Hung Parliament?

The current election campaign in the UK has produced a major surprise, namely the LIberal Democrats (LibDems) have gained significantly in popularity. This results from their young leader Nick Clegg doing well in the first (yes first!) televised election debate in British history. Clegg (43) gained because of his youthful appearance and his criticism of the "politics as usual" approach of the incumenbent Labour Party under Gordon Brown and the Conservatives under David Cameron.

Although the Conservatives have been expected to win and replace Labour as the largest party in Parliament, the sudden rise of the LibDems have put that anticipated outcome in jeopardy. The old-time Liberal Party held sway in England 100 years ago before the rise of the Labour-socialist movement that effectively replaced it. In recent years the reorganized LibDems have gradually gained ground, although they have usually been a minority party with only ca. 20 seats out of 650 in Parliament. But, current estimates are that they could win nearly 30% of the vote, replacing Labour as the second largest party, and could have between 90-120 seats. That would result in a "hung" Parliament, i.e. for the first time in British history there would be no party with enough seats to form a government alone, and then there would have to be a coalition government. This has happened before in the UK, in 1974 and 1929, but in each case it was because there was no clear majority between the two major parties. Such an outcome is unusual in constituency representation systems like the UK and US, but common in proportional representation systems like France and Israel.

Since the LibDems usually vote with Labour against the Conservatives, this situation might mean a Lab-LibDems coalition. Note that the LibDems tend to be more anti-war and anti-Israel than Labour. David Cameron, the vigorous new leader of the Conservatives has been warning that a vote for the LibDems is equivalent to a vote for Labour, but this of course infuriates the LIbDems. This trend could be seen in several ways, either as a historic rejection of the Labour Party, even in its incarnation as the New Labour of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, or of a preferance for simply a youthful candidate and image due to the growing youth culture in the UK. Whatever the reason, this three party system might throw up unusual results. Of course, there are other small parties, including the extreme left Communists and the extreme right British Union Party, as well as the anti-EU UK-First Party and the Scottish, Welsh and Irish parties. And their increased support might provide further surprises int eh election due on May 6.