Three-Party System Appears in Great Britain
After the first Prime Ministerial debate in the history of Great Britain, the third party is polling number one, according to a firm called BPIX.
Undoubtedly, the three parties, the in-power Labour (that’s the way the English spell it), traditional opposition party Conservatives and come from behind Liberal Democrats are in a statistical tie.
32% to 31% to 28%.
It’s from an online survey of 2,149 people. A further problem with the poll is that it emphasized that Liberal Democrat candidate Nick Clegg won the debate.
Such polls have not been shown to be reliable in the United States.
Liberal Democrats support surged 30% after the debate, according to the Daily Mail article upon which I am basing this post.
The monopoly by Democrats and Republicans on the Presidential Debate Commission pretty much prevents something similar from happening in the United States.
Jim-Rod, the Two-Headed Chicken.
And, when I ran for governor as a Libertarian against Rod Blagojevich and Jim Ryan, even though (or perhaps because) I had more more governmental experience than both combined, they conspired to skip the Illinois League of Women Voters debate for the first time in memory.
Britain has a parliamentary form of government, a system in which members of the legislature elect the chief executive, called a Prime Minister.
Unlike the “winner take all” system in the United States national and Illinois government, a prime minister cannot be elected without getting a majority of the elected parliamentarians’ votes.
No winning control of the Executive Branch with a minority of the electorate’s support, as happened when Bill Clinton won his first presidency.
Explanation of the online poll in Great Britain. Click to enlarge.
That will make for some exciting days as a government is formed after the May 6th election.
The Daily Mail’s political columnist Simon Walters explains the complex (to Americans) system, pointing out that a “Lib-Lab” coaltion could keep current Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown in office.
