Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

British prime minister David Cameron's Conservative party won an unexpected majority in the national election three days ago.  Polls for several months had pointed to a close election with neither the Conservatives nor chief opposition the Labor party getting a majority.  Even though I am no expert on British politics, I am going to make a couple of observations.

Cameron won election in 2010 after the world financial crisis made it impossible for the ruling Labor party to stay in power.  Since then the UK, as the U.S., have made a good recovery.  But like the U.S., the citizens of the UK are not convinced that the recovery is fast enough or permanent.  Social unrest and terrorist threats are actually worse in Britain than the U.S.  So given that Obama's ratings have been low and the Democrats had been shellacked in the last mid term election, it would not be surprising that the Conservatives maybe in trouble. 

Of course Republicans can attack Obamacare but then the British health system is way more socialistic than Obamacare and there is no call from Cameron and conservatives to get rid of it.  I think rather than comparing to the U.S., the British election should be compared to the recent Israeli election.  That election polls also pointed to a close race with Netanyahu probably losing.  Turns out Netanyahu won despite low ratings for his economic and general performance.  Netanyahu won because of scare tactics about his opposition will be dangerous for Israel's security.  Right or wrong, this proved to have worked.

Cameron warned about Labor's close ties with Scottish separatists and the European Union.  He arouse fear about immigration problems with Labor in charge and that the UK will lose its independence to the European Union if Labor wins.  Right or wrong, this tactic also worked.

Cameron is not a conservative extremist.  He will try to keep the Scottish in the UK.  And with Scotland having had a negative vote on independence last year, he can easily decline to have another referendum in the near future.  He has promised a vote on staying in the European Union by 2017 to placate the conservative voters.  I don't think he wants to bolt from the Union but if the UK does leave, it will be a blow to Europe and Britain itself.  Meanwhile, I don't think the relationship with the U.S. will change.  Like Thacher-Regan and Blair-Clinton, Cameron and Obama have a good working relationship and it won't change with this election result.  But maybe Obama should have learned from Cameron and Netanyahu and asked the electorate:  Do you want to go back to recession and war under the previous administration?