How things are shaping up in Britain

The Lib Dems have secured the support of one of the major left-leaning publications in Britain--The Guardian. This is a departure from the paper's normal preference, the Labour Party. And in its article, it explains that the Lib Dems have a better case for "fairness" in this election than does Labour, primarily based on the electoral reform argument, which would in turn help the Lib Dems by getting representation in Westminster proportional to the popular vote received, while stopping the exaggerated dominance of the top two parties have had for the past almost ninety years.

The Times also switched traditional support to the Conservatives from Labour, the first time in 18 years this has happened. The Economist, my favorite publication on all things political and, of course, economic, also came out in support of Cameron's party. That disappointed me a bit. They said he had the best economic plans of the three. Funny, I always thought his ideas were backward, reactionary, and possibly damaging.

Angus Reid polling has support for the Conservatives at 35%, the Lib Dems at 29%, and Labour at 23%. If these numbers hold even slightly true for the election on Thursday, it will certainly be no surprise to me when Labour has a "deathbed conversion," as The Guardian put it, to electoral reform. The Labour Party hasn't come in anything below 2nd place since before 1922, though they came very close in 1983.

And as Nick Clegg warned, the Conservatives are certainly on the wrong side of the proportional representation debate. It is my strong opinion that when the Conservatives take a plurality in votes and not quite enough seats for a majority government, they will eagerly form a new government and attempt to govern only with support of a smaller party (the Lib Dems or UUP or UKIP) when they have to have the votes to pass a measure. The idea of coalition will be so foreign to them that by tradition they will oppose it, and this opposition will hopefully be their swift downfall.

There are already reports of those who will vote tactically on Thursday. Under proportional representation, this would be a moot point, but the antiquated first-past-the-post system makes tactical voting a very real threat to all parties, with focus being on the big three. There are those so opposed to having a Tory government that they will vote for whichever left-ish party seems to have greater support in marginal seats. Actual Lib Dem supporters going for Labour and vice versa.

This is the worst possible manner of voting. There are no options for listing parties by preference, so apparent party preference is skewed, and it could possibly mean true Lib Dem supporters are propping up an increasingly tired Labour government, led by an increasingly tired PM, and accepting a mediocre or even poor center-left administration solely for the sake of not having the Tories back in. If this were how everyone decided to vote, Britain would be regressing to a system more resembling that of the United States, where two sameish parties vie in each election cycle to be the lesser of two bad choices. Tactical voting results in accepting a false dilemma. There is in reality always a third choice, a fourth choice, a seventy-seventh choice.

I'm going to be researching the upcoming Dutch and Belgian elections in June in the very near future, and will hopefully start blogging about them soon. And then, of course, here in Colombia there is a presidential election that's looking to be the most exciting one since Gaitan in 1948.

A very happy May Day/Labor Day to everyone out in blogspot land. Being an American, this world holiday has never really meant anything to me, as the U.S. has Labor Day in September. It was interesting to go outside today and see that the streets were quite empty--always the first indicator of a Colombian holiday. Just too bad it had to be a Saturday, or we could've had a day off from school during the week.

Also, as a side note, it has been thirteen years to the day since Labour won their historic 1997 victory under the leadership of Tony Blair. May 2 will be thirteen years since he took office as Prime Minister. Gordon Brown now looks to be the last Labour PM for some years to come.