ConvoTracker: Yes, We Can, U.K. Edition

Paul Johnson is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan law school. He is a former reporter for the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey and the Hartford Courant in Connecticut. He is currently working as an appellate attorney for the state appellate defender’s office in Detroit, Michigan. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Cornell University.

Barack Obama’s message of hope and change comes to the United Kingdom this month with the start of that country’s election season. But in contrast to the United States, the hope and change candidate is a conservative. David Cameron, the telegenic head of the Conservative party in the UK, hopes to use the same themes that propelled Obama into office last year to help theConservative party end 14 years of Labour party rule.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown took the trip from 10 Downing Street to Buckingham Palace today to ask Queen Elizabeth II to dissolve parliament and call an election to take place on May 6. That he was going to call the election is no secret, but for the first time since 1992, the outcome of this British election is not a foregone conclusion.  For years it’s been assumed Cameron was merely the prime minister in waiting, but stumbles by members of his cabinet on gay rights and an expense scandal inside House of Parliament have kept Labour within striking distance of winning it’s fourth straight election for the first time in the party’s history.

But to accomplish that unlikely feat, Labour must win with Brown, the dour grumpy yang to Tony Blair’s charismatic ying. He is if anything, the anti-Tony Blair, who stepped down in 2007 to make way for Brown. Blair’s popularity faded after the British public soured on the Iraq war. That polls show Brown within striking distance of winning his own election outright is simply a miracle and demonstrate that the conservative party has not outgrown it’s reputation as a bunch of elitist insensitive tax cutters who want to slash social services.

With an election this close, the Liberal Democrat party led by the wily Nick Clegg can serve as spoilers, especially if there is a hung parliament where no party has the majority to rule outright. While the conservative party leads in the polls – polls state the lead between 4 and 10 points – the convoluted electoral map (conservative party support is more concentrated in England while Labour has greater support in Wales and Scotland) means that the conservative party must win a fairly large majority to avoid either a Labour majority or a hung parliament, something that hasn’t happened in over three decades. A hung parliament would leave the balance of power with Clegg, who despite the name of his party, has said a coalition with the conservative party would not be unthinkable.

The British election will also feature another unlikely first – televised debates. Fifty years after a confident Kennedy stole the momentum from the dour Richard Nixon, the British people will be able to see all three major party candidates face questions one a week until the election. Will the balance of power in the UK — and the fate of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recovery in Europe and the strength of the British Pound — rest on whether or not Gordon Brown can muster a believable smile on high definition television?

–Paul Johnson