Stunning news out of the UK, where the General Election will take place on May 6th, 2010.
Following the first ever televised debate between the three party leaders (PM Gordon Brown for Labour, David Cameron for the Conservatives, and Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats), the pundits quickly declared Nick Clegg the clear winner.
Yesterday, a handful of polls showed the Liberal Democrats in second place, above the governing Labour Party (this had only previously happened on 31st May 2009, and 29th Sept 2009 - the governing party has never been third in the polls during a General Election campaign).
This evening, news has broken of two polls (albeit from less trustworthy pollsters) that have the Liberal Democrats in the lead, over both the Conservatives and the Labour Party.
More details at http://politicalbetting.com
Some time ago, I wrote about Black Swans that could change the betting markets and deny the Conservative Party (who were enjoying leads of up to 20-points over Labour) an overall majority. The hypothetical "if Cameron was hit by a bus" scenario (no other obvious leader), or the death and State Funeral of Margeret Thatcher were ideas suggested for a piece I never published. Even looking at Black Swans, I didn't anticipate the Lib Dems winning the popular vote.
It won't give them an overall majority, probably, though they could win over 100 seats. It is possible that the popular vote could see the LibDems in first, Conservatives second, and Labour third BUT leave Labour with the most seats, Conservatives with the second most, and the Lib Dems still third in numebrs of seats.
What does seem certain is that a massive increase in LibDem vote share will make a Hung Parliament (meaning a minority government or a coalition government) much more likely. It will likely also see pressure to move the UK from First Past The Post towards a more proportional voting system (the deal-breaking price of getting Lib Dem support in a coalition).
For voters who want a Hung Parliament (and 32% of them say they do), I wrote this piece for the UK's Channel 4 News this week: http://tinyurl.com/...
There are two more leaders' debates to follow - if Clegg can win these, and stand up to the new and intense scrutiny that his party's manifesto will be subjected to now they pose a real threat, then we could be in for the most interesting election since 1983.
British politics sometimes can seem drab compared to the glitz and glammer of US elections. This is going to be a brutal, ugly, complicated fight to the close. And I can't wait.
If you want to learn more, please forgive me a plug for my book: "The Total Politics Guide to the 2010 General Election" http://tinyurl.com/...
Best UK sites to follow:
PoliticalBetting.com (disclaimer, I write for PB) http://politicalbetting.com
UK Polling Report http://www.ukpollingreport.co.uk/...
ConservativeHome http://www.conservativehome.blogs.com/
Left Foot Forward http://www.leftfootforward.org/
Labour List http://www.labourlist.org/
Lib Dem Voice http://www.libdemvoice.org/
Guido Fawkes http://order-order.com
Iain Dale's Diary http://iaindale.blogspot.com/
One last thing - if you're Tweeting the General Election 2010, the hashtag is #GE2010, and we've devised a list of hashtags for each constituency, which can be found at http://bit.ly/...