British Election Mania

Posted on Apr 5, 2010

Graham Whitehouse / WDM (CC-BY)

A protester plays dress-up as the British prime minister in bed with a fat cat.

Gordon Brown has announced that the U.K. will hold elections May 6. A few weeks ago it was a near certainty that Conservatives would win the day, but a few polls show Labour surprisingly close to holding on to power. For the first time, the three major party leaders will debate each other live on telly.

Even if Labour fails to win an outright majority, it could cut a deal with the Liberal Democrats. Although that might be hard when Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg is expected to kick off his campaign by proclaiming Gordon Brown “directly and personally responsible for the biggest mistakes of the last 13 years.”

Britons may be fed up with Labour, which has held the reins since 1997 and bears responsibility for, among other things, U.K. involvement in that terribly unpopular war in Iraq, but they don’t appear eager to jump into the arms of David Cameron’s Conservatives.

The Tories are still leading in most polls by an average of eight points, but as of this posting U.K. Polling Report predicts a hung parliament.  —PZS

Sources: The Guardian, BBC, UK Polling Report

The Guardian:

Labour still has a fighting chance of winning the most seats in the general election, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today.

The findings suggest Tory hopes of a defining breakthrough have been overplayed, with the gap between the two main parties now at just four points – the closest in an ICM poll for almost two years.

Labour support has climbed four points to 33% since an ICM poll carried out for the Guardian last week. Conservative backing has dropped one since then to 37% – Labour’s best ICM rating since December 2008 and the Tories’ worst since February.

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