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It was enough to make a blogger in mom's basement spit out his Cheetos in surprise. On today's Morning Joe income redistributionist and global climate kvetcher Prof. Jeffrey Sachs praised the UK Conservatives for creating jobs via an austerity budget. In a second surprise, Sachs criticized fellow lefty traveler Paul Krugman. Said Sachs of the Conservatives: "they governed well . . . they got the economy going again. They got it stabilized, they got the debt crisis Britain was facing under control and they created a lot of jobs and they got rewarded last night." And a bit later, the...

<p>British Prime Minister David Cameron and his Tory party all but vanquished the opposing Labor Party and proved pre-election polls wrong with a resounding election triumph he called "the sweetest victory of all."</p> <p>Fueled by a landslide in Scotland, Cameron and the Tories left opponents on the right and left in tatters. The Labour Party lost 24 seats in Parliament according to early returns, and party leader Ed Miliband resigned from his role. Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg resigned after acknowledging a "cruel and punishing defeat," in which his left-of-center part suffered its worst-ever defeat - dropping from 57 seats to just 8. On the right, UK Independence Party Leader Nigel Farage, a thorn in Cameron's side, failed to win a seat.</p>

I have today written to UKIP's National Executive Committee and offered my resignation. I look forward to a well deserved holiday!— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) May 8, 2015

David Cameron's second term as British Prime Minister was confirmed Friday after his Conservative Party won enough seats to form a working majority in the 650-member House of Commons. Shortly before noon Friday, London time, the Conservatives, or Tories, had won 324 seats to 229 It would be the first time the Conservatives had won a parliamentary majority since 1992. Cameron is the first Conservative Prime Minister to win re-election since Margaret Thatcher.

<p>Labour Party grandee Jack Straw, leaving Parliament after 36 years that included several Cabinet stints, called the party's showing in Scotland "an unbelievably bad situation in Scotland which frankly nobody anticipated."</p> <p>Throughout the campaign, Scottish voters told pollsters and journalists they were tired of being taken for granted by Labour, and many had not been impressed when Miliband joined forces with Cameron to urge Scottish voters to reject independence in last September's referendum. Scots whose families had for decades voted Labour turned away in droves.</p>

4 minutes agoNigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, has failed to win a seat in the House of Commons.

David Axelrod: UK Media Most Partisan I Have Seen – Even More Than Fox News Ben Jacobs 7 May 2015 David Axelrod, the top aide to Barack Obama who travelled across the pond to advise Ed Miliband in the British election, has said he has never seen a media environment as partisan as the one in the UK. Asked in an interview with Politico Europe whether he knew what he was getting into when he signed up to advise the British Labour leader, Axelrod replied: “We discussed this when I signed on … I’ve worked in aggressive media environments before...

David Cameron was on track to secure an astonishing electoral triumph according to a shock exit poll that predicted the Conservatives would win 316 seats – up nine on 2010 – with Labour plummeting to 239 seats, down 18.

A General Election exit poll has forecast that the Conservatives will be the largest party in Parliament, but that it is uncertain whether they will be able to secure an overall majority. The poll, conducted by Gfk, NOP and Ipsos Mori on behalf of the BBC, ITV News and Sky News, indicated that David Cameron's party will win 316 seats - 10 short of a majority. The poll forecast that Labour will win 239 seats, while the Liberal Democrats will slump to 10 seats - 47 less than they secured in the 2010 election. According to the exit poll, the...

By Joey Jones, Deputy Political Editor :: Follow the election results live on skynews.com, our mobile apps and on Sky News TV from 10pm. Voters are going to the polls across the country to decide who will form the next government. Polling stations opened at 7am and close at 10pm in the United Kingdom's 650 constituencies.

The title of this post is the headline of the "Daily Express" newspaper in the UK today, its owner supports the United Kingdom Independence Party. Under the headline: "Farage and UKIP boosted by 'very strong' late surge" "Labour and SNP would be absolutely disastrous for us all" The article starts: "The UK Independence Party is poised to 'significantly and perhaps dramatically' beat poll predictions thanks to a late surge in patriotism, it said last night. Amid warnings of the risks from Labour and the SNP, millions go to vote today in what looks like being the tightest election for generations....

