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Hang Time

Dan’s has it exactly right — all three major parties have managed to lose the UK election. British democracy isn’t making a lot of sense. Thus we hear more and more rash talk about overhauling the political system and introducing proportional representation. Here in Westminster, London, David Cameron’s failure to secure a winning majority has prompted […]

Dan’s has it exactly right — all three major parties have managed to lose the UK election. British democracy isn’t making a lot of sense. Thus we hear more and more rash talk about overhauling the political system and introducing proportional representation.

Here in Westminster, London, David Cameron’s failure to secure a winning majority has prompted lots of grumbling in the Conservative ranks. The righter-than-thous are all saying ‘we told you so’. And some Tories who gladly bought into the modernising Cameron project are now claiming they knew that DC was wrong all along.

For his part, Cameron seems incapable of ‘hanging tough’ with his small majority. He has already made very generous-sounding overtures to Nick Clegg about forming a governing coalition. But, as everybody keeps asking, wouldn’t it better for the Tories to wait, let the Liberals and Labour form a ‘progressive’ coalition with a debt-ravaged economy, then come back triumphant in two years time when it falls apart — which it almost certainly would? But that would mean conceding defeat, something the PR obsessed Tory machine would find anathema.

Who knows? For now, British conservatism seems to be a complete shambles. For all the American Right’s problems, it is in better shape now than its older cousin across the Atlantic.  It would be serious, if it weren’t so funny.

Another tidbit: the ridiculous BNP  — whose idea of canvassing goes a little something like this — have failed. Nevertheless, their small gains in various seats may well have cost the Tories in some tightly-contested seats.

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