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When, on April 18, British Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election for June 8, the expectation was that she would romp to victory over the opposition. Crush the saboteurs! cried the right-wing Daily Mail. Whether it was called to strengthen her Brexit negotiating position with the European Unionand members of her own Conservative Party, or to bolt the armor of popularityto her image, May and almost every political observer believed that June 8 would end with a massive Conservative majority over the Labour Party and its supposedly hapless leader Jeremy Corbyn.

But events have played out differently. A 16 percent lead for the Conservatives on April 18 has shrunk to 7 percent in less than two months.Because of the strength of third parties in Britain, Corbyn only needs to overperform by a few percentage points(an average polling error, to borrow from Nate Silver) for May to fallshort of a majority. Regardless, the dream of the Conservative landslide looks to be dead and the circumstances of Laboursrecovery can bea lesson for progressives elsewhere, including the United States.

Most of Labours recovery has taken place since the start of May (the month, not the politician), coinciding with two developments. Britains general election broadcast rules, which requireTV outlets to maintain due impartiality during campaigning, kicked in early May. From whenCorbyn became party leader until very recently, the vast majority of major media outlets including Labour-leaning publications such as the Guardian were critical of him. During the campaign though, while newspapers and tabloids have remained partisan, the broadcast rules have freed Corbyn to make his case to the publicdirectly on television. Surprise, surprise: Corbyn has performed well in pre-election appearances, while May (the politician, not the month) has refused to debate other candidates directly and has looked shaky answering questions.

Were unlikely to see similarly restrictive broadcast rules in the United States, but progressives here can learn from the second development: the release of the parties manifestos the equivalent of a party platform in the United States, albeitcarrying somewhat more weight. The Conservative manifestobroadly avoided specifics, including how muchproposals on housing and other issues would cost. Its imprecision magnified Mays struggles in talking with voters. Nor did it help May that the program originally included cuts to in-home care for the elderly, a key Conservative constituency. May reversed on that idea, but not before damage was done.

On the other side, for years, Labour manifestos were incrementalist, offering small changes and tweaks to existing programs. The 2017 version is far bolder: free university tuition, more money for the National Health Services and other major initiatives,paid for by taxes on corporations and the wealthiest. The platforms clarity and detail contrasted favorably with the Conservatives vagueness, while energizing the Labour base, especially young voters. (Of course, getting them to vote is another matter.) Corbyns Labour recognizes that when votersthink the system is broken and major change is required, parties need to go big with their ideas. If your opponent is stumbling, as May has, newly persuadable voters want solutions not pandering.

To be clear, Labour policies cannot be replicated unchanged in the United States.Corbyns Labour is much further left-of-center than even the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. But as liberals and progressives in the United Statesdebate what kind of policies to offer in 2018 and beyond, Corbyns recovery and Mays difficulties again show that boldness doesnt backfire; voters reward it.

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What American liberals can learn from Jeremy Corbyn's campaign - Washington Post (blog)

VICTORIA - Politicians have been called back to the British Columbia legislature on June 22, setting the stage for a possible change in the provincial government.

Premier Christy Clark has said she expects to lose a confidence vote in the house after the New Democrats and Greens reached an agreement to allow the NDP to form a minority government.

No party won a majority of seats in a provincial election last month.

The Liberals won 43 seats in the 87-seat legislature, with the NDP winning 41 seats and the Greens three.

The results left Clark with a tenuous grip on power and spelled the likely end for the Liberals' 16 years in government.

Government House Leader Mike de Jong issued a statement Wednesday about the recall of the legislature, saying the first order of business will be to elect a Speaker.

"After which, and in the aftermath of a very close election, the government will seek to determine if it continues to enjoy the confidence of the house."

Green Leader Andrew Weaver welcomed the decision to recall the house.

"I'm glad that the premier has finally decided to recall the legislature," Weaver said in a statement. "In the weeks since the election, it has been encouraging to see all three parties agree that British Columbians want us to work together."

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BC legislature returns June 22, stage set for confidence vote on Liberals - BNN

Ottawa Citizen

Ontario's Liberals 'stealing' NDP's ideas again, says Horwath Ottawa Citizen TORONTO Ontario's Liberals tend to steal her party's ideas, and with one year left until the next provincial election, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says they're doing it again. In the 2014 election, Horwath faced criticism from her party's rank and file ... Thomson: It's been 100 years since Alberta Liberals had much to cheer aboutCalgary Herald BC election: little immediate impact, but plenty of future political risk for federal Liberals, say pollstersHill Times (subscription) all 5 news articles »

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Ontario's Liberals 'stealing' NDP's ideas again, says Horwath - Ottawa Citizen

The foreign affairs minister says it was vital that she use only Canadian sources in her foreign policy speech Tuesday. Chrystia Freeland told the House of Commons that Canada should spend billions on hard power military capability. ( The Canadian Press )

Tuesdays Liberal foreign policy statement and Wednesdays national defence reset are interlocking pieces of the same political puzzle. To examine one in isolation from the other is to risk distorting the picture.

In different but related ways both reflect a Trump-imposed shift in Canadas foreign policy priorities.

