The Great Debate UK
Britain’s malaise, a view from the continent
– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
“All political careers end in failure,” the late British Conservative Enoch Powell famously said. And perhaps all political cycles end in scandal.
The outcry in Britain over politicians’ expenses that has claimed ministerial scalps and threatens the survival in office of Prime Minister Gordon Brown reflects more than just anger over taxpayer-funded duck houses.
Parliamentarians have become scapegoats for a deeper malaise combining the twilight of the Labour Party’s long reign, the worst economic slump since the Great Depression and the shaming of the City of London’s financial titans.
