It has been busy three weeks in the UK with the three political parties holding their party conferences and making some key policy announcements to attract voters.
What has been remarkable is that all of this is happening as it would seem there is no international dimension to what is occurring in the rest of the world. The media has been preoccupied with the political scandals, gossip and razz mattaz of politics.
What has been striking is that the war in Afghanistan and Iraq hardly gets mentioned as politicians fight their way through the domestic agenda. On who can be more tougher on the ballooning public expenditure; the likely cuts in welfare benefits and public services; asylum seekers, illegal workers in the case of a peer of realm, Baroness Scotland employing one illegal worker without knowing. A peer of the realm assuming the role of key strategist in Government – Lord Mandelson once despised by his party becomes the darling of the Labour conference. It all resembles a well choreographed piece of theatre in some respects. The media had labelled this as the final chapter in Labours fortunes and in the case of its leader his ‘fight to survive’ as its final leader speech. Then on Tuesday as the Prime Minister Gordon Brown addressed his party faithful in Brighton, he received a standing ovation supported by his wife. What followed was all too obvious from the Rupert Murdoch press, The Sun newspaper proclaimed the following day on its front page with a picture of the Prime Minister ‘Labour’s Lost It’. The facts are that this tabloid newspaper has the highest circulation in the UK and tends to back winners in elections, as it did back in 1997 with the headline ‘The Sun Backs Blair’.
The reaction from the Labour Party was all too obvious and pretty much in line with what you would expect. The Sun is a newspaper from the stable of Rupert Murdoch with the owner holding an Australian and American citizenship, who is trying to meddle in British politics were some of the clear charges. It is worth noting that his papers did not support Barak Obama in the US elections. Times have changed with it the way voters are influenced before marking their cross to vote at the ballot box. The Sun may have been an influential paper back in 1997; however with the advent of slick use of technology by the likes of Obama, it is proven how politicians can reach out from the traditional reach of the print media with their own brand of messages. The question remains, if the UK political scene is as sophisticated and has it embraced the potential of the technological innovations in this area?
Clearly all the opinion polls put the Conservatives ahead of the ruling Labour Party and one poll even put them behind the Liberal Democrats on the eve of the Labour Party conference. This culminated in the PM Brown agreeing to televised debates with the other two leaders of the main political parties. This is unprecentated in the British political history. It is clearly an attempt to Americanise the politics in the UK in light of the lack of interest generated by politics in recent times with the scandals around Parliamentarian expenses and politicians generally across the political divide. The question has to be who benefits from any televised debate, if history is anything to go by then we only need to look at the performance of John F Kennedy against his opponents where his slick performance on TV won him the Presidency of the USA. Whilst this may be true, the fact is that the leader of the Conservative party is seen by many as shallow and weak on policy detail, a fact not lost on the Government front bench.
When the Tories coasting with a 15% lead in the opinion polls do they really need to be shown up in front of a live TV debate? PM Brown has very little to lose by showing the great mass of TV audience his grasp of policy detail and experience. Cameron on the other hand will attempt to show his charismatic Eton streak by avoiding getting railroaded into any policy corner such as cuts in Public spending and above all the bane of his life their policy on Europe. The third party is pretty much ineffectual in these circumstances as they have very little traction with the British voters unless the opinion polls start to project a narrow victory for any of the other parties, where they will then come into their own in a scenario of a hung parliament.
Germany only last week voted in Angela Merkel for a second term as a Chancellor and what has been achieved by her may well be possible for PM Brown. He is seen as an intellectual power house around the world on the economic meltdown of historic proportions – a fact not well revived in the domestic politics. As Ireland has just voted ‘yes’ to ratify the Lisbon Treaty with all that it has to offer to an ever larger and growing influence of Europe with national politics playing a secondary role in many areas of life. Tony Blair the recent British Prime Minster to lead the Labour party is poised to be appointed its first President. This is hotly debated as and to whom it will benefit and whether the Conservatives will offer the British voters a similar referendum, which has split their party. The Conservatives also have some peculiar leaning in Europe with alliances with right wing parties that would make interesting reading for the domestic voters. The right wing has been on the march in the UK and with their recent success in the EU elections they are rattling the political cage. In the past all main political parties had refused to share a platform with them; they are being forced now to do so. In the next few days for the first time the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, will go on air at the BBC with an experienced panel of politicians, to answer questions, including Jack Straw MP –Cabinet member for Justice. This is mould breaking for the BBC as well as politics in the UK. Politicians from all sides have been caught napping whist the right wing in the UK has been able to organise and capitalise on voter apathy towards the tired mainstream brand of politics. Ordinary white working class as well as middle class voters are flocking to support the BNP and it would be a tragedy if they were able to muster up enough support to enter the British parliament. They hold abhorrent and racist views that do nothing to unite the diverse people in the UK.
It seems like a different kind of electioneering leading to a likely General Election in the UK in May 2010. The campaigning unofficially started in earnest. Who will win and who will lose remains to be seen and it has been famously said, ‘a week is a long time in politics’.
Semra Eren-Nijhar 