England travails! Is an election weeks away?

Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after the failed and disgraced Tony Blair left office. Of course Tony was the lap dog to George Bush and Bush manages to destroy everything he touches.

One result of the close alliance between Bush and Blair was that the Labour Party was in basement poll wise. And in the recent council elections the Conservatives came back strong, capturing more seats than most people thought possible.

Yet, it appears that Mr. Brown may be able to pull off a win in spite of Blair. And it is possible he may pull it off very soon. The rumors that are floating about English political circles is that Brown is about to call a snap election. And Labour is having its annual conference now and the word is that Brown may use this conference for the announcement, and to launch the campaign.

When Brown was asked about the rumors he gave what sounded to these ears like a campaign speech. “"We had terrorism, we had the floods, we had foot and mouth, we had the financial turbulence, and I'll keep getting on with the job.” I must say I'm sorry he had a case of "foot and mouth" but it is common in political circles. Brown then went into other statements about things he will be fixing -- of course the National Health Service is at the top of the list—again. Apparently no matter how much they fix it the damn thing remains broken. It is a top priority for fixing every election year. As the saying goes: “Don’t mend it, end it.”

Brown has until May 2010 to call an election but now may be his best time. What if the US economy tanks due to the collapse of the housing market? Consumers in the US are heavily in debt, partly because of the low-interest rates the Fed has been pushing. But consumers think their home equity is sufficient to cover their debts and feel confident to spend what they don't have. But if the housing bubbles continues deflating the equity will decline in more and more houses and those debts will come back to haunt many a consumer. Add to this the collapsing dollar and that this will push up prices of consumer goods significantly. This will cause lots of problems, especially for banks. A recession, or depression, for the US economy will impact the UK. And already the Brits have had their first panics. Just days ago thousands of people lined up outside one bank to withdraw all their deposits in fear of a collapse. The price of shares in other banks dropped by as much as a third before the government rushed in and promised to pay 100% of all deposits with the money of taxpayers, if necessary.

But the fear is that this could happen again and bigger. And if the UK economy follows the US markets into the toilet no sitting Prime Minister wants to run for office under those conditions.

Brown is currently ahead of the rival Tories by 6 points in the polls. That ought not be surprising. The Tories have a new leader, if you can call him that, David Cameron. Cameron came onto the scene presenting himself as a moderate Conservative who was good on civil liberties and and on free markets. But once in the leadership he presented himself as a Labourite in Conservative drag. Since becoming party leader Cameron has been singing the tune: “Anything Labour can do, I can do better. Anything Labour spends, I can spend more.”

If Labour proposes new regulations then Cameron not only endorses those regulations but ups the ante by insisting he will regulate more than Labour does. If Tony Blair ran to the Right of John Major it appears David Cameron is intent on running to the Left of Gordon Brown.

The problem is that neither Labour voters nor Conservative voters find that particularly appealing. And Cameron comes across too slick, too driven by “focus groups”, to appeal to most voters. His lacklustre personality and lack of any principles ought to have him further behind in the polls than they do. That this hasn’t happened is not due to an innate ability on his part. It is entirely due to the utter disgust of voters over the Blair years. Cameron is a major reason that Brown is doing better than he ought to be doing.

Brown needs to figure out what risks he wants to take. He’s ahead in the polls now but Labour will still lose seats. Should he wait so that more and more voters get sick of Cameron’s Labour-lite antics? But if he waits, and the US economy tanks with England skidding downward as a result, then even a weasel like Cameron could start to look good to the voters. Brown has to bet on who is more inept at his job: George Bush or David Cameron. Neither should be where they are. If I were Brown I would probably assume that Bush is the more inept of the two. I would call a snap election within the next few days and I would hold it as quickly as possible.

Cameron will try to continue his Labour-lite positions to attract “green” voters and play down traditional Tory support for free markets (weak as that has been of late). He will probably find the voters totally underwhelmed by his stands and may try to pull some last minute flip-flops in order to shore up Tory support but by then it will be too late. Alas, it’s too late already. Cameron will have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And hopefully Tory supporters will send him to the backbench, from which he never should have emerged in the first place.

