Let's get ready to rumble

Parliament is back, and politicians are taking off the gloves.

Today is the start of a new session of Parliament, feast time for pundits who have spent the long lean summer without a daily dose of debate. Here’s what commentators say we can expect this fall.

The Toronto Star’s Haroon Siddiqui says its time to dethrone “King Stephen.” In one of the more exotic political analogies you’re likely to hear, Siddiqui compares the prime minister to the “Nizam of Hyderabad — ruler of British India’s most prosperous princely state.” Like Harper, the Nizam “could be stubborn as a mule, even if his chosen policy was shown to be wrong and expensive.” Historians are divided on whether the Nizam also had a fondness for sweater vests.

Compared to big shifts in the U.S., Australia and Europe, Canadian politics are “moving very slowly and with no clear pattern,” observes Angelo Persichilli in the Star. This is because Canadians are “just not completely happy with the choices available to them.” Harper is seen as a bully, the Liberals haven’t defined a clear political vision, and the NDP has strong leadership but “lacks the credibility to be a government party and the electoral strength to be the official opposition.” None of this appears likely to change this session, which means we’re stuck with a minority government.

In the National Post, Don Martin outlines this session’s key match-ups, fantasy football-style. He says the fight to watch is Conservative John Baird vs. Liberal David McGuinty. In Baird’s “new role as the government’s House Leader, he’ll face off against an MP he truly despises while enacting the Prime Minister’s directives to either play nice or nasty … Expect it to be mostly nasty.” Baird and McGuinty won’t even appear on TV together, says Martin. “This feud isn’t political. It’s personal.”

The politicians have pledged to play nice, but veteran Hill reporter Gloria Galloway says in the Globe and Mail that most observers “are expecting the pleasantries to end with the Speaker’s call to Question Period.” In other words, “let the parliamentary cage match begin.”