[0762]

Looking more closely at the history of British politics Ritchie one can see that since the early 1960s there have only been four elected Labour govts in just under 60 years. It is even worse when looking back say a 100 years. So the British electoral system is skewed towards conservative governance as opposed to an inherent left/socialist/community outlook in the likes of Scotland that has never voted in a Tory govt in over 50 years. IMO the closest to some kinda identifiable joint governance was during David Cameron's alliance with Clegg but, on closer analysis, many of their policies were still conservative and non centrist. They were indeed policies based on an ideology of imposing austere measures on the population with some of them damaging lotsa groups of vulnerable people at the "bottom end" of the populace spectrum. I think pragmatic politics has been missing from British govts for years and political ideology has dominated the machinations of government for far too long. Hence it would always be difficult to "break the mould" and govern as suggested by your Austrian friend. Politicians being distracted by their own political aspirations and dogma in the lead up to and during one of the biggest crises in a century is hugely disappointing and is certainly open to massive criticism.