The Conservatives will have to look for a new leader. They need someone with some principles and some resolve. Anyone know how Maggie’s feeling these days?

Mussolini is alive and well and living in London.

David Cameron is the closest thing to fascism that England has seen since the days of Oswald Moseley. Cameron is the so-called leader of the Conservative Party. But he embodies the nationalistic, socialistic, authoritarianism of fascism perfectly. All he needs is the uniform.

Cameron has promised that anything the socialists propose he'll match. There is nothing he won't spend on, no project unworthy of government consideration, no area of life so sacred that the state shouldn't touch it. Cameron wants a government that does everything for everyone. His motto seems to be: "Send in everything you earn and we'll spend it on your behalf -- we know best. Obey us. Serve us."

After scuttling any pretense of limiting state spending under his rule he announced his newest proposal -- "national citizen service." Cameron believes that all young people should be turned into unpaid servants of the state. He calls it patriotic. Cameron says that every young person who participates will be eligible for a cash sum. But they apparently don't get to keep any of the cash. They are allowed to give half to any charity of their choice with the other half going to the project where they are assigned. That is to teach them to live like taxpayers where what they earn is taken away from them to buy votes for politicians. At least the Hitler Youth got to keep some shiny medals.

Cameron says the project will save the state money. Asked for the figures he said they didn't bother doing any. How does he know it will save money? Obviously its his scheme for social engineering so it must work. Typical politician, he wants to impose a plan on society and gives no thought to the cost of doing so -- let alone the morality of it. Each participant is required to pledge their allegiance to Britain. I note that such pledges are to the state not to the country itself. It is a pledge to do the will of politicians not to uphold time-honored traditions like the liberty of the individual -- but those are old concepts that Tony Blair murdered. And Cameron's job is to dance on the grave that Blair dug.

Cameron says he is "very passionate" about "national service." No doubt. So was Mussolini.

In keeping with these ideals consider what other political leaders akin to Cameron have had to say on the subject.

"The Common Good Before the Individual Good."

"It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation."

"For [us], society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends."

The quotes, in order, come from the 1920 Platform of the National Socialist Party; Adolph Hitler, 1920; and Alfredo Rocco in The Political Doctrine of Fascism, 1925.

I suggest that Cameron will do to the Conservative Party what George Bush did to the Republican Party. But Conservatives have been out of office so long they will sacrifice any principle for the taste of power.

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Looking inside the Tory party.

I just returned from a dinner with a top Tory party official. The Conservative Party of the UK is out of power and has been for some years. So I was interested in what he was going to say. It is not critical to me who said it so I will leave that part out, but what was said is interesting.

First, he assured everyone that the Conservative Party members of parliament are totally and completely behind David Cameron. I take that to mean that quite a few Conservative Party MPs are not particularly happy with Cameron.

Typically when a top party official speaks to local party members (I was the only outsider present) he is telling them what the party leadership wants people to believe. And what party leaders want the members to believe is happening is often at odds with what is really happening. You can’t exactly say that reality is the complete opposite of the official line but you are safe in saying that the two never quite correspond.

It became apparent to me immediately what issues are dividing the party. It is Cameron’s Labour-lite policies. I say this because the second point this party leader made was that Cameron’s Green politics and such are “really conservative” principles all along. He hammered home that point several times. So it appears that many Tories simply don’t believe it.

The third point he made was that the policies of Cameron are the reason the party is doing well in the polls. His argument is that there is a body of voters who float between the major parties and Cameron’s policies appeal to them. The reason the Conservative Party had lost recent elections, he argued, was that these voters were turned off by Tory policies and now Cameron has struck a cord with them and they are coming home.

This struck me as totally imaginary or very nearly so. If Cameron’s Labour-lite Greenie politics is the key to Conservative Party success that would imply that the reason Margaret Thatcher became one of the longest serving Prime Ministers was due to her Green politics and her mimicking of the Labour Party on policy. The idea strikes me as farcical.

