Well, the British elections have passed, and the United Kingdom has a new prime minister, Tony Blair. The Conservatives have been whipped so soundly that they make Mondale in '84 look strong. And Labour! What's up with Labour? It's like Margaret Thatcher married Denis Skinner! Anyhow, the changing of the guard in Merrie Ole England requires a long, hard look.
When I was in England in June of 1996, almost a year ago, they were already talking about this election. And even back then, people had accepted the inevitability that Blair would win. I mean, most people were giving Bob Dole more of a chance than they did on John Major. However, no one expected the landslide that occurred. When I turned off the BBC last night (and yes, I was watching the BBC. Thank you, thank you, thank you to C-SPAN for showing the BBC's coverage! Otherwise, I'd have had to watch MSNBC [shudder]), every single district in Scotland belonged to a party other than the Tories. The same was true, if I'm not mistaken for Wales. What does this mean? Well, besides the fact that Scots don't like English bluebloods anymore (what a shock!), it means that devolution will probably proceed much more swiftly than it did under the Conservatives. What I mean is that in the last few years, a push has been going to grant the Scots and Welsh more independence, through national parliaments, etc. The Tory government was always against it, although one BBC commentator said last night that maybe they should be for devolution...they might get a say in government. But Labour has always been more responsive to demands for devolution, so we'll see.
Another important point about this election is that it isn't as similar to 1992 here as people think. Although I've stated in the past that Major was more like George Bush than Bob Dole, the campaigns and end results are much more similar in the recent race. First, in England, the candidates were highly similar in terms of what they wanted to do. This was rather true here, where it was hard to differentiate during the campaign what was Bob Dole's opinion, and what was Bill Clinton's. Another point is that the economy was good in Britain in 1997 (trust me, I can attest to this personally). Bush in 1992 lost because of a recession, whereas the economy didn't play a real role in the 1996 elections.
The fact that Mr. Major lost his ministership even when the economy was booming proves that this is a serious event. In 1992, as mentioned earlier, Bush lost the presidency due to a bad economy. However, what I didn't mention was that last year, Clinton maintained his hold on power because the economy is in good shape. So is the British economy. So why did Major lose, if the economy was good? The answer is twofold: one, internal problems within the Conservative Party, and two, Tony Blair's ruthless uprooting of Labour from the socialist left and his planting of it in the center. The internal problems within the Conservative Party are mainly because of Europe: namely, Maastrict and the European Union. While Prime Minister, Mr. Major wanted a course of moderation, but many Tory MPs came right out and said they didn't want any part in Europe. Now what Mr. Blair did was quite remarkable. Here's a man who came out of nowhere in 1994 to take over Labour, a guy who's younger than my PARENTS, for pete's sake, and he moved the largest Socialist party in British history to not only renounce socialism, but to move to the political centre much more effectively than Clinton did in 1992 or 1996, no matter what James Carville says.
Well, as I said in the beginning, the elections are over and done with. Now, we have to realise how we're going to deal with the Brits, whether it will be the same as usual, or if it'll improve for better or for worse.