Britain’s New Prime Minister Openly Channels … Bernie Sanders?

[New British Prime Minister Theresa] May — who campaigned for “remain” in last month’s E.U. referendum — had vowed to unify her bitterly divided party by appointing “leave” and “remain” advocates alike to top posts. She has made good on that pledge.

But she also chosen to banish Gove and others who had been critical players in David Cameron’s government since he brought the Conservatives back to power in 2010. Another key figure who found himself out of a job was George Osborne, who had been the country’s top finance official.

Cameron, Osborne and Gove had together been known as the “Nottting Hill set,” a group of relatively young, Oxford-educated men who sought to modernize a party long known for its fustiness. May is also studied at Oxford, but was never considered part of that clubby grouping. …

The thorough sweep came just a day after May’s rise to power abruptly ended a chaotic, weeks-long leadership void in Britain.

Minutes after curtsying before a handbag-toting queen at Buckingham Palace — the moment May formally ascended to the country’s highest political office — she pledged that a post-E.U. Britain will prosper in its new incarnation, and become more fair and more equitable.

“As we leave the European Union, we will forge a bold, new, positive role for ourselves in the world, and we will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few but for every one of us,” May said as she stood in front of 10 Downing Street for the first time as prime minister.

May’s speech marked a striking departure from the typical austerity-laden rhetoric of her Conservative Party. Instead of dwelling on the deficit, the country’s second-ever female prime minister emphasized the need to fight “burning injustice,” saying she will work on behalf of the poor, women and minorities.

She also pledged to defend the “precious bond of the United Kingdom,” a nod to her determination to beat back a revitalized secessionist movement in Scotland driven by opposition to the decision to leave the European Union. …

May has been a hawk on the issue of reducing the number of immigrants entering Britain and pushed for a greater government role in electronic surveillance.

Her views on foreign and economic policy are less known. But in her first major speech on the economy this week, her tone was more liberal than expected — emphasizing the need to spur growth and close the gap between rich and poor.

Theresa May puts stamp on British government with mass firing of Cameron ministers, Griffe Witte, Washington Post, this morning  today

Whoa.  Okay, it is by now well acknowledged that Bernie Sanders effectively won the party platform debate, for the most part, anyway.  And my take on Clinton’s comments to us Sanders supporters is that they were sincere; I didn’t view the video or read a transcript, but did read two or three articles about the rally that quoted Clinton’s statements to us, and they sounded sweet, graceful and true.

I think she realizes now that she not only needs most of Sanders’ supporters but also has a better chance to win potential Rust Belt Trump primary voters and also stanch the damage from the Comey email statements last week with the platform as it is rather than as it would have been without the Sanders campaign.

But never in my wildest imagination did I expect that the new British prime minister would coopt so much of Bernie’s campaign language.

The paragraph from the above excerpt of the Post article about defending the “precious bond of the United Kingdom” would seem irrelevant to our presidential campaign, but I do think it’s relevant because Scotland voted (overwhelmingly, I believe) against Brexit.  In other words, May did not direct her Sanders-esque language solely at that Brexit, anti-immigrant, xenophobic British voters but also at Britain’s Bernie Sanders supporters’ counterparts.

The article’s sentence that “May has been a hawk on the issue of reducing the number of immigrants entering Britain and pushed for a greater government role in electronic surveillance” obviously is not Sanders-esque.  Yet apparently she chose in his speech not to mention it.

That so much of her statement today on economic policy apparently took Britain by surprise reflects the swiftness with which major Western politicians are awakening to the remarkably sudden shifts of the political tectonic plates from their positions of the last 40 years.

And I’m so proud to have been a part of the catalyst, if only a teensy tiny part.

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AND BREAKING NEWS: It looks like PENCE!  As in: Hey, all you folks who thought I’d bring CHANGE.  Apologies.  But I decided instead to go seriously ESTABLISHMENT.

No worries, though.  I’m giving all you Rust Belt types who support me cuz of CHANGE a steep discount for classes at the soon-to-be-revived Trump University.

And by the way, I will absolutely continue to deny that I plan to resign before the inauguration or shortly afterward, this just-kidding-about-anti-establishment-and-change thing not be enough to defeat me cuz of Hillary’s email thing.  (Okay, I’ll just make sure the DONORS recognize that I will, so I don’t havetuh fund my campaign myself. But the upside is that I’ll be available as a professor at Trump U.)

Well, praise the Lord.  Hillary Clinton is, I’m sure.  (I mean, not that Christie would have been better for Trump.  But since Pence is even more Retro than Trump’s pompadour, it’s better for us true progressives and will absolutely highlight our party’s platform.  It’s different than Christie would have been.)

Perfect.  Today is a good day.

But please, Hillary Clinton, choose a true progressive as your running mate.  Seriously; heed Prime Minister May’s tacit advice.  (And mine, of course.)  Pretty please.  Beautiful please.