It was like a scene from the film Titanic – the great and the good looked concerned and talked earnestly about impending doom over canapés while cosseted in the luxury and wealth to which they’ve become accustomed.
Elsewhere, out of sight, the poorest were locked away in the bowels of the disintegrating wreck, suffering and dying, almost forgotten as the rich searched for a lifeboat to rescue them from their responsibilities.
After the election every Westminster politician will have to come and face the reality of the electorate’s judgment. There is no disrespect or disgrace in any politician coming to terms with the democratically expressed position of the electorate. All politicians, those of us who are lucky enough to be elected, chosen by the people, will try to do their best as they see it in the interests of the people who elected them.
— Alex Salmond, ex-First Minister of Scottish Parliament, now running for a seat in Westminster
Before Sir Oswald Mosley founded the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932, he had already served in Parliament between 1918 and 1931 first as a member of the Conservative Party, then as an independent and later as a member of Labour. Mosley’s fascist party, which was also blatantly anti-Semitic, had the support of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror .
Just under a month ago, we reported how Conservative Member of Parliament Douglas Carswell had ditched the Tories and joined the fascist-oriented UKIP. The libertarian-leaning Carswell resigned from Parliament, triggering a by-election, in which he is favored to win-- and become the UKIP's only Member of Parliament.
Unless you're a Brit, you've probably never heard of Douglas Carswell, until last week, the Conservative Member of Parliament from Clacton a generally well-off, retirement seaside area in Essex, just northwest of London. Carswell, who often passes himself off as a libertarian, was on the extreme fringe of the Conservative Party, switched to the neo-Nazi UKIP last Thursday (August 28) and resigned from Parliament, triggering a by-election in which he will face off against a Labour candidate, Tim Young and an as yet unnamed Conservative candidate.
With right-wing congressman Bill Cassidy running for Mary Landrieu's Senate seat, his Baton Rouge-based House district looks very attractive to an awful lot of candidates. It's a grotesquely gerrymandered (i.e., ethnically-cleansed) deep red district with a PVI of R+21. Obama won 31% there against McCain and 32% against Romney. In 2012 the Democrats didn't even bother putting up a candidate against Cassidy.
Alexis Tsipras, the Bernie Sanders of Europe?The natives are restless… in Europe. There were elections in 21 countries for the European Parliament's 751 seats yesterday, the culmination of a 4-day process including all 28 member countries. Early reports indicated inordinately large numbers of voters didn't bother going to the polls. These are the countries in the U.E. and how many members they have:
‘Sir Nigel’ rides forth….
Is UKIP leader Nigel Farage the ‘white knight’ of British politics? or just another mercenary of the pro-Israel Lobby?
