Cameron Victory Could Recast ‘Special Relationship’

With the Tories holding a slim lead in the polls a month before Britain’s general election, it isn’t unreasonable to wonder what a David Cameron victory would mean for the “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the U.S. But the answer isn’t obvious, because Cameron is caught in a conundrum, writes the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman. While Cameron might try to distance himself from the United States—the British electorate still remembers Tony Blair following George W. Bush into Iraq—he would “dearly love to embrace President Barack Obama and to drink deeply from his aura,” writes Rachman. The problem is that the Tories’ natural counterparts would be the Republicans, except, Rachman says, “From guns to God to taxes to climate change, the Tories and the Republicans are really no longer on the same political planet.” What it boils down to is that some serious philosophical adjustments about the “special relationship” could be on the way.