Good Morning, and Good Luck

By ROGER COHEN
NYT

LONDON — Good sense has prevailed, the winners have taken office, and there’s a bit of rainbow-nation buoyancy to Britain that seems impervious, for now, to Greek hangovers. Let’s face it: After a season of furrowed brows youth is a tonic.

At 43, David Cameron and Nick Clegg have that. They’re new in every sense, at the head of the first coalition government since Churchill called Britain to arms seven decades ago. Today, the blitz is economic.

The one clear message written into the election’s inconclusive numbers was that Britain demanded change. Collapsing banks, expense scandals, a fierce recession and spiraling personal debt have angered people. It was not that Gordon Brown was a bad guy; he was just a tired guy at the head of a weary Labour Party and a man with a tragic streak.

Politics is about timing and Brown, too long in Tony Blair’s shadow, missed his moment. History will record — an onerous legacy — that he led the country but never had its people’s mandate.

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