Campaigns boost intensity
LONDON – Campaigning in Britain’s most unpredictable election in years entered the homestretch Tuesday even as the nation began girding itself for a period of political uncertainty stemming from a potential stalemate in Parliament.
The opposition Conservatives remain in the lead in the polls as they try to smash the Labour Party’s 13-year grip on power. But there are increasing signs that no party is likely to emerge from Thursday’s vote with a majority in the House of Commons, which would throw this country into murky political waters not seen here in more than 30 years.
Such a “hung Parliament” would probably set off a furious round of negotiations over who would get to serve as prime minister at the head of either a minority or coalition government.
None of the three men who hope to come out on top ceded any ground to their rivals as they barnstormed the country Tuesday, trying to shore up core voters and win over undecided ones.
“Don’t think this is an election without consequences,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown told a group of young people during a campaign stop in central England. “This is an election where there’s a clear choice between a modern economic philosophy that says support the people when there’s an economic problem and an old 1930s economic philosophy that says let people on their own and do not support them in times of need.”
After a public relations nightmare last week that saw Brown call a woman “bigoted” without realizing he still had a microphone on, some observers have detected a new burst of energy and passion from the normally broody Scotsman on the hustings over the last few days.
But Labour is still the underdog in the polls behind the Conservatives, who are led by David Cameron.
Some surveys even have Labour narrowly behind the Liberal Democrats, whose sleeper party is surging on the back of leader Nick Clegg’s performance in Britain’s first-ever televised prime ministerial debates.
In an unusual move, a few top Labour politicians encouraged supporters Tuesday to think tactically in casting their ballots, saying that voting Liberal Democrat in some districts would be justifiable if it could keep the Conservative candidate from winning.
Owing to the British electoral system, which puts a premium on winning individual seats in Parliament, the Liberal Democrats’ rise in national polls will probably not translate into enough seats to break out of third place in the House of Commons. But the party could capture many more seats than in the last election in 2005, depriving either Labour or the Tories of a legislative majority.
If that happens, Clegg will be the object of ardent wooing by Labour and the Conservatives. Clegg refuses to say which party he would back, either as a minority government or as a coalition including the Liberal Democrats.