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calimacAfter keeping his country on tenterhooks about it for almost the entirety of the nearly three years he's been UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has finally called a general election for the last legally possible date of the five-year term, in early May.
This is the first British general election since 1979 in which all three major parties are led by different people than the ones in the previous election.
One distinctive characteristic of the parliamentary system is that it's virtually impossible for a PM to just run the term out and retire, as a US President or Governor can. There's always an incumbent candidate. (Jeffrey Archer tried to create a non-incumbent scenario in his UK political novel First Among Equals, but in practice it wouldn't work that way.) The only way to leave office is to go out mid-term, either voluntarily or un-, or to lose an election.
The frequency of the former method of departure means that there's often a PM who hasn't been chosen for the office at a general election. (This is less non-democratic than it sounds to some Americans, because despite the increasing "presidential" character of the elections, voters are technically choosing not a PM but a local candidate affiliated with a party, and the party chooses its leader.) Leadership is tough, though, for an unelected PM succeeding a long-term, commanding predecessor, as Brown succeeded Tony Blair. Alec Douglas-Home (1964) and James Callaghan (1979) both lost their only elections as leader; prior to them, the governments of Lord Rosebery (1895), Arthur Balfour (1905), and Neville Chamberlain (1940) all collapsed before an election. The only notable exceptions were John Major, as hapless a figure as Douglas-Home or Callaghan, but who pulled off a surprise narrow victory in 1992 - though the horrible succeeding term showed that doing so was a curse in disguise for the Conservative Party - and Anthony Eden, who called a snap election immediately after succeeding Winston Churchill in 1955 and won a solid majority.
Brown had been urged to call a snap election in the fall of 2007, and if he had would probably have won handsomely, but after waffling he decided not to take the risk, and his government has been mired in tar ever since. Like Callaghan (or like Major in 1997, for that matter), he's been waiting it out, hoping things would get better. Strangely, for him alone they actually have, and there's a chance that Labour might win a fourth term, which they never have before. Or there might be a "hung" (no majority) parliament, a situation the British have never known what to do with, though it's the normal circumstance in most of the multi-party systems on the continent.
What happens in that case has already been over-discussed, and I'd prefer to leave that alone unless and until it happens, but I will note that while, in the past, losing elections was often considered just a happenstance and the leader would live to fight another day (this is why so many earlier PMs served multiple non-consecutive terms), the increasing presidentiality of the elections has made them referenda on the leaders, and, over the last 30 years, with one exception, every leader of the major losing party has resigned immediately after the election. If Labour loses this one outright, Brown is gone, that's for sure, but would the same be true for David Cameron, the opposition leader? The Conservatives have stumbled ever since Major drove the party into the ground in the mid-90s, but I wonder if Cameron, unlike his appalling predecessors (one of whom was so bad he didn't last long enough to fight an election), might be considered, um, non-appalling enough that he'd be given another chance to rebuild the party, as Labour gave Neil Kinnock after 1987, with some success.
We'll see. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats never win, so this is the first of probably two or three elections for their new leader, Nick Clegg, unless there is a hung parliament and a coalition (but with whom?), in which case who knows what'll happen.
This is the first British general election since 1979 in which all three major parties are led by different people than the ones in the previous election.
One distinctive characteristic of the parliamentary system is that it's virtually impossible for a PM to just run the term out and retire, as a US President or Governor can. There's always an incumbent candidate. (Jeffrey Archer tried to create a non-incumbent scenario in his UK political novel First Among Equals, but in practice it wouldn't work that way.) The only way to leave office is to go out mid-term, either voluntarily or un-, or to lose an election.
The frequency of the former method of departure means that there's often a PM who hasn't been chosen for the office at a general election. (This is less non-democratic than it sounds to some Americans, because despite the increasing "presidential" character of the elections, voters are technically choosing not a PM but a local candidate affiliated with a party, and the party chooses its leader.) Leadership is tough, though, for an unelected PM succeeding a long-term, commanding predecessor, as Brown succeeded Tony Blair. Alec Douglas-Home (1964) and James Callaghan (1979) both lost their only elections as leader; prior to them, the governments of Lord Rosebery (1895), Arthur Balfour (1905), and Neville Chamberlain (1940) all collapsed before an election. The only notable exceptions were John Major, as hapless a figure as Douglas-Home or Callaghan, but who pulled off a surprise narrow victory in 1992 - though the horrible succeeding term showed that doing so was a curse in disguise for the Conservative Party - and Anthony Eden, who called a snap election immediately after succeeding Winston Churchill in 1955 and won a solid majority.
Brown had been urged to call a snap election in the fall of 2007, and if he had would probably have won handsomely, but after waffling he decided not to take the risk, and his government has been mired in tar ever since. Like Callaghan (or like Major in 1997, for that matter), he's been waiting it out, hoping things would get better. Strangely, for him alone they actually have, and there's a chance that Labour might win a fourth term, which they never have before. Or there might be a "hung" (no majority) parliament, a situation the British have never known what to do with, though it's the normal circumstance in most of the multi-party systems on the continent.
What happens in that case has already been over-discussed, and I'd prefer to leave that alone unless and until it happens, but I will note that while, in the past, losing elections was often considered just a happenstance and the leader would live to fight another day (this is why so many earlier PMs served multiple non-consecutive terms), the increasing presidentiality of the elections has made them referenda on the leaders, and, over the last 30 years, with one exception, every leader of the major losing party has resigned immediately after the election. If Labour loses this one outright, Brown is gone, that's for sure, but would the same be true for David Cameron, the opposition leader? The Conservatives have stumbled ever since Major drove the party into the ground in the mid-90s, but I wonder if Cameron, unlike his appalling predecessors (one of whom was so bad he didn't last long enough to fight an election), might be considered, um, non-appalling enough that he'd be given another chance to rebuild the party, as Labour gave Neil Kinnock after 1987, with some success.
We'll see. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats never win, so this is the first of probably two or three elections for their new leader, Nick Clegg, unless there is a hung parliament and a coalition (but with whom?), in which case who knows what'll happen.
