“There will be the usual stuff this week, I expect, about how Ronald Reagan and his faithful ally Margaret Thatcher brought down the wall with their intransigent anti-communism. The most recently opened archives aren’t so kind to this view, either.” So observes Christopher Hitchens in an article posted to online magazine Slate on Monday.
Hitchens refers to this article by Michael Binyon in the London Times a few weeks back. “Mrs Thatcher knew full well that her remarks would cause a row if revealed….”
Don’t expect radical reform in Germany, even though the left-right “Grand Coalition” is to be replaced by a center-right coalition, speculates Matthew Curtin in the Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” feature.
“The leftward lurch of Germany’s main political parties, including Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union alliance, left the FDP as sole campaigner for reforms not based on padding the welfare state. But with heavy public skepticism about free-market economics, even the party’s presence in government is unlikely to change the debate significantly.”
At least somebody somewhere is skeptical about free-market economics. On this side of the ocean, people still seem credulous about it, even in the aftermath of the Great Recession….
The results of the German election are in. Angela Merkel will continue as Chancellor, with her Christian Democrats in coalition with the free-market-oriented Free Democrats. The Social Democrats have suffered what is being described as a crushing defeat, while the role of the farther-left Left Party has been enhanced.