Topic: Politics
Another election, another victory for a right wing party. Romania has voted in Traian Basescu, the former Mayor of Bucharest, as its new President. Unlike in the US, there can be no argument made that he did this by appealing to social conservatism. Basescu took the risky step of defending the rights of homosexuals.
It's been a good year for right-wing parties world-wide, with the notable exception of Spain, where the electorate got on its knees and begged al-Qaeda for forgiveness and elected the party most likely to appease Islamic fascists. The result of course is that ETA is now back on track blasting away, having seen the power of bombs to control the Spanish voter.
But aside from the Paella Eating Surrender Monkeys, the rest of the world is moving the other way: In March, Greece booted out its socialists after 10 years. Australia has returned John Howard to power for a historic fourth term. In El Salvador, the right wing party got returned for a fourth consecutive term also. The US re-elected Bush as president. The new election in Ukraine on 26th Decemeber is likely to bring victory to the more right-wing pro-western party.
Alas I don't think that the Tories can pull it off here if the UK's next general election is in the next six months, as is likely. Despite the clear ascendance of right-wing parties in the rest of the world, the Tories seem terrified of going back to anthing resembling Thatcherism and prefer to cause less offence occupying some middle ground, even though there are no votes in it. A clear stand on cutting taxes and resisting ID cards would give them a chance, but they don't do it. What will it take to awaken them out of the slumber?
_ DY
at 10:26 PM GMT
