BRITAIN VOTES TOMORROW – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  And our Michael Barone is there.  He isn't exactly finding a Churchill or Thatcher in the mess of candidates:

British voters go to the polls tomorrow, and it appears likely that they will boot the party in power for only the second time in 31 years. Margaret Thatcher's Conservatives ousted a Labor government in May 1979 and Tony Blair's "New Labor" party ousted the Conservatives in May 1997...

...My impression, watching from abroad and this week in Britain, is that in the course of this campaign voters have, to varying extents, rejected both of the two major parties and the third party, Liberal Democrats, as well.

Refreshing.  How refreshing.

The big story for most of the official campaign period was the rise of the Lib Dems as a result of their leader Nick Clegg's performance in the first debate on April 15. Clegg damned both parties for mismanagement and bickering -- something you can do when your party holds only 67 of 650 seats in the House of Commons.

But the polls indicate that the Lib Dem surge has ebbed. Clegg's call for legalization of illegal immigrants hurt him in the third debate, and so did his past support for Britain to drop the pound and join the euro -- a position that's hard to defend when the Greek fiscal crisis is putting the euro at risk.

That's the tip of Al Gore's rapidly melting iceberg.  Clegg is anti-American and, in some ways, even anti-British.  He has compared his own country to the Nazis.  A dangerous, deluded man.

That leaves the Conservative party, led by David Cameron since December 2005, in the lead...

...The way the district boundaries are drawn gives Labor an advantage; it is not going to lose light-voting working-class seats. But the Conservatives' lead in the polls makes it likely they will win more seats than Labor, in which case Cameron will form a government.

The big question is whether Labor and Lib Dems will together win enough seats to deny Cameron an absolute majority and hold one themselves. If so, they may force another election in six months or next year. If not, Conservatives might hold on for four or five years...

...Hard slogging is ahead for Britain, whatever the voters do.

COMMENT:  I'm afraid that's the truth.  This isn't the Britain of the blitz or the spirit of "Very well, alone."  This is the Britain of the nanny state, and the suction of that state has even drawn in some conservatives. 

Of course, Obama would like nothing better than to see a British government that is hostile to him.  Then he can draw even further away from the "special relationship," and continue the hard grovel toward the nations he prefers.  After all, why ride in a Rolls-Royce when you can hop on a goat?

May 5, 2010