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Click here to visit the new home of Politics Daily!If you followed the press coverage of this month's general elections in the United Kingdom, you're likely to come away with the sense that we just witnessed a watershed moment in this country's political history. But were these elections really historic? And if so, why? There's no question that there was a lot of drama packed into the brief, four-week election period that ended on May 6. It saw the first-ever televised political debates between the three main party leaders. Nick Clegg became a household name. And in the end, because no one party secured a majority, two political parties ...
The United Kingdom has a coalition government for the first time in 70 years. But will this marriage of convenience last? The historic British elections, which -- after five days of intense wrangling -- finally yielded a new coalition government under the leadership of David Cameron on Tuesday night, has already unleashed a torrent of analysis and commentary. Some of it has been hopeful, some of it cautious, and some of it downright negative. ...
Two years after the Conservatives surged to a 20 percentage point lead over Gordon Brown's sputtering Labour government in the British polls, 43-year-old Tory leader David Cameron finally became prime minister. But instead of an easy glide path to power, Cameron had to wait an agonizing five days after the inconclusive May 6 election before he could make the symbolic pilgrimage to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday night to formally accept Queen Elizabeth's invitation to form a new coalition government. Nearly 30 million British voters went to the polls in an election that left the Conservatives ...
Senior Conservative and Liberal Democrats met Sunday for six hours in what a Tory spokesman described as "very positive and productive" talks to see if they could form a new government together. The leaders of both parties, the Conservative's David Cameron and Liberal Democrat's Nick Clegg, did not attend the sessions. The negotiating teams are to meet again within 24 hours after consulting their leaders, according to reports by the BBC and Times of London. Clegg did meet with Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown who has offered to open talks with the Liberal Democrats if they fail to reach ...
As dawn broke over London Friday morning after a laboriously slow night of vote counting in Britain's most muddled election in three decades, it was far easier to count the losers than to identify the next prime minister. Exit polls had predicted a hung Parliament, with the Conservatives falling shy of a majority. And the actual returns (with 648 of the 650 constituencies reporting, as of Friday afternoon, London time) appeared to confirm this forecast, with the electoral swing from Labour to the Tories a slightly less-than-expected 5 percent. The BBC projected that the Conservatives would ...
LONDON (April 27) -- Don't worry if you've never heard of Nick Clegg. Until two weeks ago, the leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats -- which for the past 20 years have consistently come in third in national elections -- was barely known in his own country, let alone abroad. Now with only nine days left until Britons go to the polls, Clegg looks set to emerge as a major force in British politics. Since the 1930s, British elections have largely been a two-party affair. The only candidates who really counted came from center-left Labour, the incumbent, or the center-right Conservatives, also ...
By any measure, the British general elections on May 6 are shaping up to be a real nail-biter. The race is very competitive. The outcome is highly uncertain. The implications for Britain's future are profound. And for this American citizen living in London, at least, it's one of the most engaging electoral contests I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong. Like many Americans, I was captivated by the 2008 American presidential race. I understood that a lot was at stake on policy terms. I described how -- in an article I did from London that year -- Americans of all political stripes and classes ...
A funny thing happened on the way to the 2010 general elections in the United Kingdom: Personality began to matter. And the reason can be summed up in two words -- Nick Clegg -- leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats Party. Never heard of Nick Clegg? You're in good company. Neither had half of Great Britain before last week. That's when Clegg electrified a heretofore moribund campaign season with his dazzling performance in the first-ever televised debates between the three candidates for prime minister. Overnight, Clegg went from the guy that the other parties walked out on when he spoke ...
It looks increasingly likely that the British general elections will go right down to the wire. While the opposition Conservative party led the incumbent Labour party by as many as 17 percentage points last year, in recent weeks the race has become much more competitive. Many are now predicting that the election -- which must be held by early June -- may end in a hung parliament. ...
Many things are still uncertain as we move toward the British general elections later this spring. But here's one thing everyone agrees on: This election will be decided by women. Signs of women's strategic importance are everywhere you look. Both candidates for prime minister have assiduously courted the "Internet vote" by reaching out to the well-educated, middle-class stay-at-home moms who populate popular sites like Mumsnet. (There's even a new tag to identify these voters -- "cybermums" -- which bears resemblance to America's "soccer moms" of campaigns past.) ...
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