Britain Gets it Right.....Eventually....Sort of

It's been almost a week since the British elections and finally we found out who was going to be the new Prime Minister. UK voters delivered the Conservatives, under David Cameron, to power, a mere 21 votes shy of a majority. They ousted, unfortunately not zealously enough, PM Gordon Brown from office and despite all the sound and fury about Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg (Britain's Obama, they were told), even knocked his party down 6 seats. So here it was, after 13 years of Labour Party rule, which has seen increasing social breakdown, ever-ballooning debt, a growing nanny state and myriad other problems, the British voters had clearly voted for a change in government. How shocking it was to then see Brown try to hold on to power and form a deal with the 3rd place Liberal Democrats. This parallels between this UK election and our own most recent vote are striking. The Conservative party wins the most seats and votes in a minority government and the 2nd and 3rd place parties (in our case, the Liberals, NDP and Bloc) try to form a coalition. At least here, the people's clear choice was allowed a chance to govern first. I did not support the coalition, but at least it coalesced around real, salient issues in opposition to the government. Brown and Clegg's deal would have simply been a coalition of the losers--and would have been an affront to the voters. But, it all worked out in the end...sort of. Yes, the Conservative Party leader will be the next UK Prime Minister, but as Britain is about to find out, minority governments produce weak, watered-down governments and policies. At a time when the country is facing some real strife, some tough decisions, a minority government, even one propped up by a formal coalition, means decisiveness and commitment will be hard to come by.