UK

On Wednesday morning, it looked as though Gordon Brown might have stalled Cleggmania, inching back into second place in some polls. But then he met Gillian Duffy. 

Duffy, a senior citizen and lifelong Labour supporter, bumped into Brown as the prime minister was leaving a meet-and-greet in the town of Rochdale. Duffy told him she was almost ashamed to say she was a Labour voter, and while she would vote for Brown, she had concerns about the national debt, taxes, and immigration. The exchange ended amicably, with Duffy wishing Brown good luck as he climbed into his car. But the prime minister forgot he was wired for sound and lashed out at his aides for allowing Duffy to speak with him. Brown branded the exchange a disaster and called Duffy a "bigoted woman" as his car was leaving the scene.

Paul Volcker and Ronald Reagan tamed inflation and laid the groundwork for 25 years of global economic expansion. The growth was interrupted by just two of the shortest and shallowest recessions on record. The long boom ended in December 2007, when the financial crisis metastasized and the economy went into the worst economic downturn since the 1930s. Reagan is gone, but the octogenarian Volcker advises President Obama on economic policy. Volcker's ideas on busting the banks and banning proprietary trading, when banks trade for themselves and not their customers, seem sensible. Now he's talking up the Value Added Tax (VAT) as a way to bring America's finances into balance. No thanks.

The Times of London, in a story that borders on the passive-aggressive, is reporting that President Obama has refused to endorse British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. The short skinny of this is that there's another Buenos Aires-London row over the rightful ownership of the islands (you may remember that the last such incident ended in rather poor results for Argentina), incited by a British proposal to drill off the Falklands coast. Mostly, though, it's the standard Argentinean response to poor internal economic conditions.

As Operation Moshtarak enters its second week, Americans should take a minute to appreciate just how lucky we are to have the British fighting alongside U.S. and Afghan forces. Their vast experience in imperial counterinsurgency notwithstanding, this marks the third war that the British have fought in the Hindu Kush.

Afghanistan had a profound effect on British military culture. They were defeated on  retreat from Kabul in 1842, a loss so devastating to their collective psyche that it was lamented as "the heaviest calamity that has ever fallen on British arms." The Second Anglo-Afghan War, which came at the height of the Great Game between England and Russia, slightly improved the British posture in the region (and was the inspiration for The Ballad of the King's Jest, a terrific Kipling poem).

Proposals to ban niqab, the face veil worn by some Muslim women, are gaining support in France and Britain.   France saw its first crime by “burqa bandits” on February 6, when two men wearing head-to-foot female “Islamic” garments robbed a post office in the Parisian suburb of Athis-Mons.  The men gained entrance by convincing the clerks that they were women, then lifted their veils to disclose that they were not, drew at least one firearm, and stole about $6,000.  

There Is No Alternative
Why Margaret Thatcher Matters
by Claire Berlinski
Basic Books, 400 pp., $27.95

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher
A Political Marriage
by Nicholas Wapshott
Sentinel, 352 pp., $25.95

A Swim-on Part in the Goldfish Bowl
A Memoir
by Carol Thatcher
Headline Review, 320 pp., £18.99