To measure the magnitude of that shift, compare the equivalent address delivered a little more than a year ago by Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freelands predecessor, Stphane Dion.

If one were to put the two speeches side by side, one would be hard-pressed to find evidence that they were delivered in the name of the same government over the short span of 14 months.

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Highlights from the Liberals new defence policy

In a lecture at the University of Ottawa in March of last year, Dion sketched out what was then the governments foreign policy approach. Only in passing did the text of his speech mention the United States. Ditto for Canadas military obligations. And his remarks did not include a single reference to trade.

Dion did introduce a concept called responsible conviction as a new Liberal guiding foreign policy principle. In short, he argued that to be responsible, Canada had to be flexible in its pursuit on the international scene of its principles.

Based on Freelands homily, the words responsible conviction disappeared from Canadas foreign policy lexicon along with the minister who coined them. It was not the only striking difference between the two speeches.

Although Freeland never mentioned Trump by name on Tuesday he was in the subtext of her entire speech. There were 19 references to America and/or the United States. Trade came up a dozen times as did the military.

Freeland delivered her speech in the Commons, an occurrence so rare that veteran Parliament Hill watchers could not remember the last time that had happened. A government that picks a centre stage venue like the House is not one that is trying to fly under the radar.

Highlighting, as it did, a long list of fundamental differences between the foreign policy approach of the Trump White House and Canada, Freelands speech was rightly described as Canadas most assertive foreign policy declaration since the advent of the new administration.

But whether that was a product of inevitability rather than a deliberate drawing of a line in the sand is an open question.

After all, at this time last year the foreign policy tenets Freeland enunciated on Tuesday were largely taken for granted on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. From trade to climate change to the war against Daesh, those tenets were common to the two countries and, quite literally, went without saying.

It should, moreover, be noted that this is hardly the first time Canada has stuck to a multilateral course on a top-of-mind policy issue in the face of a go-it-alone White House. The most recent example would be Jean Chrtiens 2003 refusal to join the U.S.-led offensive on Iraq. Under the Liberals, Canada also signed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change even if the U.S. declined to do so.

If Freeland articulated a new concept this week, it would be her contention that Canada needs to step up its military spending to help fill a Trump-induced vacuum in international leadership.

The governments contention is that by pivoting to a military spending policy thats in line with one of the most vocal demands of the current White House it is doing only what it must to mitigate the administrations potential damage to a multilateral world order.

That same theme was omnipresent on the occasion on Wednesday of the belated unveiling of a revamped defence policy. Over the next two decades, the government is committing to pour billions of dollars it did not budget for into the defence department.

National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan could not say where the money for all the new spending would be coming from. His policy paper is longer on spending choices then on strategic ones. But he was at pains to stress that the policy was based on made-in-Canada choices and not a response to external pressures.

You decide whether this weeks one-two Liberal foreign and defence policy punch showed the Trudeau government has an iron hand inside the velvet glove it has been sporting in its dealings with the Trump administration. Or whether the government is simply recasting its efforts to stay in the White Houses good books in a manner that minimizes the risks of raising hackles in Canadian public opinion.

Chantal Hbert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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Liberals' shift in defence and foreign policy reflect new reality in the US: Hbert - Toronto Star

ZAGREB In a sudden political turnaround, the Croatian liberals decided on Wednesday to join a coalition with the ruling conservatives, just a day after saying they would not.

"In talks with the (ruling) HDZ party we will require to run three ministries," said Predrag Stromar, a senior official of the Croatian People's Party (HNS), after a party council meeting comprising more than 100 members overturned the previous decision to shun the coalition.

The change of heart may lead to a split in the party but could help the conservative HDZ to continue ruling without a second snap election in less than a year.

On Tuesday, HNS leader Ivan Vrdoljak resigned after the party's presidency rejected his proposal to enter the HDZ-led government headed by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

In April, Plenkovic fired four ministers from the previous junior coalition partner, the center-right Most ("Bridge") party, as Most supported the opposition in a no-confidence motion against Finance Minister Zdravko Maric, which he survived by one vote.

The HNS has nine members of parliament and it is likely that some of them will not vote for the new majority. Plenkovic, who is also the HDZ leader, must get support from several other deputies, some of them independent, and representatives of national minorities to clinch a new parliamentary backing.

Plenkovic must propose soon four new ministers to parliament to replace those from Most and reshuffle his cabinet to accommodate ministers from the HNS. A vote on those appointments will be the ultimate test of whether he has secured enough parliamentary backing for his cabinet to stay on.

A new early election, after the one held last September also following a split between the HDZ and the Most, would harm the pace of economic reforms needed to improve the investment climate and meager long-term growth prospects in one of the European Union's weakest economies.

(Reporting by Igor Ilic; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

BEIRUT A military alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad threatened on Wednesday to hit U.S. positions in Syria, warning its "self-restraint" over U.S. air strikes would end if Washington crossed "red lines".

DUBAI/DOHA U.S. President Donald Trump offered on Wednesday to help resolve a worsening diplomatic crisis between Qatar and other Arab powers as the United Arab Emirates invoked the possibility of an economic embargo on Doha over its alleged support of terrorism.

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Croatian liberals change mind and opt to join conservative-led government - Reuters