Rainbows And Roses

[poliphilo]

The handover of power was a subfusc affair, but now it's all rainbows and roses.  Clegg and Cameron smile and banter and invade one another's personal space as if they were lovers. Did Cameron just refer to his new government as Liberal-Conservative? Yes, indeed he did. I think he revealed a bit of his soul there. Cameron has worked very hard to distance himself from the whole knights of the shire side of conservatism. He wants to be cool- and I think he's secretly thrilled to have the undeniably cool Nick Clegg take him to his bosom. Is he, then, a little in love with Nick? Yes, I believe he is; the body language doesn't lie.

OK, it won't last. Bad  things will happen. But there's a Freedom Bill coming down the road which will clear away a whole lot of the repressive, statist lumber that Blair and Brown put in place.  No ID cards, no national database, no retaining of the DNA of people hauled in by the cops for trivial offences, a ring-fencing of trial by jury.  This is wonderful, substantive stuff.  Britain just got a whole lot more green and pleasant. None of us were expecting this. We were expecting an alliance of clenched jaws and gritted teeth and what we're getting is a chorus from Hair. I can hardly believe- grizzled anarcho-lefty that I am- that I'm cheering the doings of a Conservative Prime Minister, but then all of us- no matter where we stand on the political spectrum-  are feeling a little giddy and disorientated right now.

Comments

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I can cope with the idea of Liberal Conservative. It's not that different from New Labour without the control-freakery. It's the hang-em and flog-em Daily Maily weakest-to-the-wall God-bothering jingoistic neo-cons that make me queasy.

I don't know how long I can hold my breath and keep my fingers crossed.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Absolutely fascinating.

I cannot claim to understand the situation at No 10, because it is impossible to have such a coalition government in the US, even were it ideologically possible.

However, the situation over there does seem to explain the mentality of a concern-troll piece the BBC put up, a while back, about how Real Americans(TM) yearn for bi-partisan government. I suspect now that the correspondent may not have been conscious of spouting nonsense, but was just inappropriately projecting what he knew from back home onto the US political scene, with hilarious results.

[silverhawkdruid.livejournal.com]

I know, and isn't it fun? LOL And until yesterday I didn't even know that DC's favourite joke was NC. *g* DC can pull a good face!

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

As I recall, every time there was an election of any kind over here in the US (up until the hard line conservatives started in on Bill Clinton, anyway) both the "ins" and the "outs" promised publicly that "we will work together". What in HELL happened to that?
If your Brit government's new coalition works to break gridlock and truly "work together", then just maybe our people will take the example. There is yet hope...

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

I agree.

Labour impinged on civil liberties to an outrageous extent. I'm very glad they're gone.

[sovay]

We were expecting an alliance of clenched jaws and gritted teeth and what we're getting is a chorus from Hair.

That is a wonderful sentence. I hope it keeps up!

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

We've already got ID cards in a way - our bus passes now register their number on the swipe machine, so the bus company has a complete record of each person's travel.
I don't mind this too much. It does, at least mean that, if i had another bad fall, someone would know where to start looking. (Yes, I do try to let someone know if I'm going right off the usual routes, but it gets tiresome and I don't always remember.)