A vote for Ukip is a 'suicide note' for Eurosceptics who want Britain to leave the European Union, Iain Duncan Smith has warned. The Tory Work and Pensions Secretary said only the Conservatives can deliver a referendum on the EU. He claimed support for Ukip would only help put Labour in power, with Ed Miliband refusing to give the British people a say on severing ties with Brussels.

He has put a campaign against excessive rent rises at the centre of his election campaign. And as this newly unearthed footage shows, Ed Miliband has form when it comes to protests against private landlords... Labour leader Ed Miliband -- who called himself 'Ted' at university -- led a 'rent strike' when he was a student 24 years ago, archive footage revealed today The clip, from the Spring of 1991, went undiscovered in the archives of ITV Meridian because of Mr Miliband's name change. He is interviewed in his grey jumper and sports a pudding bowl haircut, but the nasal...

LONDON -- They called it "Question Time," borrowing the term from the prime minister's weekly appearance in the House of Commons, but this was surprisingly and refreshingly different. On Thursday, the three main candidates for prime minister -- David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg -- one by one appeared before an audience of voters at the Leeds Town Hall where for a half-hour voters asked them informed, pointed and detailed questions. The host, the BBC's David Dimbleby, called for questions and occasionally followed up, but mostly voters drove the program. Two of the candidates were called liars right to...

Back in the 1970's I remember watching actor Michael Caine explain that he was 'a socialist' but British taxes were just too high for upper income people like himself. In 2010 Caine was supporting the "New Tory" Conservative Party of David Cameron, a less rigid party ready to spend money on the welfare state. Now five years later Cameron's record leading a coalition government with the Liberal Democrat Party includes these highlights. 1. Doubling the country's national debt 2. Cutting police and fire budgets five to ten percent 3. Cutting defense spending leaving the RAF defending the Falkland Islands with...

Next week, Britain votes in its first general election in five years. Some aspects of its politics will be familiar to Americans. Polls show voters are dissatisfied with politicians of both parties, cynical about whether they will keep their promises and closely divided between two major parties, which have been in existence for more than 100 years. But there are differences as well, in contrast to decades when British and American politics seemed to move in tandem -- the 1980s of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the 1990s of Bill Clinton's New Democrats and Tony Blair's New Labour. The most...

A British Muslim politician is on the receiving end of things after she told her social media followers that she would never support Labour leader Ed Miliband because he is “a Jew.” A few years ago, something like this quite simply could not have happened. That was back when anti-Semites understood that society didn’t want to have anything to do with them. So what did they do? They hid, pretending they were open-minded and tolerant. In the last couple of years, however, everything has changed — in Europe, at least. Now, European anti-Semites — most of them Muslim immigrants or...

HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, has ordered a review into whether it should move its headquarters out of Britain and potentially back to its former home in Hong Kong, threatening London’s reputation as a global hub for finance and investment. The announcement from HSBC, founded in Asia but a key part of the British establishment, prompted a warm response from Hong Kong, where it is revered as “The Bank”, and silence from the British government. The commitment to the review comes less than two weeks before British parliamentary elections on May 7 and poses challenges for both Prime Minister David Cameron...

When reports emerged that a dog had allegedly been poisoned at Crufts, David Cameron appeared to be extremely worried that a similar fate might befall the Downing Street cat, Larry. Talking to Heart FM, the Prime Minister promised to ‘double the security around him and make sure he’s ok’. But this morning Larry looked far from ‘ok’ when police sniffer dog Bailey turned up on his doorstep. Perhaps the PM has more important things to think about – or perhaps police security is what Cameron had in mind to waylay any attempts on his cat’s life. But needless to say,...

One of the messages the EU heads of state and government are expected to deliver at their extraordinary summit today (23 April) is that the Union cannot absorb any more mass arrivals of migrants, as they risk undermining it economically, and destroying it politically. The meeting will take place today at 1600, following public outrage after 900 migrants died on Sunday, when their boat sank on its way to Europe from Libya. Diplomats said that the summit will come up with four main messages. The first is that the EU is ready to save lives. Indeed, leaders are likely to...