The Tory-Lib Dem alliance in the UK has massive potential to generate annoying pseudo-narratives in the United States. This is good news for Unity 12! It’s proof that left-wing netroots should work with teabaggers! The opinion pieces and blog posts pretty much write themselves.
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de stijl
Broder just got his first non-Viagra boner since the Ford administration.
Bill Zebub
Memo straight from headquarters: the line “We are all X now” is officially worn the fuck out.
That is all.
R-Jud
And will re-write themselves saying the exact opposite if the coalition blows up in 7 months’ time.
That Other Mike
I’d love to see the horrified looks when the baggers realise that most Conservatives are essentially equivalent in US terms to moderate Democrats.
Evinfuilt
And it would all make sense if the Tories were anything close to our Republicans, but instead they’re more Liberal than most of our Democrats.
The lesson I’ve learned is if the Dems break into 2 parties, they still could win majorities, just by allowing the Republicans to go even more insane.
steve
you’re saying that to a guy who would put ‘good news for conservatives’ on a post about washing his car. In other words, a guy so dumb he doesn’t realize that giving everything the same tag makes the tag worthless.
Brachiator
Based on one BBC news story, Labour reminds me of the Republicans who continue to act as though McCain won the presidential election.
On the other hand, even in the UK, nobody is quite sure how a Tory/LibDem coalition is supposed to work.
SapphireCate
I’ll be laughing all the way to the bank when the coalition falls apart in 18 months, triggers a vote of no confidence and a new election and the pundits start chanting mantras about the ineffectiveness of a centre-right government!
They’ll do that, right?
David in NY
@Bill Zebub:
I think the “We are all X now” should have been retired in late Nov. 2004, when Garrison Keillor wrote a devastating little song called “We’re All Republicans Now.” Here’s a couple versions: http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2004/11/27/scripts/repub.shtml and http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2006/04/01/scripts/republicans.shtml
Jim
Speaking of FDL, it seems we’re back to the “Obama is unqualified” meme. This one is a beaut.
mistermix
You’re far more imaginative than me – the only narrative I was thinking would come out of this is that Tories aren’t real conservatives.
David in NY
@Jim:
Do not do that. Made me go to the site, which I totally regret (though your excerpt had me on full notice).
Hob
@steve: You know, if DougJ wants to beat a joke into the ground, that doesn’t actually make him dumb. And before saying shit like that, you might want to check whether you actually understood the joke in the first place. It is, like it’s been ever since the 2008 campaign, a reference to the way Republican columnists insist that everything is “good news for conservatives.”
mai naem
I give this alliance 9 months. The Tories will screw the Libs. and Cameron will have to call another election. Cameron will be the Callaghan of the Tories. Sorry, but the natural allies of the Libs are not the Tories but Labor. Clegg only gives a crap about himself. Kind of the Bill Clinton of the Libs.
DougJ
@Hob:
Thanks.
Mike in NC
And even better news for John McCain, correct?
Who in the US media would even bother to go there in the first place?
fourlegsgood
Too late, Calamity Jane made common cause with Grover Norquist and the teabaggers months ago.
Texas Dem
I really don’t care about British election or the Tory-Lib alliance, but I couldn’t help but notice that the new PM has a smokin’ hot wife. Yowza!
Nick
The Tories are the British equivlaent of the Democrats…there is no conservative base in Britain, it’s like the conservative base in Vermont, it doesn’t exist…the Conservative Party is center right if you’re lucky. They can get away with something like this.
Want proof? Would Zac Goldsmith ever have a place in the American Republican Party? Google him.
That Other Mike
@Texas Dem: I think she’s pregnant again; if so, the man himself clearly agrees with you…
tatertot
@SapphireCate:
By golly, I hope so!!
Robert Sneddon
@mai naem:
Unfortunately the “natural allies” of the LibDems, the Labour Party ceased to exist when New Labour won the election in 1997 putting the Blairites in charge.
