Quote of the day: on politics

In opposition Mr Cameron vowed that, were he to become prime minister, politics and government would not be "some demented branch of the entertainment industry". So far, he has been as good as his word. This seems to be a government that speaks up when it has something to say, but when it hasn't, or when keeping quiet is more sensible, it doesn't. It is both quiet and dramatic at the same time.

Awesome, that the British prime minister actually described politics and government as "some demented branch of the entertainment industry" ... Good you, Mr. Cameron.
In that same posting, Bagehot of The Economist also notes that

Right-wing British newspapers are often every bit as shrill as the American media. Leaping on the chance to display some easy, knee-jerk patriotism, several urged David Cameron to stand up for “British Petroleum” and rebuke Barack Obama for demonising the company. Instead, the line has been that the government neither owns nor will disown BP—and quietly to point out that the firm has lots of American shareholders and employees too. Ministers saw Mr Obama’s rhetoric for what it was: the flailing of a politician in a desperate fix. By saying very little in public, they defused what threatened to become a juvenile spat.

I really, really hope that this Tory-LibDem coalition will work out ...

Quote of the day, and more about the UK democratic experiment

We will be strong in the defence of freedom.  The Government believes the British state has become too authoritarian, and that over the past decade it has abused fundamental human rights and historic civil liberties

That is the preamble to the "civil liberties" section of the platform that the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition government. (ht) 
Simply awesome.  After the triangulating Tony Blair and the rather dull Gordon Brown, and their bizarre fetish to faithfully follow the Bush/Cheney approach to infringing on civil liberties, wow, what a refreshing set of sentences.  It simply gets better; here is a sampling:

• We will introduce a Freedom Bill.
• We will scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register and the ContactPoint database, and halt the next generation of biometric passports.
• We will outlaw the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
• We will extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.

Hey, can we get that government here, too?  Andrew Sullivan points out that the new "coalition" government is going exactly where President Obama with his huge majority wimped out:

A judge will investigate claims that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said tonight. ...
Hague's statement redeems a pledge that both he and his then Liberal Democrat opposite number, Ed Davey, made in opposition. Hague told the BBC: "We have said again in the coalition agreement that we want a judge-led inquiry. So will there be an inquiry of some form? Yes, both parties in the coalition said they wanted that. Now what we're working on is what form that should take."
The coalition agreement published today by the government does not explicitly call for a judicial inquiry; it simply states: "We will never condone the use of torture."

Glenn Greenwald, too, points out this contrast:

[Just] contrast all of this to what is taking place in the United States under Democratic Party rule.  We get -- from the current Government -- presidential assassination programs, detention with no charges, senseless demands for further reductions of core rights when arrested, ongoing secret prisons filled with abuse, military commissions, warrantless surveillance of emails, and presidential secrecy claims to block courts from reviewing claims of government crimes.  The Democratic-led Congress takes still new steps to block the closing of Guantanamo.  Democratic leaders push for biometric, national ID cards.  The most minimal surveillance safeguards are ignored.  Even the miniscule limits on eavesdropping powers are transgressed.  And from just this week:  "Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday" (h/t Dan Gillmor). Can anyone even imagine for one second Barack Obama standing up and saying:  "My administration believes that the American state has become too authoritarian"?

It will be neat if a news person can get Dick Cheney's reaction to the coalition government's platform.  BTW, where is that war criminal man?  He has not been snarking in the news lately ...