LONDON, United Kingdom — For a political event heavily hyped as the big game-changer in Britain’s closely fought general election, the country’s first-ever televised leadership debate will perhaps be best remembered for its dullness. Anyone tuning in to Thursday’s broadcast — the first of three debates before the May 6 vote — in the hope of seeing political credibility sluiced away by a Nixon-esque flop sweat or Ford-ish gaffe would have been sorely disappointed.

LONDON, U.K. — I am in Westminster Abbey where kings and queens are crowned, and many of them buried. In the south transept is what is known as poet’s corner. Here is a statue of William Shakespeare, elbow on his books. Over there on the stone floor are plaques for Tennyson, Byron and Browning, and on that wall Keats and Shelley. Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in 1400, has his tomb here, and there’s a statue of William Wordsworth sitting. There are even some Americans immortalized in the abbey — Longfellow and T.S. Eliot, for example.

LONDON, U.K. — You know, I don't like to worry an idea to death, but I feel like I need to reiterate ideas from a column two weeks ago. In that column I noted the irony that while America and its European allies endure a moment of perilous self-doubt about their economies and the strength of their political systems against a backdrop of war in Afghanistan, China is reaping the benefits of economic expansion unfettered by extra military spending.