British Politics -- Entertaining and Nearby

Earlier this week I accompanied Caterham's Lower 6th (similar to our juniors) to a Politics Conference at the Westminster Central Hall in London. The Hall is right across the street from Westminster Abbey and Parliament. The trip reinforced a long-held belief: the Caterham School students are extremely fortunate to be so close (less than an hour's train ride) from one of the world's greatest cities. I occasionally find myself comparing London to New York -- that's accurate but only up to a point. London is not only the financial capital of the United Kingdom but, of course, the political capital as well. So, a more valid way of looking at it would be to say that London is a combination of New York and Washington D.C. That's pretty impressive!

The Conference was quite informative and entertaining. It featured, among others, George Galloway, a very anti-American politician who broke away from the ruling Labor Party to form the Respect Party. He's the only member of Parliament from his party; he spent most of his time criticizing the war in Iraq and answering questions about why he had appeared on the British TV program "Big Brother" pretending to be a cat. Other speakers were from the Liberal Democrat party -- one of whom, after his presentation advocating, among other things, a 150 million pound sterling project to track incoming astroids, belted out a few notes on his harmonica. The two major parties, Labor and the Conservative Party, featured decidedly more mainstream (and, yes, boring) speakers. As we left, one of the Caterham students offered this insightful comment: "the closer you are to political power, the more bland and centerist you have to be." True enough. Third parties, although slightly more powerful in the U.K. than in the U.S., are, in both countries, pushed to the margins of the political spectrum by the two dominant parties.