Do you believe in Santa Claus too?

According to Martin Samuel of the Times this morning, that's what you need to ask yourself if you claim to be both pro-Labour and anti-War.

One of the few compelling pieces you'll find that leads off with a quote by Mariah Carey, Samuel makes his point well. I do sympathize with the idea of voting Labour despite all the frustrations. Blair might just have overtaken Clinton as the master politician of his generation.

I agree with this Times editorial (supporting a reduced Labour majority) that it has been a disappointing campaign for the not-ready-for-Prime-Time Liberal Democratic players. And the Tories? Michael Howard conceeded on Question Time that knowing exactly what he knows now, he would still have supported the invasion then, on some type of convoluted "regime change plus" grounds. Yeesh. Don't even start about some of their talk on immigration, either. As someone kept in a lockdown at Stanstead airport for a few hours in June, I do not sympathize.

Ultimately, though, a vote for Tony Blair is not in the cards. Canada right now is going through the fall-out of unaccountability, the consequences for decision-making at the upper levels when the governing party seems to worry too little about voter reprisals. Is it inevitable this far into a mandate? I don't have the answer to that, but it is another sign in another country that the time for a massive re-think on democratic renewal is long overdue. With all Martin's talk of eliminating this "deficit" before Adscam broke, his inability to doggedly pursue any options down this road may rank as his biggest failure and disappointment. Sending Eggleton to the Senate revealed the substance behind the empty rhetoric rather conclusively.

May 5th, as historic it might be, will come and go relatively quietly. Turnout will be exasperatingly low. All parties, regardless of the result, should get busy in an attempt to reverse this trend. I will be watching future Liberal leadership races closely with such a thought in mind as well.