Tonight\u2019s debate, some say, could have a dramatic effect on British politics.<\/p>\n
This is the first election period in the United Kingdom with televised debates between the leaders of the main parties.<\/p>\n
One debate down.\u00a0 Two to go.\u00a0 But already people are saying that the first debate alone has managed to shake up the campaign, to energize it, and has led to the wholly unexpected rise of the leader of the perennially third party.<\/p>\n
Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, previously the outsider, was seen as the winner of the first debate.\u00a0 His relaxed style went down well with the audience.\u00a0 The Brits are fed up with politics and politicians.\u00a0 Or so they say.\u00a0 Many feel their leaders lie to them.\u00a0 The recent expenses scandal, in which Members of Parliament\u2019s expense accounts have been leaked, scrutinized and deemed by many UK taxpayers to be excessive, has angered a lot of people. \u00a0The scandal centered on the ruling Labor Party and the Conservatives.<\/p>\n
The pundits say Clegg really felt like the breath of fresh air an angry electorate is hankering for.\u00a0 That said, being an outsider and never viewed as a possible Prime Minister, his policies have not been scrutinized. The incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative Party Leader David Cameron\u2019s have been time and again.\u00a0 Their performance in the debate was perceived by viewers as more restrained, more guarded.\u00a0 They clearly had more to lose.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that they made any major gaffes.\u00a0 The perception among viewers was that Clegg seemed more like the man for change.<\/p>\n
Today the papers, particularly conservative ones, have been full of stories slamming Nick Clegg.\u00a0 They involved party donations that allegedly went in to his personal account a few years back, but were actually used to pay a staffer.\u00a0 Clegg denies anything unethical.\u00a0 Also, a comment he made back in 2002 has been cited, and come back to bite.\u00a0 Then he told a newspaper that the UK has \u201ca more insidious cross to bear than Germany over the Second World War\u201d, a reference to the British suffering delusions of grandeur over having defeated the horrors of Nazism.<\/p>\n
Just last week, Clegg\u2019s popularity was compared to that of Winston Churchill after his success in last week\u2019s debate, said today \u201cI must be the only politician who has, in a week, gone from Churchill to a Nazi.\u201d<\/p>\n
The British system is different from the American one.\u00a0 The Brits vote for Members of Parliament.\u00a0 If a party wins more than half the seats in Parliament, its leader forms a government, and becomes Prime Minister.\u00a0 If no party gets more than half the seats, it\u2019s called a hung Parliament, which is highly unusual and which either means a coalition is formed among parties or a new election is called.<\/p>\n
Before the debate, the Conservatives were favored to win the requisite chunk of votes to be the part of power.\u00a0 The Nick Clegg phenomenon has made the prospect of a hung Parliament seem more real.\u00a0 No one expects the Liberal Democrats to win the election.\u00a0 But their success after the first debate has changed the picture.\u00a0 The latest YOUGOV poll puts Conservatives at 33 percent, Liberal Democrats at 31 percent and Labour at 27 percent.<\/p>\n
People are saying it\u2019s the first time in a generation the outcome of a British election is so uncertain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tonight\u2019s debate, some say, could have a dramatic effect on British politics. This is the first election period in the United Kingdom with televised debates between the leaders of the main parties. One debate down.\u00a0 Two to go.\u00a0 But already people are saying that the first debate alone has managed to shake up the campaign, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}