CAN'T HURT TO OPPOSE THE FRANCO-GERMANS:

Changing sides on foreign policy (Paul Reynolds, 4/05/05, BBC News)

It is one of the ironic features of modern British politics that the two major parties have switched roles on foreign policy over recent years.

And so it is that Labour goes into the election as a pro-European party and the Conservatives, who took Britain into Europe in the first place, are now critical and suspicious.

And it is Labour which has picked up the pro-American baton left by Mrs Thatcher and has run with it to outdistance even the American enthusiasms of the Tories.

Tony Blair and his foreign secretary Jack Straw say nice things about the American president George Bush that might make even Mrs Thatcher blush.

Half a century and more after Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt formed the "special relationship," it is a Labour government that has kept it alive.

There's not much percentage in being pro-American, but whichever party goes totally anti-Europe first stands to reap big gains. Indeed, the Tories never would have lost power had they heeded Margaret Thatcher's Euroskepticism.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 6, 2005 1:47 PM