The New York Times has an illuminating piece about American politics this afternoon that happens to be set in Britain:
Prime Minister David Cameron of the Conservative Party…argues that years of austerity have corrected the profligate years of Labour rule and that tough immigration laws are protecting British values and jobs.
The British elections in 2015 will be waged over these competing economic visions, Mr. Cameron’s hard-right anti-immigrant stance, and the candidates’ abilities to manage coalition partners.
One of the advisers to this anti-immigration, anti-government-spending Conservative Party politician is Jim Messina. Messina managed Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and is co-chairmain of Priorities USA, which is sometimes described as the United States’ “largest liberal super PAC” and which will support Hillary Clinton in 2016. His decision to work for Cameron is perhaps the most prominent example yet of ex-Obama aides’ gravitation toward high-earning and perhaps ideologically dubious consulting careers, and was highlighted by a recent visit to London by David Axelrod, another longtime Obama ally, who is working for the opposition Labour Party.
Messina told the Times in his defense that “English politics is not analogous” to United States politics—that the Conservative Party is not the equivalent of the Republican Party—and that Cameron holds admirable positions on gay rights, health care, and climate change.
