The Feld-Blog

Greetings from abroad. As I cavort about Europe this week, it occurs to me that the Feld-Blog hasn't been updated in a few days and so I am writing a short post from London. Here is a political rant Brit-style.

Last week Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair's Anti-terrorist bill was defeated in the House of Commons. This is especially astounding since Mr. Blair's own Labour Party already has a majority in Parliament. If he can get almost all of his own party to vote for his bills they all pass. This is why England undergoes sweeping changes every time Parliament changes hands - since the party in power already has a majority, the PM is usually able to push any piece of legislation he or she wants through parliament with relatively little difficulty.

Recently, however, a bunch of Tony Blair's own party members defected (a very serious offense in England - much more so than in Congress) to defeat what was essentially the 'Patriot Act' for the UK. Brits were able to recognize the absurdly broad powers these kinds of acts afford investigators and the ensuing blanket infringements on basic English rights, this all in the wake of the recent London bombings. Members of Parliament were not so short-sighted as to follow their leader into a domestic nightmare, I can only hope that Members of Congress will soon follow suit. So far they don't seem to have that track record.