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As Indiana prepares for an off-year primary Tuesday, an expert from UIndy’s Department of History & Political Science is looking across the Atlantic to an unusually compelling general election taking place Thursday in Britain.
“This is a really interesting, once-in-a-blue-moon kind of political drama involving America’s closest foreign ally,” says Assistant Professor Chad Martin (pictured), a specialist in British history.
The latest polls suggest there may be no clear victor among the UK’s three major parties: the Labour and Conservative parties that have been swapping parliamentary leadership since 1922, and the Liberal Democrats, who haven’t won an election since 1918.
“One possibility, which is somewhat likely, is that no one party will win a majority, and the Liberal Democrats will play kingmaker by forming a coalition government with one of the other two,” Martin says.
Labour, the party of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his predecessor, Tony Blair, is currently in power but has grown unpopular, in part because of its support for U.S.-led military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Adding to this year’s drama was a series of televised debates between the party leaders, a first for the UK, which made a media star of Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.
“Over there, they are talking about the ‘Americanization’ of politics,” Martin says.
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Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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