Bad News for the Brits

Here is a bit from an article by Martin Lewis on the Huffington Post that questions the quality of "leader" that the UK just elected:

Born 1966. Raised in a fabulously wealthy family as heir to a massive family fortune. His Conservative Party is committed to passing a tax cut that will only benefit the 3,000 richest families in the UK -- including his own of course.

...

A well-documented typical evening while Cameron was a member in the late 1980s consisted of the members taking over one of Oxford's fanciest restaurants for the night, eating the priciest food on the menu, ordering and quaffing copious quantities of the most expensive wines and champagnes -- and then totally trashing and destroying the entire restaurant, furniture and fittings. The coup de grace at the end of each such excursion was to go up to the traumatized, distraught restaurant owner and, in a gesture that dates back to the aristocrat-peasant relationship of centuries passed, contemptuously throw wads of banknotes at the hapless owner as recompense for the massive damage caused.

That is the background of Britain's new Prime Minister -- whose only employment other than climbing the greasy pole of Conservative Party politics to become party leader was a stint as corporate flack and spin-master for a down-market TV network.

There's a lot more by Lewis in his article. He is definitely not enchanted by the David Cameron election win.

One comment from a reader of the Lewis article points out that Lewis may be a bit over the top in his criticisms of Cameron:

There are vast differences between Cameron and Bush. Bush owed his 'success' solely to his father's position and not to any talent of his own - Bush was a C student, Cameron an intellectual by comparison - Bush's presidency was established courtesy of a Supreme Court stuffed with his daddy's appointees - Cameron's Prime Ministership was hammered out with Clegg and others.

As for 'protecting the rich,' I wish! The Tories have already had to scrap the pledge to raise the Inheritance Tax threshold... what's next? By the way, IHT in UK begins at £350,000 - compare, please, to US, where it's what.... $2 m?

The truth will come out over time. But on the face of it, a Conservative Party win means that political power tips to the rich and away from the middle and lower classes. I'm all for a "throw out the rascals" approach to politics. But you don't want to throw out a set of small rascals only to let in a batch of even bigger rascals. It appears to me the UK has just made this mistake.