I've commented in the past that I was worried about the Brits, that they didn't seem to be in touch with reality. It's not that I know much, this is truly rootless bloviation, but they seemed to have contracted a virulent case of Euro disease, an affliction that affects the mind and leads to increasingly tenuous connections with reality along with heightened passions: agitated delusions. Then war breaks out. Perhaps I was too pessimistic.

"If someone drops litter, they should be arrested," Livingstone threatened during his campaign, thinking his resolve would impress rather than infuriate voters with its ecologically correct pettiness in a city otherwise awash in real crime.

Every tax and intrusion imposed by Labour in recent years was justified as being for voters' "own good." Ending global warming, reducing carbon footprints, lowering carbon emissions and raising public funding of renewable energy — all were excuses used to hit the voters' pocketbook with more taxes.

Yet none of these taxes improved the quality of life. Instead, just a few of them — the same ones the green lobby wants here — showed British voters this was a puritanical scheme to reduce the quality of life and substitute a Roundhead feeling of virtue as its own reward.

"In other words, don't even think about enjoying yourself," wrote Malcolm Davis on Reuters' site.

But in the meantime, crime rose, state services declined, the bureaucrats proliferated, the National Health Service deteriorated and British purchasing power evaporated. "Many feel the government is creating a green fear for monetary gain," Mark Hodson of Opinium Research told the Independent newspaper.

Worse yet, government's only strength seemed to be in harassing its own citizens. Britain, for instance, had been covered with security cameras — which no doubt would be used by Livingstone to nab litterbugs — but have done little to prevent terrorism. It's telling that last year a car full of bombs was detected not by anti-terror cameras, but by over-active tow trucks looking for illegally parked cars.

"Don't vote for a joke, vote for London," said Livingstone, urging Brits to turn away Tory mayoral candidate Boris Johnson. Amid rising green taxes, an increasingly intrusive state and government harassment, Brits took him up on his recommendation.

It isn't clear that anything has actually improved. The new bosses are often as bad or worse than the old ones. It's just politics. Still, it is encouraging that the old ones have been sacked, making change possible. Not probable, but possible.

I wonder if this will affect the coming US elections? I wonder if the developed world as a whole is becoming a tiny bit more realistic? Nah. It's just my imagination.