Democracy, Brit style

As Josh Marshall at TPM points out, you have to appreciate "the weird mix of high dudgeon and understatement that is the hallmark of British public politics" to properly enjoy this. But enjoy it you will, for about 11 minutes. (Some of the tangled background here.)

The Murdoch media scandal they are chewing over of course has implications for this side of the Atlantic. The bullying billionaire rightwinger owns the Fox media empire as well as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, and Harper Collins publishing. Every British politician of all parties for the last generation has had to come to some kind of accommodation with Murdoch's thuggish outlets, as ours do with Fox.

People familiar with the debates in the British House of Commons often mourn that few of our politicians could survive if this kind of unscripted verbal fluency were required of them. On the other hand, their pols are seldom nearly so practiced at glad-handing folks at church picnics. Different skills for different continents.