A Tale of Two Countries

I must say, with all the excitement generated by our pals across the pond I almost forgot that we had politics of our own. The US elections are fascinating to watch because of how backwards they seem to us. This is not at all to say that the British governmental system is superior (see my earlier posts), but that what is and what isn't a contentious point in the US makes the candidates seem immensely prosophobic. For instance, Barack Obama was labelled a radical by Sarah Palin for taking a stance that would allow a failed abortion to continue. Going back a bit, Dennis Kucinich has long been pinned by similar labels for, among other things, advocating a national heath service. This, I was made to believe, made him among the most socialist of candidates and therefore unelectable.

I wonder how these people would respond if they were to discover that the UK, one of their greatest foreign allies, has been a socialist country since at least 1948 (and indeed one might contend that the Liberal party that was voted in in 1906 was actually a late comer in taking advantage of Keir Hardian socialist ideas). I don't remember any serious political figure even suggesting the NHS should be privitised, let alone got rid of completely. And the right to buy handguns? You'd be laughed out of the Commons.

Abortion, of course, is a contentious issue whichever side of the Atlantic Ocean it rears its head, but at least both major parties over here support a woman's right to choose. There seems to be no consensus between Republicans on this, and indeed even individuals have trouble making their minds up. Does anyone know what Rudy Giuliani's stance was in the end? Say what you like about New Labour and the Third Way, but after following American politics for a while it seems ludicrous to imagine a Catholic-sympathising (and later convert) leader of a conservative political party, as Tony Blair was, championing pro-choice and gay rights, yet an eyebrow was hardly raised in the UK because it seemed sensible. Last year was the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act (the UK's version of Roe vs Wade in that it didn't overturn a previous ruling but rather clarified it) and the resultant protesting by pro-lifers was generally regarded to be the actions of outsiders, projecting images onto the Houses of Parliament and distributing leaflets that compared abortion to the Holocaust (if memory serves, 6 million abortions had taken place in the UK since 1967). It was rather telling when the campaigners couldn't muster a single woman to represent them in a BBC interview.

But this is simply evidence of how stagnated British politics has become. We're at a key stage of ecomonic interest, Labour having in the past few months nationalised two banks, first Northern Rock and then Bradford & Bingley, yet where is the ideological bickering? I can only imagine the uproar that would have resulted in the US, judging by how every "socialist" movement (at least by the Democrats: George W. Bush, if you remember him, has just agreed to the largest socialist suggestion in US history) is treated with extreme scrutiny and suspicion. Naturally, there was criticism by the Conservatives (in the Commons and through soundbites), but it was hardly vociferous enough to be newsworthy. In fact, I had to sit through the Tory Conference in Birmingham a few weeks ago before I heard a soapbox-worthy whisper about it.

Urgh, I sort of wish I hadn't. It was one of the most patronising experiences of my life (and I realise this blog is on the verge of being purely criticism of the Tories). Highlights included banter between Boris Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a hall full of senile upper class toffs trying to figure out why there were black people blowing into their hands on stage, and Andrew Mitchell (I think, they all sort of look the same) wheeling out Uncle Tom, MP, who had a double-barrelled surname, presumably to show they weren't racist. They also played The Killers during intervals to show how this party is so, like, with it. But it was George Osborne, and only George Osborne, who led me to believe he had read a newspaper in the past four months. Unfortunately, his contest, whilst delivered with a clear, self-righteous tenor, was too contradictory to clarify anything for me. On one hand, he asserted that ten years of Labour's irresponsible free-market policies were to blame for this economic crisis. On the other, he decried the nationalisation of banks and warned of the idiocy of the Left. So not only are Labour decadent ultracapitalists, but also fiendish Marxist dogs at the same time. The crowd applauded wildly at this concise summing up of Comrade Brown and Comrade Darling, whilst I changed the channel to Fox News.

Perhaps I just enjoy being outraged. But with all the idealism gone from British politics, it's no wonder how apathetic we are. And who would have thought that apathy, rather than war, could lead to a country's downfall? Surely, not even Orwell. In my last post of this nature, I warned that the BNP is the fastest growing party in Britain. A few months down the line and Stoke seems to be the first city in England to be within Nick Griffin's conceivable grasp. A warning to any Americans: the grass may be greener over here, but it so very, very dry.