David Cameron, the youthful leader who modernized the party of right-wing icon Margaret Thatcher, became prime minister Tuesday after the resignation of Gordon Brown — capping a gripping election saga that returns the Tories to government after 13 years of Labor Party rule.
Following tradition, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Mr. Cameron at Buckingham Palace — a stately denouement to a behind-the-scenes dogfight between Mr. Cameron and Mr. Brown for the cooperation of Britain’s third-place party, after an election that left no party with a majority.
……An announcement followed that Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg would become deputy prime minister — a rarely awarded and prestigious post — after days of hard bargaining with his former political rivals. Four other Liberal Democrats also received Cabinet posts in the Cameron government.
Mr. Cameron and Mr. Clegg agreed to form a coalition after the Conservative Party won the most seats in Britain’s May 6 national election, but fell short of winning a majority in Parliament. The agreement, reached over five sometimes tense days of negotiation, delivered Britain’s first full coalition government since World War II.
“Nick Clegg and I are both political leaders who want to put aside party differences and work hard for the common good and for the national interest,” Mr. Cameron said.
The Conservative Party said former leader William Hague will serve as foreign secretary, senior lawmaker George Osborne as Treasury chief, and lawmaker Liam Fox as defense secretary. Other leading positions were being finalized, as were key policy decisions ahead of the presentation of the coalition’s first legislative program on May 25.
The coalition has already agreed on a five-year, fixed-term Parliament — the first time Britain has had the date of its next election decided in advance. Both parties have made compromises, and Mr. Cameron has promised Mr. Clegg a referendum on his key issue: reform of Britain’s electoral system, aimed at creating a more proportional system.
“We are going to form a new government — more importantly, we are going to form a new kind of government,” Mr. Clegg said in a news conference after his party’s lawmakers overwhelmingly approved his decision to enter a coalition with Mr. Cameron.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/12/cameron-new-britain-prime-minister/
Bio at his website: http://davidcameronmp.com/
More background: http://www.bing.com/reference/semhtml/David_Cameron
A “new kind of government? Gawd knows they have quite a selection. There are a multitude of political parties in the U.K. This site compiled a total of 11 major parties and their subsets, along with close to 300 smaller parties: http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/bpp.htm
There’s the requisite socialist and communist “worker’s parties”, and stupid ones like the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. That’s a good summary of British politics.
Trying to sort out the philosophy and platform of each one is a bit complicated, considering the party title and their politics don’t always fit the standard interpretation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_Kingdom
Anyway, good luck to Mr. Cameron. Given the coalitions in British parliament, the damage done to his country by Dhimmis, leftwing wack jobs, and socialized medicine, is likely to go unchecked.
Zabe,
We have our own hell to contend with here. After Obama’s socialist regime gets through destroying America’s infrastructure, it will take decades to unscrew.
Our debt, deficit, and spending is totally out of control. We’re Greece in the making.
SFC MAC
As long as he puts out the fires that rage in the UK economy, I don’t think the British public will mind him too much. As the Tories have been out of power for so long, he will clearly want to make his mark as PM. No.1 priority though is to urgently address the deficit and also tackle the massive unemployment figure. Let’s see. The first htree months will be key.