Let us first ask why Tony Blair succeeded. You had John Major distance himself tfrom Thatcher’s policies. He rushed to the Left much the way Bush Sr. did against the Reagan legacy. On the other hand Tony Blair, like Bill Clinton, moved in the opposite direction.

What drives Tory party poll numbers today? The prime reason that people are willing to vote for the Conservatives is disgust over Tony Blair -- disgust that is as justified as disgust over Bush. But our Tory party spokesman tonight kept insisting that the reason for the poll numbers is enthusiastic support for Cameron and I don’t believe it.

Cameron’s electoral strategy is to appear exactly like Labour on most issues. That wins the party some support but dissatisfies their own base. But he hopes to keep the Tory base simply because they are so anxious to send Blair into the electoral dustbin. Even Labour wants that.

Some time soon Blair will be gone. And Gordon Brown will be Labour Party leader. He has nothing great to offer the voters. But he has the same qualification that makes Cameron appealing to so many voters -- he’s not Blair. When Brown takes over the Labour Party, I suspect our speaker of this evening will be in for an unpleasant surprise. He will find that much of what drove Tory poll numbers was disgust for Blair not support for Cameron. I could be wrong, of course, I’ve have been before. We’ll only see when it happens but when Brown takes over I expect a drop in Tory poll numbers and an improvement for Labour.

But Labour has nothing to solve the pressing problems that plague the country. National Health Service is a mess and people are dissatisfied. All Labour can do is promise to spend more money. The “conservative” response is exactly the same thing -- spend more money. Pensions are in crisis and Labour wants to solve the problem by raising the retirement age. The Conservative Party solution is to support Labour.

The Conservative Party is playing down their own policies, they say, because they don’t want Gordon Brown to nick them before the election. But from what I heard this evening Brown would only be nicking back the policies that the Conservatives nicked from Labour. What I’m not seeing is anything that distinguishes the Tories from Labour other than the fact that Cameron isn’t Blair.

Tonight’s speaker did have one point for the true conservatives in the audience. He told them that Cameron is the only Tory leaders in recent years to say he supported marriage! Well, that went over like, like nothing. No reaction. No one seemed to be excited by it. What does it mean in reality -- a few small tax breaks for married people (and I assume those in civil unions). But those few tax breaks will be eaten up by all the other Labour-lite polices the Tories are rushing to adopt. The net result will be higher taxes not lower taxes.

It isn’t that the Tories couldn’t steal thunder from the Left. They could but they won’t. Instead they are mimicking the worst aspects of Labour. I believe Mr. Cameron could support reduced taxes and some other small government proposals and yet steal support from the Left parties if he would publicly state the Conservatives want the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Liberal Democrats have done it and saw support grow. At the same time many Lib Dems started sounding more free market and voicing concerns about taxation. No wonder they saw support grow. They were stealing votes from both sides.

Can the Tories win the next election? I suspect they can but not because they are Labour-lite. And the bump they get now, because Cameron is compared to Blair, will die out as well since they won’t be running against Blair. Blair will be on the curb by then. But they will run against a party with no ideas and no means of solving the pressing problems plaguing the country. That will help the Tories to some degree but it appears that they don’t have much to offer either. And it appears their election strategy is to offer nothing.

Like many, come the next election, I’ll be happy about one thing-- Blair won’t be office. I know that whoever is elected president in the United States in 2008 it won’t be George Bush. That thrills me but I have no reason to be excited about any of the likely replacements. And the same is true for Blair. It will be a good thing he is gone and a shame that the main two options will be Brown or Cameron as neither man has what is needed.

Meanwhile I think the Tories should keep an eye on the Liberal Democrats. Just as the Lib Dems have taken support from Labour they are in position to do the same to the Tories. With Cameron sounding very much like a Labour candidate it wouldn’t take much of a shift on the part of the Lib Dems for them to woo over Tory voters. That would create an entire new ball game and a scenario for which the Tories are not prepared.