by Sam Roggeveen
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13 May 2008 2:22PM
John responds to Michael Fullilove's post about the 'global conservative movement' described by NY Times columnist David Brooks:
David Brooks' column suffers more from the sin of reading too much theoretical significance into what could easily be interpreted as ordinary old 'election cycle' change. On a number of scores the UK electorate seems to be growing tired of Labour, not least having been around for a long while; while the Cameroons (as some commentators rather fetchingly call them) seem to be getting their act together and looking plausible. In the Australian media one often sees this 'over-reading' on an almost daily basis which ignores the sheer contingency of events that drives political decision making. There is of course a proper place for trying to highlight key differences in approach between parties but it's probably a mistake to give them too much explanatory power — in some ways this is what 'the drive to the centre' has brought about.
