Britain’s babes in the woods

If’s there’s one thing the British people can’t complain about now that the outcome of the May 6 general election has finally been decided, it’s that they didn’t get a good deal. After all, they demanded a new prime minister, and got exactly what they wanted — plus another one thrown in for free! You half expect the speaker of the House of Commons to begin the next session of Parliament by declaring, “But wait … !” before announcing that the electorate has also qualified for a bonus “Cam ‘n’ Clegg” flashlight keychain (just pay shipping and handling*).

Britain’s first twofer government since Winston Churchill formed his World War II coalition in the spring of 1940 is certainly an extraordinary spectacle to behold, especially when you consider that the not-quite-majority-enough Conservative Party, led by the royal-blooded David Cameron, has been forced to join forces with the diametrically opposed Liberal Democrats, led by Nick “Until Last Month My Wikipedia Entry Was a Stub” Clegg. This is a union with all the natural synergy of, say, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad going out to stump with Richard Simmons. Or a Nancy Pelosi-Mitch McConnell presidential ticket in 2012.

Expectations aren’t high for this “Dave New World” (as the Sun christened it), that’s for sure, in spite of the “new politics” spin being put on the situation by the British media, not to mention the participants themselves at Wednesday’s news conference in Downing Street’s rose garden.

But how on earth did the British people land themselves in this astonishing muddle? And what can America learn from it, given that the unexpected rise of the once hilariously unelectable “Lib Dems” — descended from elements of the Whig Party in 1868 — has in some ways mirrored the surge in popularity of the “tea party” movement on these shores?

The answers to both these questions almost certainly lie with Cameron, the more senior of the two new prime ministers (Clegg has the same title, but prefaced, for the time being at least, by “deputy”). I should disclose that I’ve had more than a few dealings with Cameron over the last 13 years. It isn’t because I’m a regular at high-powered Notting Hill dinner parties, but because I was a business correspondent for the Times of London, assigned to the media beat, when Cameron was — wait for it — working as chief PR man for Carlton Communications, one of Britain’s largest film and television companies.

That’s right: PR man. It’s enough to make Barack Obama’s former job as a community organizer look weighty. Cameron’s job of schmoozing (and using) young reporters like myself was his way of gaining some “real world” experience after a privileged schooling at Eton (known as the “chief nurse of England’s statesmen”) and Oxford University, followed by a job in the research department of the then-ruling Conservative Party, where he briefed John Major and later advised Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont as he presided over 1992’s Black Wednesday currency crisis.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always found Cameron to be an intelligent and likeable politician. And the last time I saw him, during his 2007 visit to Los Angeles — I accompanied him as he toured a gang rehabilitation center — he was warm and funny, if a little awkward on the mean streets of Boyle Heights, what with his ruddy complexion, polka-dot tie and shiny shoes. As for my dealings with Cameron at Carlton TV, I fortunately never saw the side of him that provoked one of my former colleagues in the business press to describe him in print as “a poisonous, slippery individual” and “a smarmy bully … who loved humiliating people.”

Yet Cameron’s lack of substance is indisputable. Even his age — he’s just 43 — makes him the youngest prime minister since 1812, when Lord Liverpool ruled Britannia. That’s why, in spite of a massive early lead in the polls, the voters ultimately balked at the Old Etonian and left his party agonizingly short of a workable majority. They wanted to like Cameron, but they didn’t trust his way of answering questions as though he were composing a press release, and they didn’t have any record from which to gain reassurance. The same — times a thousand — goes for Clegg, who shot from nowhere to become the star of Britain’s first-ever televised election debates. But he failed to translate his celebrity into a meaningful surge at the ballot box (a relief, perhaps, given that the Lib Dems’ policies have always been drafted with the luxury of never having to be enacted).

All of which leads me to conclude that the current drama in Westminster is about more than just the survival of this strange coalition of the unelectable. It’s about the fact that if politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are to continue becoming younger and less experienced with every election, then it follows that voters will be increasingly unwilling to trust them with any real power. In this sense, Britain doesn’t have a “hung parliament,” it has a Fisher-Price parliament. The kitchen cabinets have been locked; the doorways gated; the table edges blunted. All we can do now is hope that the two infants in charge don’t hurt themselves, or anyone else, while learning how to walk.

*Offer subject to deficit financing.

Chris Ayres is the author of three books, including “Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale,” and is the Los Angeles correspondent of the Times of London.