Conservatives Gain Power in UK Election

So while European countries more and more are turning to conservative candidates, leaders here in America we seem to be running the other way.

England is holding elections this week and one of the most prominent races if for the Mayor of London, but they are also having national elections.

BBC research suggests Labour won 24% of votes cast in England and Wales, behind the Tories on 44% and Lib Dems on 25%.

So far Labour has lost 226 councillors and key councils like Reading. Tory gains include Bury and North Tyneside.

Mr Brown insists his party will learn lessons. David Cameron called it a "big moment" for the Conservative Party.

The Labour party is considered liberal and was the party of Tony Blair. Tories are the conservatives and Lib Dems speak for themselves.

I am sure the liberals in this country are noticing this change in Europe. The pundits are also predicting that Ken Livingstone will lose his seat as mayor to Boris Johnson, the conservative candidate. It should make for some entertaining times in England.

Red Ken and the Cross-Dressers

We may have a conflict of interest here. We noted yesterday that London's Communist Mayor Ken Livingstone was receiving the endorsement of radical suicide-bombing Islamists.

Now he's courting that key cross-dressing demographic. Not sure how well this may go over with his Islamist buddies.

Ken Livingstone met some colourful characters on the campaign trail as he and his rival in London's mayoral election targeted the capital's alternative voters.

Mr Livingstone met a potential supporter at Heaven nightclub as he campaigns in the West End.

The Mayor gave a rousing speech to members of the gay community at the venue near Charing Cross Station last night.

He also visited bars and pubs in Soho during the walkabout.

A spokeswoman for Mr Livingstone's campaign said: "As usual, Ken was warmly welcomed in Soho as he has always done a great deal to promote the causes and interests of the gay community in the city, particularly with the introduction of the first civil partnerships three years ago."

However, he faces a tough challenge for the gay vote from Brian Paddick after a poll by website PinkNews showed that although Mr Livingstone won the most first-preference votes, the Lib-Dem - and openly gay - candidate overtook him with the crucial second-preference vote.

'Red' Ken Livingstone Gets Backing of Islamist Suicide Bomb Advocates

Talk about your Leftist-Islamist convergence. Here we've got the Communist Mayor of London proudly posing with a psychotic Islamist who promotes mass murder by suicide bombing.

If this doesn't roust the Brits from their slumber, then they're beyond hope.

An advocate of suicide bombing is among leaders of a group trying to mobilise Muslim voters to back Ken Livingstone, it was reported today.

For the past year, the group has been working on a strategy to win an estimated 200,000 Muslim votes in an effort to re-elect the Mayor, the Evening Standard claims.

It includes a campaign of vilification aimed at his Conservative rival, Boris Johnson. It is being waged by Muslims 4 Ken, led by 39-year-old lecturer Anas Altikriti and Palestinian-born Azzam Tamimi, a supporter of Hamas, the militant group dedicated to the creation of an Islamic state of Palestine.

While Mr Altikriti says he abhors violence and favours dialogue to further the Muslim cause, Mr Tamimi has praised suicide bombers and said he would volunteer for a suicide mission in Palestine.

"For us Muslims martyrdom is not the end of things, but the beginning of the most wonderful of things," he has said. "If I can go to Palestine and sacrifice myself I would do it. Why not?"

Muslims 4 Ken moves into overdrive this week after months of lobbying for Mr Livingstone among Muslim community leaders, in mosques and among political organisations.

Somehow I doubt Rudy Giuliani would have accepted endorsements from Islamists had he been running again for Mayor of New York City. The notion of Livingstone posing with Islamists and accepting endorsements from the type of people who murdered the people of his own city just a couple of years ago is sickening.

And you thought American politicians were bad?

Over in England they are having a mayoral contest for the city of London. The current mayor is well known to folks who follow the spread of Islamic extremism across the globe. He is Ken Livingstone, normally referred to as Red Ken. He hasn't met a Muslim extremist he doesn't like.

Livingstone, a throwback to the heady days of the late '60s when revolution was in the air and on the airwaves, has welcomed Islamic extremists to London, and was suspended from his post for a month after comparing a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard. When the U.S. ambassador claimed diplomatic immunity from having to pay a "congestion charge" on cars entering central London, Livingstone called him a "chiseling little crook."

His opponent this time is Boris Johnson who is from the British Conservative party. Boris is quite a character too.

In a 2002 article in The Daily Telegraph, Johnson referred to Africans as "piccaninnies" (he apologized); he once offended Liverpudlians by saying they were wallowing in "victim status" after one of their own was taken hostage and killed in Iraq (he apologized), and he described the people of Papua New Guinea as cannibals and chief killers (he was sorry about that, too).

I think we can drop the word Great from in front of Britain now.

London Mayor 'Red Ken' Drinking on the Job

Maybe he'll blame his idiotic politics on the 94 proof whisky.

Naturally, he claims there's a smear campaign against him.

London's Mayor Ken Livingstone was at the centre of an alcohol row last night after a TV documentary secretly tested his drink at a public meeting and claimed it was whisky.

Channel 4's Dispatches programme, to be broadcast tomorrow night, accuses Mr Livingstone of "astonishing and shocking" drinking habits and being "a law unto himself".

It shows him allegedly drinking whisky at a public meeting in London and at a 10am meeting at his office.

The programme-makers say they secretly obtained a sample of Mr Livingstone's drink and had it tested at a laboratory which said it was 47 per cent alcohol, stronger than most whiskies.

On another occasion Mr Livingstone, whose hobbies famously include collecting newts, is said to have told an undercover Channel 4 reporter:

"It's the whisky that keeps me going."

Mr Livingstone has vehemently denied that he drinks too much and claims he is the victim of a smear campaign designed to stop him winning the mayoral election in May.

The controversial documentary was made by Martin Bright, political editor of the Left-wing New Statesman magazine.

He claims Mr Livingstone's drinking has prompted criticism from fellow London politicians, including Labour members.

The Dispatches team say they observed Mr Livingstone drinking on two occasions.

The first was at a "People's Question Time" event at Ilford Town Hall in East London on October 25 attended by 600 people.

Mr Bright says: "I went down to Ilford Town Hall and was shocked by what I saw."

After stating that Mr Livingstone was drinking "from a glass containing an amber liquid and he repeatedly drank from this glass during the evening."

Read the rest.

The Growing Leftist-Islamist Convergence

A rather disturbing look in the New York Sun today on the increasing unity between the left and Islamists (via Captain's Quarters).

Over the past year, multiple international conferences have featured leaders of the anti-global left and Islamist groups working together. Go to any anti-war or anti-globalization demonstration in the West and chances are you will see the flags of Hezbollah and Hamas waved by people wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. And at some of these meetings, members of such radical Islamist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah have enjoyed starring roles.

The roster of Islamist-left alliances quietly grows every day: Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguistics professor Noam Chomsky praises Hamas and denounces America on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television. London Mayor Ken Livingstone invites a leading Islamist, Sheikh Yosef Al-Qaradawi, who is known for supporting suicide attacks, to visit his city. Iranian President Ahmadinejad calls for a world without America even as he plays host to a Tehran peace conference attended by American Mennonites, Quakers, Episcopalians, Methodists, and leaders of the National Council of Churches.

The left wonders why their patriotism, or lack theroef, is always in question.

When you align with our enemies, you become one yourself.