It's an interesting time. We American progressives still tend to look on Tony Blair with admiration. He talks the same talk as Barack Obama, so I hope Obama doesn't end up disappointing us like Blair disappointed progressives in the UK. Gordon Brown doesn't impress anybody, so there's good reason for people to be disillusioned with Labour in the UK. I don't know enough about government in Ireland to have an opinion.

Yeah, there is reason to fear that the fascists will gain power in the UK and other places - the extremists often gain power in hard times, because people have a right to be upset with the majority parties and their failure to fix the economy. I think that's what happened in Europe in the 1930's. The Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats failed to fix the economy, and the fascists filled the gap. The fascists had a lot of popularity in the U.S. and UK during the thirties, also - but not enough to take over. I don't think things are quite so bad now, but it's something to watch out for.

-Joe-