>Interesting.
>
>And it now appears, according to multiple accounts (including the BBC report
>excerpted below) that the loss of a *sizable percentage* of his majority has
>indeed happened.
Blair's Labour didn't get a majority. On the contrary, a massive majority of brits voted against Labour, which only managed to get 36.2% of the vote. So he didn't lose "a *sizable percentage* of his majority", because he never had a majority to begin with. His minority merely got smaller. (Down from 41% of the vote to $36%.)
>Of course, we'll have to wait and see if he finishes his term or, as
>you say, is
>replaced.
>
>In the meantime I expect some amount of chest thumping from Tony's Washington
>friends who will no doubt spin his return to office as a victory for
>the square
>jawed, anti-terror coalition that's been such a smashing success thus far (cue
>Condi Rice to deliver one of her *freedom* speeches).
A victory? Labour in the UK is a government with no mandate. Nearly two-thirds of those who voted, voted against the government. I suppose it is arguable that, if the country was a modern democracy with preferential voting, the government might still have won a majority on preferences. But that's entirely hypothetical. Under the Dickensian electoral system actually used, British Labour will be a government without any democratic credentials.
Anyone who tries to make that out as a victory for freedom and democracy would have to be mathematically challenged. 36% is barely a respectable minority.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas