One gets the feeling that increasingly politics in other nations have an important impact on your own. Michael Howard is the current leader of the Conservative Party (the party that still lies in the shaddow of Margaret Thatcher). He will stand against Blair in our next elections.

Howard has managed to acheive a feat no right wing leader in the UK has ever done. He has been banned from meeting President George Bush.

The white house is furious at Howard for his opportunism in calling on Blair to resign over Iraq. Only the Lib Dems can really claim any kind of moral superiority on this subect as Howard along with almost all his party voted FOR the war. To now call on Blair to resign seems churlish at best. So, you cant blame Bush's aides for refusing to meet him.

Ironically then, Howard might have a better chance agianst Blair if Kerry gets in. Which means that it would seem he has next to no chance.

Watch out for the further demise of the conservatives in the UK with the rise of the Lib Dems as the left-wing alternative to an avowadly center-right Labour party.

Politics gets really crazy sometimes.