UK elections and other news

The recent UK parliamentary election had an interesting result; the first hung Parliament, as they are called, since 1974. This means that no party got a majority of the seats, so either there will be a minority government or a coalition government. The Conservatives got the most seats, but even they are well-short of a majority, and so they are now trying to make a deal with the third-place Liberal Democrats. If that doesn't work out, the Conservatives might try to form a minority government, or the Liberal Democrats might join forces with second-place Labour, though the two would also need the support of several small parties such as the Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties in order to reach a majority.

Having read through a (admittedly very cursory) summary of the main parties' positions on key issues (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8669043.stm), I have to say that I think it's regrettable that the Liberal Democrats didn't do as well as pre-election polls seemed to indicate they might, as they seem fairly progressive on many issues, being better than Labour on at least a few. That they are generally closer to Labour politically has been pointed out in a number of articles on the results, which is one reason their negotiations with the Conservatives will be difficult. Apparently a leader of the Scottish nationalists has already urged the Liberal Democrats to join with them, Labour, the Welsh nationalists, and the Irish nationalist parties in a "progressive coalition" rather than joining the Conservatives, though Liberal Democratic leader Nick Clegg has said that as the winner of the most votes and most seats, the Conservatives should have the first opportunity at forming a government.

As for the Conservatives, while their leader David Cameron seems to be fairly moderate on a number of issues and as a whole they seem better than the US's Republican party, they are still too far to the right on some issues for me to be eager to see them in charge. There were even a number of their candidates for MP who are climate change deniers, though I don't know how many of those got elected. The biggest hindrance to their making a deal with the Liberal Democrats is that the latter may insist on substantial moves towards electoral reform. They want a radical change in the way MPs are elected, one that not coincidentally would mean more seats for them -- but it's a reasonable position for them to take, as under the current system, the smaller parties, including the Liberal Democrats, end up with proportionately far fewer seats then their percentages of the total votes. Many Conservatives, on the other hand, oppose changing the current system, which is more favorable to them. Labour, on the other hand, has expressed greater willingness to support electoral reform, though the system they prefer is different from the one favored by the Liberal Democrats (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/election_2010/8644480.stm).

I'd probably most like to see a progressive coalition like the one mentioned above, though one problem would be that either the unpopular Gordon Brown would remain as prime minister, or (more likely, given the news that he is quitting as Labour leader) there would be a prime minister (i.e., the new Labour leader) who had not actually been running for the position in the election. There's also the fact that the governor of the Bank of England is rumored to have remarked privately just before the election that whichever party ends up in charge will in the long run end up out of power for many years into the future, as it will be forced to take many steps that are sure to be unpopular. If this is the case, perhaps it would be better if the Conservatives end up in charge after all.

In other election news, the Philippines have held a presidential election in which it looks like the winner is Benigno Aquino III, the son of the recently deceased former President Corazon Aquino and her assassinated husband Benigno Aquino, Jr. As there were a number of candidates, Aquino probably will not end up with a majority, but the latest count shows him well ahead of the second-place vote-getter, former President Joseph Estrada. While I know too little about the younger Aquino to be able to guess how he is likely to perform, his mother, while not perfect, was one of the better and perhaps more importantly cleaner leaders the Philippines has had (Estrada was removed from office over corruption, and outgoing President Gloria Arroyo also faces accusations of corruption, as well as of vote-rigging in the previous presidential election), so one might hope that he will also be okay, or at least better than the other candidates would have been.

Another major news item is that US President Obama has announced that he is nominating Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court. In a number of ways she seems like a good choice, as she is apparently liberal (though little is known of her views on a number of major issues) but also capable of building consensuses by reaching out to conservatives. She is also known to be highly intelligent and capable. I have read a criticism of her from the left for her failure to win the recent big case on corporate political speech before the Supreme Court (though I have some doubts about how much she deserves the blame for that), and another on her handling of military recruiters at Harvard when she was dean of the law school there (basically she tried to bar them from campus due to the military's discriminatory policies towards gays and lesbians, which the writer argued was bad as despite its flaws the military still is the defender of the nation -- an argument I have limited sympathy for but can understand). We'll see what else conservative opponents may manage to dredge up, but for now she seems like a decent selection.