Lisa Mascaro's article ("Measure to limit stalling in the Senate stalled by senator," May 16) offers an interesting contrast between our political leaders and those in Great Britain. As reported, "Just when the Senate was poised to change one of those arcane rules that let even a single senator paralyze the entire chamber, a single senator stood up and invoked another one of those rules to derail the whole thing."

Contrast this with the situation in Great Britain where the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties put aside their political difference and agreed to work as partners in what both leaders called "a new politics of reason and compromise." There are clearly huge obstacles ahead but, at least, it's a start.

It would be refreshing to hear similar conciliatory pledges from Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell on behalf of the American people, but in our climate of adversarial politics, don't count on it.

Beryl J. Rosenstein, Baltimore