Gordon Brown and his Labour Party are getting crushed in the latest elections in the UK.

Labour suffered humiliation in the local elections tonight after the party lost its four remaining county councils to the Tories. Nottinghamshire was the last to fall as the Conservatives took control gaining nine seats while Labour – which had held the council since 1981 – lost 22.

Earlier Derbyshire fell after 28 years of rule, while Labour was also beaten by the Conservatives in Lancashire and Staffordshire. Overall, Labour appeared to be heading for total losses of around 300 seats while the Conservatives picked up more than 200.

--

Mr Brown said yesterday's elections had been "a painful defeat for Labour".

He told reporters in Downing Street: "I am here to be totally candid, to accept my responsibilities and to set out what I intend to do.

"The elections yesterday were a painful defeat for Labour. Too many good people doing so much good for their communities and their constituencies have lost through no fault of their own."

And Brown is looking at being ousted from power too:

Hours before the crucial Euro results were due to be announced, the prime minister's hopes of survival suffered a further setback when the former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer became the most senior figure yet to call for a leadership contest. The peer – once Tony Blair's flatmate – warned that potential candidates were waiting in the wings, ready to mount a challenge, if Brown was not prepared to stand down as prime minister.

Meanwhile, Tessa Jowell became the first member of the cabinet to speculate openly that Brown could be prepared to step aside if he believed he had become an "obstacle" to Labour winning the next general election.

DownwithTyranny:

If Labor comes in third-- or even fourth-- in the EU Assembly elections, Prime Minister Gordon Brown could be facing more than a headache. There has been talk about an attempt by backbenchers to oust him as party leader. Monday Brown will be meeting with Labor parliamentarians who see the election results as a Sword of Damocles hanging over all their heads.

As Howie states, the ruling parties are all getting killed throughout the EU elections.

It hasn't helped that Silvio Berlusconi is embroiled in a sex scandal with girls young enough to be his grand daughters. (He's 72 and his latest mistress and pimp is 18-- and he used a government plane to ferry her and his friends to his villa in Sardinia.) Yesterday the biggest newspaper in Spain published pictures of Berlusconi cavorting around naked with the topless girls and he called in "an invasion of privacy" and is now suing the paper.

I always wanted to be fluent in another language. I studied Spanish in school, passed my HS Regents exam back in the day, but never got it down. I never learned Italian because of the racism that my grandparents faced when they came to the US in 1915. Studying a new language in school actually helps a person "think" better as far as I'm concerned. Maybe that's why right wingers hate Obama's idea so much.

Predictably, right-wingers flew into a rage at Obama's un-American call for better language skills. For example, John McCormack at the Weakly Standard labeled language education as snobbery and elitism. John Derbyshire called Obama's suggestion "idiotic" because "not many human beings can learn another language", as his own failures prove. He combines that with characteristic condescension:

In fact, below some cutoff point, which I'd guess at around minus one standard deviation in IQ (that would encompass sixteen percent of the population), education beyond the three R's is a waste of time, and foreign-language instruction a total waste of time.

What, my good pal John Derbyshire had a tough time learning another language? Well, that's not surprising. And since most Europeans speak many languages, are they just smarter? I don't think so. It's because all the countries do so much business together and are so close in proximity that it makes sense all around.

They only support the troops when it suits them...

The NRO had a glowing op-ed to Pat on 05/04/04: "Courage and Honor." Pat and his family were treated with none of these. Yesterday---only silence because the propaganda was exposed. I wonder if Derbyshire will write a piece that says Tillman acted strangely when he tried to warn his "mates' that he was an American when he got shot and Derby only hopes that he would have done it differently if he were there....

Powerline weighs in and predictable says that there was no cover up at all:

There is no question that the initial misreporting of the circumstances of Tillman's death was stupid and improper. The claim of a government conspiracy to cover up the facts, however, is ludicrous.

Does he mean the rapper? They also painted Kevin Tillman as “an antiwar activist who has posted on far-left web sites...Well there you have it....He posted on some websites. Didn't he actually fight in Iraq? I guess they must have missed a few stories about the excellent way the military handled Pat Tillman's death...

Mahablog catches Rick Moran carrying out a fraud against the left..Moran says:

If it was good enough for your daddy/granddaddy’s war it’s good enough for yours,” seems to be what the Pentagon is saying with regards to trying to hype the accomplishments of Pat Tillman - whose character assassination by the left continues to this day - and Jessica Lynch, the young woman whose convoy was ambushed resulting in severe injuries and her capture by the Iraqis.

Barbara debunks his myth by checking out the posts he uses and says: I know it’s as common as ticks in Arkansas, but whenever I see this kind of depraved dishonesty from rightie bloggers I am disgusted anew.

Glenn Greenwald follows through also: The Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch frauds

via Obsidian Wings:

John Cole: When Terri Schiavo is finally allowed to slip past her cruel fate and move on to a better place, she will not be the only one to have died this month. At another gravesite, this marker should be erected:

Barry Goldwater's Conservatism in America 1964-2005

John Derbyshire (!): Watching Hannity & Colmes Tuesday night I found myself nursing a devout hope that if I ever enter a persistent vegetative state, Sean Hannity is nowhere in the neighborhood.... read on

The Randall effect is finally taking root. I say that because having Sean Hannity night after night letting this man rant is not helpful to the family. Having Sean Hannity night after night sit in his high and mighty chair with a mic in his hand only intensifies the suffering of everyone involved.