Re #8, Thatcher—or rather, her party—had roughly the same vote share as Sarkozy got in the 1st round, but due to the French TRS, Sarkozy gets majority affirimation in the 2nd round.

Admittedly, France has what sometimes seems to be as full a set of checks and balances as America does.

But then France is a country with all of America’s vices and none of its virtues, and vice versa.

Less jaundiced souls than mine (like yabonn at #5) may be right in stating that that Emmott chap is a tad more clevah and less annoying than the average WSJ columnist. His musings remain just as redundant and predictable as those of his peers, though.

He does endear himself to his readership when he mentions Koizumi, Thatcher and Reagan in the same breath (and I found the specification of their respective countries particularly helpful, truth be told). The “Koizumi is Japan´s Reagan” soundbite has bounced a bit around the media (not least in Japan), but given that in spite of all reforms Japan´s economy will remain distinctly Japanese (and rightly so, all things considered), it´safe to say that it´s bollocks.

Of course, Mr. Emmott would argue that he´s only stressing the “brave outsider” bit. The implied link is clear, though. And calling a president that was as closely chaperoned as Ronnie an “outsider” is just priceless. So bollocks, it is.

Fluffy waste of everybody´s time, if you ask me.

His choice of words is cringe-worthy, though. Colbertian? WTF?

At the same time, the mood in France is not unlike that in the US when Reagan came to power: large sections of the population are convinced that the state´s services benefit other people (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that obviously don´t deserve them. The success of Sarkozy´s thinly-veiled racism, his denunciations of the “fléau” or political correctness or the crap about the “élitisme” of the left and the need to “liquider l´héritage de mai 68” are expressions of this mood.

It´s hard to envision him as Maggie´s French counterpart yet, but he could well implement significant labour market reforms and substantial reductions of social programs. I personally regard the former with far less scepticism than the latter.

Except in England. The government crawls on its belly to big business, seems to want to close all small businesses.

Or, alternatively, the older parts of the vote were never going to vote for a woman, regardless of her policies. That was certainly the case among farmers, who on the face of it would have benefitted more from voting for her.

It’s hard to think of a more striking failure of checks and balances than is unfolding now, as the executive orders troops into combat while trying to stampede the legislature into providing the funding for it.

You’re not thinking very hard. Recently, the UK Parliament came strikingly close to passing a bill that would’ve obsoletin itself. Yep, a Blair for dictator bill. THAT would’ve been a striking failure of checks and balances.