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And the winner is . . .
And the winner is . . .
I assume that Prime Minister Theresa May will have big regrets about her snap elections. She almost desperately wanted a large majority in the House of Commons to show extensive public support and obtain a strong mandate for her Brexit strategy. After counting the votes, the dreamed majority was vaporized and the Tories are still the largest but without the overall desired power in the House.
Labour won but not enough to become the largest party so is still doomed to play the opposition role. Jeremy Corbyn was hailed as the man who brought Labour back on track but despite the strong campaign, his starting position was to weak to really be able to challenge the Conservatives for their leadership. Labour with Corbyn still hangs to much onto classic ideals. The party has been lucky that younger voters did not have an alternative. The Greens and LibDems are way too small to have serious impact so they only could not vote at all or choose strategically for Labour.
Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), also overplayed her hand and saw to her stunning surprise that the Scots lost appetite to separate themselves from a Brexited-UK and voters ran towards both the Tories and Labour. Although the last referendum was just a narrow "stay" victory, it was in the light of England still a member of the EU. Scotland would have gained more independent power in the EU but would still be close friends to its EU-neighbour England. Now the UK leaves the EU, the Scots obviously prefer a stay in the UK instead of a standalone position in the EU.
The LibDems lost severely and their leader, Nick Clegg, former deputy Prime Minister, even lost his seat in the House. They knew they had to pay the price for joining the Tories in a coalition government, but this slaughter was a bit unexpected.
The TKIP, the anti-EU loudmouths of former leader Nigel Farage who as a tiny tiny minority was able to mobilize Brexit, was shred into pieces, zero seats in the House, and will most likely not overcome this loss ever again.
Every party will count their blessings and no doubt many arguments will pop up to explain the shallow outcome of a hung parliament. Of course the awful terrorist attacks are pointed to as the major disturbance in these elections and to some extent they are. However, lets be honest, terrorists are unfortunately getting too common to ignore them in a political arena. Additionally the whole meaning of Brexit was to close the UK borders in an attempt to minimize terrorist attacks and economic impact of a steady flow of immigration. The attacks, performed by people of which half of them have a British passport, proved that current immigration is only part of the problem. It's the "handling" of a multi-cultural society which will never go away anymore. This world has become too small for that.
So, there we are. This 2017 UK general election delivered no real winners at all. It showed painfully that the current UK government is on its own. Internally with a damaged PM Theresa May and scattered political landscape with no real majorities. And internationally because May's Brexit strategy obviously did not gather supporting power from the people and leaves May with a weak negotiation position.
But as history shows, Brits will not easily admit wrong decisions so Brexit will continue, whatever the costs.
Rule, Britannia!
(thanks to Marian Kamensky for the awesome cartoon)
France at ease
Last Sunday the French remained calm and chose wisely for Macron with a significant majority. Europe held her breath during the day because Le Pen still could have a chance. But reasonably, if both incumbants had not made such a mess of their campaigns, Le Pen probably would not have survived at all in the first round. Well, we will never know but la douce France and Europe is saved for the time being although we have to wait until Macron's "revolutionary changes" plan sees the daylight.
Meanwhile everybody congratulated Macron and his victory and prime ministers and presidents from all over the world tumble over each other for a first meeting. Why, well because all of a sudden France is the key to a stable Europe. Germany can't pull the wagon alone, the UK is gone, the rest is to weak or just to small.
I can only hope the young shoulders of Macron can carry that load. Fortunately he has an experienced coach, the new First Lady of France :D
(thanks to Taylor Jones for a great cartoon)
French elections and alternative facts
The stockmarkets cheered on Monday after the first round in France Macron won and polls show that Macron will win again with big numbers on May 7th. Obviously investors believe that it's good for France that Marie Le Pen (and also anti-Europe communist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon) lost. Good for France means good for business so good for the economy, employment of people and stability. After all, when companies thrive and grow in free European and global markets, they employ more co-workers, pay them more and create better opportunities.
Apparently, voters for Le Pen, Trump, Wilders, Brexit and many others are happy with their "economics" and choose for "protection from foreign influences", whatever that may be: Immigrants, imports of goods and services, different cultures, other currencies ...
They most striking recent event reflecting "heart over brain" was last weekend when co-workers of Alitalia, the Italian national airline, chose to revoke the restructuring plans. Effectively it means, that they all will probably not get paid next month, will be fired soon and that Alitalia will stop to exist this year. It's hard to imagine why people chose to commit suicide collectively like a slice of lemmings jumping from a cliff. Obviously there are reasons why people in the US, UK, France and many other countries drive themselves to decisions sound minds would not make.
The only reason I can think of is "proganda". KellyAnn Conway, senior Trump advisor, coined "alternative facts" as new Scrabble word, in fact a synonym for propaganda. Alternative facts are information items that focus on the hearts of people, creating an emotion that will prevail over any other real fact. They leave away the real nuanced world and context, create another virtual world and make people believe they are better off following that tale. Russian, North Korean, US, UK and many other "tales" don not differ from each other in terms of "alternative facts". They only differ in their enemies.
Even worse is that these tales are fueled by hard to eliminate feelings of discrimination and protectionism. And all of this happens in the "democratic free world". It's quite amazing how the definition of that has changed over the last decades since WOII and the Cold War. Obviously collaborations like NATO, UN and the EU are in dispute and priorities have changed from "Together we are strong" to "Me, me, me first". Or maybe the former was propaganda too :)
Stay calm, believe in yourself, friends and family. That is where your life is all about :D
(big thanks to Peter Schrank for the great cartoon)
Bulgarian excitement
Bulgaria had an exciting weekend. Not only they humiliated the Dutch in a football world cup qualification match with 2-0 but last Sunday the advanced Bulgarian parliament elections came to a result. The GERB, conservative and pro-EU, won the elections. Not that surprisingly but still delicate because their leader Borisov resigned as PM after the loss of his candidate Tacheva to socialist and Russia focused Radev in the presidential elections in November last year.
However, GERB only won about a third of parliament seats so a (probably long) coalition negotiation is on its way. But, like most Bulgarians, even Borisov has a weak spot for Russia and Putin so maybe that will drive coalition success together with Ninova of the BSP (Bulgarian Socialist Party).
Deal maker or breaker could be Karadya of the MDL (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) representing the 700.000 Turkish minority. In a only 7 MIO population country this is something to take care about. The Ottoman sword of Erdogan as a neighbour reaches most definitely into EU borders here.
I was priviledged to drive through the Bulgarian inlands recently and was struck by its beauty but by its torn apart nature as well. Completely abandoned villages where older people moved to big cities like Sofia and the younger even left the country were interspersed with flowering EU sponsored towns looking to the future in good spirits. This country really deserves some good leadership and some help to flower again as it did centuries ago.
Election season is not over. Vote with your mind, heart and soul (in that order :)))
(many thanks to the great cartoons of STASKL)
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