User blog comment:Centrist16/SOMETHING EVERYONE MUST KNOW/@comment-3398633-20150809140026/@comment-3398633-20150810002407

Dog, I know that Labour lost in 2010, but they still had considerable influence in the Parliament, and 256 seats in the House Commons. You need a two-thirds majority vote to pass any laws in the UK, and Labour had nearly half of the seats. Like with the Republicans, any political opposition with that many seats and pose a stiff obstacle to the majority party regardless of their coalition size. I don't mean to tell you how your own government works, but the point is that Labour could still get leftist laws passed as a part of any comprimises they had with the Tories in order to get anything done. That is, if the way the US Congress works is anything to go by.

Once again, the Tories still required two-thirds majority to pass a bill, and they stil only had 53-54% of the seats, not 66%. So in the end, though the Tories had more votes by default, they didn't have the absolute majority needed to pass any laws without some support from Labour. That's why I said Labour's policies did a number on the British economy. Without Labour support in some form, the Tories couldn't get anything done. To pass laws, some Labour Party demands would have to be met, meaning Labour Party policies slipping in with Tory policies every so often. I watched the British debates, criticisms, and commentary during the elections. I know what happened and how it happened. I wouldn't be commenting on it if I didn't.

I'll agree with you on Blair being Thatcher 2.0 Lite. Can't argue with that. As for the immigration issue, I bring it up for the same reason Nigel Farage did. Socialist policies toward immigration resulted in an open door policy for Britain, and island nation suffering from the same issues as Sweden. Not enough housing, not enough jobs, and population growth outstripping infrastructure development. None of that is conductive to economic growth. On the Iraq War, Blair did it because turning his back on the United States and our "special relationship", even if the cause was stupid, wasn't political sustainable. If Blair turned his back on the US, even if a leftist, the US government would have never let him live it down. Also remember that the Republicans, not the Democratics, were in control of the government here during the Iraq War.

Libertarianism isn't widely popular in the United States, and conservatives are not omnipresent in the country every though they like everyone to think they are. Mind you, Mitt Romney, a Republican, instituted universal healthcare in his state of Massachusetts, and Republicans loved him for it. It was only when Obama threatened to win a second-term that Obama's version of universal healthcare was villified by the right. So not all is as it seems.

On Greece, Greece never had a history of being economically responsible as an independent state. It refused to pay many of its debts in the 1800s, defaulted on one of its debts in the 1930s, and negotiated three separate bailouts between the 1970s and 2000s. Mind you, Greek citizens retire too early, recieve pensions that are too large, and benefits that the government simply doesn't have to money for. Had it not been for the Eurozone, Greece would have defaulted on its loans anyway, and this time without any support from its neighbors, who had no legal obligations to come to Greece's rescue.