[dogscoff]

At the begining of this we heard a lot of reckless talk about taking the war to Iran and Syria after Iraq. We don't hear that talk anymore much thankfully.

Bery true, hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out.
Of course it might have as much to do with the fact that another Iraq (or at least, another Iraq in the next few years) would be political suicide for Bush or Blair. What with all the scandals and revelations of skullduggery and deception they are only just holding on to their jobs now. Blair certainly, Bush probably less so.

Can;t wait for the upcoming local elections over here, labour are going to get obliterated.

I used to be a real labour supporter, but Blair's support of Bush has turned me right against them. We have no viable left-wing party now on the national level, just right (tory party: corrupt, inept and inelectable.), almost-as-far-right (Blair's labour: to think labour used to be a proper socialist party ) and a central party (Liberals: Never been in power, so who knows?).

In local elections we will also have the usual array of independents, extremists and wierdoes, but also the "UK Independence party", which is basically a nasty, reactionary right wing little setup which cares for nothing more than flatly defying anything the other side of the channel and beating up on immigrants and refugees. They will do very well in the local elections, and in doing so split the tory vote right down the middle. Labour will probably lose most of its votes to the liberals, with a few more protest voters drifting rightwards.

I think we'll have the greatest number of liberal MPs this time around than ever in history, and with a little luck we might even end up with a liberal govmnt one of these days. Most of their policies seem ok (they have consistantly opposed the war) but then they never expected to get into power so they can say what the hell they like . Personally I'd vote for anyone within spitting distance of the left who wasn't just in politics for ulterior motives.

Still, the liberals deserve a chance imho. I'll vote for them and (hopefully) see what they look like in power. If they turn out to be as corrupt as the rest of them I've decided I'm going to give up on democracy altogether and become a crazy-eyed anarchist.