I give the Lib/Con coalition two years or so before it falls apart. It might blow up spectacularly before then but it has a combined majority that can cope with some rebellion in the ranks over any given piece of legislation. The alternative Rainbow Alliance of Lib/NuLab plus all the other small parties and individual MPs could have kept New Labour in power now. However it wouldn’t last three months before some of them would leave in disgust, probably at Lord Mandelson’s efforts to etch away more civil liberties in the name of freedom and progress. It’s better for the Labour party that they step away from power right now; the next couple of years are not going to be pleasant and even if they helped create the financial situation we’re in they can at least claim at the next election they weren’t in charge when the shit really hit the fan for most folks.
Mumphrey
I’m kind of amazed that Broder hasn’t already shoved his way onto the editorial page. No worries, though, he’ll be swooning over all the bipartisan comity tomorrow by the latest.
People like him make me want to punch, well, people like him. He doesn’t care what the laws that get passed do, as long as some Republicans and some Democrats work on it together, and Sherrod Brown is pissed off that it went through. They could pass a bill that mandated the execution of David Broder, and as long as Joe Lieberman, McCain, Ben Nelson, Collins, Snowe and Mary Landreiu wrote it, and Sanders and Brown voted against it, and vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers were pissed off about it, they’d strap him into the chair a happy man. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just go away and yell at clouds on his own time.
Carl
I just want to know how Scottish nationalism plays into the US Midterms.
Calouste
@Robert Sneddon:
The coalition has actually picked up quite a few things from the LibDems manifesto, so they aren’t too unhappy. The LibDems have given in on some hot button items for the Tories, like joining the Euro and immigration (although even the most fervent pro-Euro LibDem would probably agree that joining the Euro in the current financial turmoil is a no-no, so it’s not like they are giving away that much with that. But it sells well).
Besides having quite a decent agreement worked out, what is going to hold the coalition together like nothing else is that they are going to have make cuts to lower the deficit and will consequently drop in the polls in the short term. They’ll have to stick together for a few years to see the recovery set in and regain the votes, otherwise Labour will just take over.
Comrade Bukharin
@Texas Dem:
You are correct, sir. Sam Cam is gorgeous!
Mike Kay
@Jim: the problem is it’s all untrue.
he was community organizer before he entered law school, not after.
the assholes never fail to get the facts work.
And he had plenty of offers after leaving law school. that’s how he met michelle, during a summer internship.
toujoursdan
Given the reactions of my Lib-Dem friends, I wouldn’t give this a year. They are outraged that the LD cozied up to the Tories and consider it a complete betrayal of the party principles.
If the Tories succeed in their quick and dirty budget cuts to health and education, I’d be surprised if the Lib-Dems remain a viable major 3rd party after this.
Barney
@Nick: Zac Goldsmith inherited hundreds of millions of dollars from his businessman/failed politician father, and was avoiding paying tax on in it the UK by being declared ‘non-domicile’. And he’s just been divorced for committing adultery. Of course he’d be welcome in the Republican party. He’d just have to find the right safe district where his environmental ideas could be overlooked in favour of his money.
mds
That’s right, the British Conservative Party is more liberal than the Democratic Party … in Bizarro World. The Tories are like moderate Republicans, back when the Republican Party was sane and non-theocratic. Starve social services of funding, and seek to prevent their own Paris Hiltons from having to pay estate tax. Just because they’re not anti-science idiots on climate change, and know that the NHS is the third rail, doesn’t make them left wing; it makes them non-stupid. For God’s sake, CamCam basically ran on “compassionate conservatism,” and haven’t we heard that somewhere before? Hence toujoursdan’s reference to some possible disaffection in the non-Tory-Lite wing of the LibDems. Clegg got a better offer on electoral reform from Labour, and went with his natural home anyway. So now the pain commences.
Of course, this might be a good thing for Labour, if they draw the proper lesson from it. The DLC-style approach of making yourself as indistinguishable as possible from your opponent has its limits. If Labour remembers that their party is named Labour, not Banker or Big Brother, they will once more provide a real choice to voters. Of course, in the US, the Dems will probably view November’s Republican resurgence as evidence that they did too much, rather than not enough, and will scramble even further to the right in response. I pray that Labour will avoid being so goddamn stupid.