Month: May 2005

Oddly enough, London seems to be the Tories’ strongest region. The Guardian’s blog suggests why: angst about crime and immigration on the right and anti-war sentiment on the left. Blair was caught in the middle.

This could be the most depressing result so far. Labour has suffered two big defeats in safe Labour seats from rebels in their ranks. One in Wales where the national Labour party insisted on an all-woman list of candidates. A local male candidate ran as an independent Labour candidate and won an astonishing victory. Galloway also seems to have knocked off a key Labour candidate. As a supporter of the war, I’m not going to join Glenn Reynolds in blaming media bias for the analysis that the war hurt Blair. Of course it hurt Blair; and it’s Glenn’s bias to deny it. Or rather, it was the sense that the government wasn’t honest with the people about its rationale that hurt Blair. Blair’s dubious honesty and reliability were key factors in this defeat, and those factors involved domestic policy as well. But the war brought those worries to the fore. I cannot see how he can recover from this personal indictment from the people of Britain.

Still confusing. I’m bummed that my friend Nick Boles lost Hove by a mere 420 votes. The Tories are doing better in London than expected; but the picture is still so varied, the ultimate result is hard to predict. A Labour majority of 60 or so? At his own acceptance speech, Blair looks shattered, almost on the verge of tears. He may continue as prime minister. But he’s deeply wounded. He won’t last a full term, I’d say. He may not last the year.

If you’re a Britophile, the BBC livecast on C-SPAN is excellent entertainment. The results are very weird so far: different patterns in different regions; different results in Labour-Tory fights than in Labour-Lib-Dem battles and than in Tory-Lib Dem contests. I’d be amazed if the 7 percent swing against Labour continues nationally; the odds on Labour losing are still small. But if I were Michael Howard, I’d be ebullient right now. If I were Blair, I’d be worrying. Remember that a good 70 Labour MPs are anti-Blair; if the prime minister’s majority goes beneath that, the pressure on him to go will be intense. Too soon to say definitively, but so far, Blair’s continued premiership is now in severe doubt. I just saw Tony Blair’s face. It was fixed in a horrifying, death-rattle grin. He knows it could be a long, white-knuckled night.

The latest Peterborough result is another 7 percent swing against Blair. The Tory victory against the Liberal Democrats in Torbay is also very bad news for Blair. If a swing of 6 or 7 percent against Labour continues, then Labour could actually fail to win this election. I repeat: Labour might not win at this point. This is shaping up to be a huge blow against the prime minister. Developing hard …

The first big actual surprise has been in the London constituency, Putney, a tight Conservative-Labour battleground district. The Tories won the seat from Labour on a 6.2 percent swing. It’s worth reiterating: Don’t trust the national exit polls. The constituency-by-constituency battle is what matters. The Putney result suggests a real, big gain for the Tories. But Putney is just one seat. Nevertheless, my gut instinct a week ago may well be right. If Blair’s majority goes below 50, he’ll have to go. This is looking like a real Tory success. Yes, I’m a partisan. I respect and like Blair; but I’m a Tory at heart.

Talking with British friends and reading the papers, the new conventional wisdom is that Blair may do much better today than was expected even a week ago. I’m still unconvinced, but since I’m not there, I may well be wrong. If Labour’s majority goes below 100 seats, it will be a good night for the Tories. I wish the Tories had offered a more decisive alternative to Labour – especially on taxes and spending. They’ve botched several elections without even laying down a clear ideological direction for the party. And the trouble is: their ranks are thin. The younger generation of potential Tory MPs have either emigrated to America, or gone into the private sector, or become depressed about future prospects as a Tory back-bencher, or moved into the Labour camp. The remainder tend to maintain, I’m told, an upper-class aura that still rankles in class conscious Britain. I hope the new CW is wrong – not least because governments with huge majorities often get lazy and undisciplined; and because Britain needs a good opposition, especially if Gordon Brown drags Labour back to the left. Check in later today for reax.

A sane and unfortunately necessary reminder today from George Will.

Jake Weisberg adds an important element of analysis to the question of what on earth has happened to conservatism. The GOP establishment is now exactly like the old Democratic establishment, he argues, catering to various interest groups, and thereby increasing government’s power and reach. He refers to the Cato Institute’s latest paper on Bush’s spending explosion, which I really, really recommend. Jake notes that Cato examined the 101 biggest government programs that the GOP promised to abolish in 1995. Under unified Republican rule, those programs have seen their budgets grow by 27 percent. If you read the Cato paper, you’ll see that Bush’s pretense at mending his ways in his second term are phony; and that the spending explosion goes far beyond defense or homeland security. I keep waiting for conservative outrage. But when you read Jake’s piece, you realize what has really gone on: many of these people are being rewarded by this system. Why would they complain? Thank God for Cato and the handful of principled conservatives left in Washington.

MORE ON CONSERVATISM: The emails keep coming in on my “Crisis of Faith” essay. The debate continues here.

CURRAN ON BENEDICT: A great piece in Commonweal by the theologian then-Ratzinger punished, Charles Curran. (Yes, I’m proud they advertize on this site. I’m linking to the piece because it’s a really persuasive one.)

CAFETERIA CATHOLICISM ON THE RIGHT: I don’t think anyone could consider this NRO piece by David Oderberg as a terribly nuanced work of theology. But he does point out that the late Pope (and his successor) hold many views anathema to the American right. John Paul II went a long way to moving the Catholic position on the death penalty to one of almost outright opposition in all cases (compare that to how swiftly our president signed death warrants in Texas); and he opposed war in almost all circumstances as well (ahem). His push to the extremes on these issues were of a piece with the push to extremes on the end-of-life (defining a feeding tube as not a medical procedure), on women priests (making it impermissible even to discuss the subject) and clerical celibacy and contraception (making these prohibitions the equivalent of “infallible teaching”). John Paul II was not a liberal or a conservative as we understand those terms in secular society. But he was an rigid absolutist, pushing the boundaries of what is mandatory in the body of doctrine known as Catholicism and drastically reducing the space for personal conscience or dissent on lesser moral or prudential matters. The new Pope was deeply involved in this “creeping infallibilism” and attack on conscience and dissent as well. Some argue that the “life” issues are paramount. But isn’t the death penalty a “culture of life” issue? And isn’t war a matter of life and death? The truth is that the late Pope made things just as difficult for conservative Catholics as for liberal ones. Each wing has dissented in its own way, although the liberals have tended to worry more about it. (I didn’t see much hand-wringing at NRO, for example, over the Iraq war. I did see a lot of invective directed toward the Vatican.) My own view is that dissent on some moral teachings is perfectly compatible with being a Catholic, as long as you don’t differ on the central tenets. What John Paul II and Benedict XVI have done is drastically increase the scope and content of those central tenets until there’s little oxygen left for conscience, dissent or theological freedom. That was and is the problem. Only more oxygen will allow the church to breathe and grow. Conservatives and liberals would benefit from the debate.

Finally gets his come-uppance. It does, I think, behoove us to acknowledge that the Bush team’s war on al Qaeda has been bearing fruit. They deserve our praise as well as criticism. And this guy looks like one of “Team America’s” under-cover actor-spies.