British society for decades. This was broken when Margaret Thatcher got elected and the Tories broke things open and Britain joined the global economy and privatized lots of activities; too many in the opinion of some. After a lot of years, the public got tired of the Tories (as they will toward any party in power for a long time) and elected Labour again, with Tony Blair as PM. Labour campaigned as "New Labour", intending to continue many of the Tories fiscal policies while keeping the social programs (a lot like Bill Clinton's New Democrats). After ten years in office, Blair stepped down and Gordon Brown took over. Brown does not have Blair's charisma and he stepped into a budding recession and the fallout of the bursting housing bubble, just like in the US.

If an election were held today, the Tories would probably win and David Cameron would be PM; so Brown is not about to call an election, hoping to wait out the current economic downturn. There is some dis-satisfaction with him within the party and some possible replacements are lining up. Among them are the Chancellor, Alistair Darling (can you imagine Bush at a conference shouting out "Yo, Darling!"?), and the Minister of Education, Ed Balls (think what fun the tabloids will have with that name).

I see a lot of parallels between happenings here and at home and it's interesting observing this at close range. It is said that the US and UK have a special relationship. I believe this and I hope that will continue.