One of the things that I have not done a particularly good job of while studying abroad is discussing, in depth, those things that the United States and the United Kingdom do not have in common. For this, I can offer two reasons: (1) these things are not always immediately evident to the casual passer-by on account of a (partially) shared language and history, and (2) as an Oxford student, the emphasis on study is greater than that on abroad, so I do not have as much opportunity as other students to travel around and truly immerse myself in my surroundings — unless, of course, you count the Social Science Library among said surroundings. The recent — and, in a sense, still ongoing — general election in the UK, however, was an extended moment during which to observe the fascinating contrasts between but not limited to politics on both sides of the Atlantic.
Obligatory disclaimer: although my own political leanings are not hard to find, if you’re looking for them, I will endeavour to exclude them as best I can from this post, though I am certain that I can never completely do so. I will also endeavour to deliver factually sound information. If I have erred in this regard, please let me know and I will try to fix that as quickly as I can. This post is less about the precise mechanics of British government and what will happen after the election and more about the election process itself, as it was viewed by this relatively uninvolved yours truly (I was only involved to the extent that I was very invested in the outcome, something to which anyone who has been around me lately can attest!)
Before I begin, though, some background information is likely in order to provide the overall context of this election. The UK has a first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, which means that the single candidate who wins a plurality of votes within a given constituency wins it. The party that wins the most number of seats typically also has a majority of seats in Parliament and can therefore form a government. FPTP tends to amplify the majority of a winning party; it tends to value the effectiveness of a government over its representativeness and produce a two-party system. In Britain, these two parties, which feature much stronger intra-party discipline than their American counterparts, are the centre-left Labour Party and the centre-right Conservative Party (“Tories”). British politics also features a perennial third party, the Liberal Democrats (“Lib Dems”), who are a bit difficult to place ideologically. While firmly belonging to the centre-left, they nevertheless differ from Labour on a number of issues, hold some Tory-ish positions, and then possess a set of policies all their own.
As of this most recent election, Labour had been in power for thirteen years, and, after a long spell in the electoral wilderness and a process of party modernisation still in progress, the Conservatives were supposed to win a majority in Parliament: the Labour government had been unpopular for years, and an economic recession never helps the party in power. Nevertheless, the Tories saw their poll numbers slide into a region where, while they were still ahead of Labour, that majority was no longer assured. Meanwhile, this election witnessed a strong surge by the Lib Dems, courtesy of Britain’s first ever televised prime ministerial debates — only fifty years after we Americans first pioneered the concept! — that gave the party a standing equal to that of the other two. During their peak, the Lib Dems even overtook Labour as the second party in some polls. When it came time for the actual election, though, the results more or less confirmed what many had expected to happen: Labour lost a fair number of seats to the Conservatives, but the Conservatives remained short of a majority, while the Lib Dems actually lost a few seats. In British political parlance, the election produced a “hung parliament,” and it remains to be seen what kind of government — the Conservative Party governing as a minority, a Con-Lib coalition, or a Lib-Lab pact — will emerge from the wreckage.
So. Having said all of that, what have I learned?
1. The media do not place too much stock by the “fair and balanced” principle. Allegations of media bias are plentiful in the States, but, with the exceptions of smaller publications like the Washington Times, there are no high-circulation newspapers à la the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal that have an obvious editorial position in their day-to-day reporting. Even in the NYT’s left-leaning opinion section always features at least a few conservatives (Ross Douthat and David Brooks, anyone?). Newspapers in England could not be more different; even the so-called “quality press,” termed as such to contrast it with a tabloid market that puts the American one to shame, have certain editorial stances that are evident throughout the paper. This is even more evident with the tabloids: one simply has to look at this front-page article of The Sun, a right-wing paper with one of the largest readerships in England.
2. The general election campaign is, blissfully, less gaffe-obsessed. One of the most notable moments of the campaign was an incident termed “Bigotgate,” during which incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a voter, well, a bigot after doing a meet-and-greet event and his microphone, still live, was there to capture it for all to hear. The media were, naturally, all over this, especially since this happened a few days before the second leaders’ debate. The story, though, proved to be surprisingly short-lived. Neither the leader of the Tories nor that of the Lib Dems gave the PM grief about it on the campaign trail, and, during the debate, it was only brought up once by Gordon Brown himself, who said something or another about not always getting things right. Here, I think back to the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. One and a half years later, I can still remember the Barack Obama gaffe about bitter small-town Americans clinging to their guns and religion because his opponents seized any opportunity they could to argue that he was elitist, out of touch with ordinary Americans, and so forth.
3. Speaking of televised debates... U.S. presidential debates are carefully staged affairs: they are subject to strict time limits and, instead of addressing each other, the candidates tend to use them as a national forum for speaking directly to voters. The obvious downside of this, as anyone who has ever watched one will know, is that very little serious contention about the issues ever occurs. I was only able to watch the third of the leaders’ debate, and I walked away from it impressed by the mere fact that it was, in fact, a real debate.
4. Divisive “wedge” issues have less prominence. Gay marriage, abortion, and the separation between church and state — these are only a handful of the social issues that attract fiery opinions from both sides of the political spectrum in the United States, and, as the 2004 presidential election demonstrated, were deployed with great success by the Republican Party. Although these issues certainly exist in Britain — opponents of Evan Harris, a Lib Dem MP in the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency, smeared him as “Dr. Death” for his strong pro-choice views — they do not seem to arouse the same intensity or controversy. Indeed, David Cameron’s campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party was based on the need to bring Tory positions on social issues more in line with the centre. The exception to this observation is, I think, immigration, which provokes strong passions not only in the UK but across the European continent as a whole.
5. Regional politics have a significant effect on national electoral results. The four constituent parts of the United Kingdom — England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland — each possess their own peculiar party system. Though I could briefly go through all of them, perhaps it would be most instructive to focus on Scotland. Ever since Margaret Thatcher took an axe to state support for manufacturing industries in the 1980s, Scotland has been hostile territory for the Tories. Out of the almost sixty constituencies in Scotland, only one was held by the Conservative Party before the election, and they were unable to improve on that result. Labour remain, by far, the dominant party there and largely compete only with the Scottish National Party and the Lib Dems, depending on the constituency in question. As such, the Conservatives are relegated to what is essentially fourth-party status. On the night of the election, many commentators were noting that one of the reasons Labour were able to staunch the loss of their seats was by not ceding any ground to the Tories in Scotland.
