World

London Calling to the Zombies of Death

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The most interesting thing about Boris Johnson's victory in the London mayoral race might be what hasn't changed. The office has moved from the hard left to the hard right, but there's one issue where it is staying put:

London voters just voted out Ken Livingstone, the iconoclast left-wing antiwar mayor, and replaced him with the iconoclast right-wing antiwar Boris Johnson….

Johnson is not a neocon. In fact, he comes from the same sort of paleo-conservative roots as Pat Buchanan. He is opposed to British imperial dreams, and is in direct conflict with much of the UK Conservative Party.

In the last few years, he has been a strong opponent of the Iraq War, the rush to war with Iran, and Blair's crackdown on civil liberties.

Something else that hasn't changed: The mayor of Greater London does not, alas, have much influence on his country's foreign policy.