British Elections like American ..... NOT

It is somewhat like American elections on amphetemine, but NOT. It is countdown time. Only 5 days of campaigning are left in a 30 day campaign period that determines the direction of British policy and government for the next 5 years. All of the House of Commons is up for election, and the party with the majority will take the coveted award of the Prime Minister position. I have not seen any TV ads, few highway signs, no political buttons, and no bumper stickers and no political debates between candidates. Is this truly an election?

Blair must feel like he is in Iraq - bombs are dropping all around him in these last few days. Each day another leak of news proving that he lied about the reasons to go to war. Each day another disillusioned insider sticks it to him and the Labour party. Each day the news seems to carry a new failure - waiting times in the NHS, crime figures, school problems. Yet will it change anything? It seems that there is a general belief that Blair is a liar, that he conspired to go to war. Still it seems that a lying Labour government is still better than a Michael Howard Tory government.

Thirty days is not much time to wage a campaign, react to charges, or convince the public of much. If a tactic doesn't work it must be changed immediately as there is no time for failure in a 30 day campaign particularly in an uphill battle. Negative campaigning (called American style politics) has not gone over well, or maybe it didn't matter. If the public already believe that they can not trust Blair, telling them doesn't seem to matter.

Latest polls show that 50% percent believe that Blair is not a good Prime Minister, yet 54% believe that Michael Howard would make a bad Prime Minister, and 52% believe that Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat candidate, could not cope as a Prime Minister. So maybe it is like American politics after all - most feel they are voting for the lesser of the two evils.