Saturday, July 06, 2024

CHANGE BEGINS TODAY...FOR THE U.K.

By Bob Walsh


 

Britain's new Prime Minister Kier Starmer 

 

It was a blow-out, a landslide, an earthquake.  It was the worst defeat in the 200-year history of the conservative party.  Several prominent conservative MPs, including the former prime minister Liz Truss, lost their seats.  

The U.K. right now has more children living in poverty than any industrialized nation.  It is really pretty awful.  Their standard of living is roughly parallel to that of Mississippi once you get outside of London.

The Green Party had its most successful election ever.  They now hold a whole 4 seats in parliament.  That is up from one.  The far-right Reform UK party snagged five seats, a first for them.  Nigel Farage, a huge pimp for Brexit, got one.  It was his seventh attempt at a seat in parliament.  The Scottish Nationalist Party which had previously loomed large north of the wall got creamed with most of their seats going to the victorious Labor Party.  In Northern Ireland Sinn Fein won big.  Even the pro-Palestinian independents snagged four seats, but they had previously been held by Labor so it wasn't all skittles and beer for Keir Starmer, the head of the Labor party and the new P.M.  

Labor took a total of 412 seats in the 650 seat House of Commons.  The Conservatives had 365 seats, they now have only 121.  It was indeed a blow-out.

Now let's see if Labor can govern.  It may turn out to have been easy to run against the conservatives, but hard to govern once you are in the drivers seat. 

No comments: