I have to say that I find British politics less depressing that the American variety. It isn’t so much that the end results are much better. It is just that it lacks the undertones of hatred, prejudice and violence that are so prevalent in the American public square. Maybe that is part of America’s unending response to the debt of slavery and racism. Anyway, now for a British political update.

There are three great gravitational forces in British politics right now that all the other figures orbit about in various ways. First is Prime Minister David Cameron, of course, who is planning on retiring in 2020 and is thinking about his legacy. The second is Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, the Paul Ryan of Parliament and Cameron’s choice as successor. Finally, there is Labour Leader Jeremy Corbin, recently chosen to lead the Opposition, who appears utterly lost.

The big news of the past week occurred when Osborne gave a speech in Parliament about the Conservative’s budget proposals. He had planned on cutting tax credits for the working poor in order to balance the budget, which caused a huge blow up that I have written about in the past. Everyone knew that he was going to have to change the idea somehow, phasing it in or finding some other way to soften the blow. But he shocked everyone by simply announcing that he was dropping the whole thing. He claimed that it was because the government receipts were better than anticipated, but it was actually a full-scale political retreat, which had to be somewhat humiliating. This was, after all, an attempt to reduce the social safety net, a central piece of Tory dogma and policy. It looks like Osborne and the party just decided to cut their losses and figured that, with the next election years off, no one will remember this mean spirited proposal when it is time to vote. It is certain that Osborne will find other ways to cut spending (even though polls show that the British public no longer believe that austerity is necessary) that will impact the poor and working class much more than the wealthy. They are cutting support to local councils, a Chis Christie trick that I got to see up close while on the Montclair Town Council, although they backed down on cutting support of the police, which was incredibly  unpopular. So the local councils will be faced with the choice of either cutting services or raising local taxes (or both), which was my Montclair experience.

Now you would think that the Labour Party would have reveled in this retreat on an issue that is important to their base, even though they did very little of the heavy lifting in getting the policy reversed. But Corbyn managed to screw up a simple declaration of victory and came out of what should have been a triumphant moment looking even weaker and besieged. He is personally opposed to Cameron’s plan to bomb Syria, but it seems clear that a significant number of Labour MPs disagree with him, probably because they are cognizant of significant public support of the move. Even the Shadow Foreign Minister, who you would think would have to support her leader on this kind of important issue, is not. The further the whole Corbyn regime goes on, the more it appears that he has no real feel for the realities of governing. He went from being a generally ignored, far-left back bencher to taking a shot a running for leadership, just to offer a left leaning option, to stunningly winning leadership. He is in charge, but doesn’t seem to know quite what to do. He is like a deer in the headlights, managing to avoid being plastered by the cars and truck so far, but seeming increasingly disoriented by everything flashing by. It seems inevitable that he will be replaced as leader at some point in the next year or so, which will anger his supporters (and there are a lot of them in the rank and file) no end.

In the meantime, Cameron is in a pretty good position. He effectively has no opposition and can spend his time pushing Corbyn back into various corners from which he is incapable of escaping. His biggest political nightmare–the unpopular cuts to tax credits–has disappeared and now he and the other Tories can go back to their charade of being “friends of the working class”. It is likely that he will get Parliamentary approval for his desire to bomb Syria (and in the unlikely event that he is blocked, he can blame Corbyn for making England seem weak to the world). He has to deal with a mostly political controversy about building an additional runway at Heathrow, but seems to be trying to duck it for now. The only real thing he has to worry about is the 2017 referendum on whether to leave the EU, but that is years off.