Belvedere Times

Brown Bows Out As Cameron Claims No. 10.

Pauric Gallagher, Political Analyst

David Cameron (43), the youngest Prime Minister in over 200 years, was initiated on Tuesday in No. 10 Downing Street as the United Kingdom's newest Prime Minister.  It came after negotiations between his Party, the Conservatives, and Nick Clegg’s Party, the Liberal Democrats, over a possible coalition.  They united after agreements on several contentious issues, including electoral reform.

Gordon Brown resigned as Prime Minister after serving as the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten years and ae turbulent three years as Prime Minister.  Gordon Brown's downfall came on April 28th when he called long-time Labour activist, Gillian Duffy, a bigoted woman.  People in Britain were outraged and claims that Brown was a bully resurfaced. The British election was described as the most exciting in modern history due to the uncertainty of who would come out on top.  This was due to the emergence of the Liberal Democrats as viable candidates and to Nick Clegg’s performance in the new American-style Leaders' Debates.  This was the first time in the UK’s history that the three main party leaders agreed to debate the most important issues of British society.  Nick Clegg came out on top in the first debate because he was seen to bring a fresh approach to politics and he offered real change, according to voters.  

ITV, Sky News and The BBC hosted one debate each, with 22 million viewers over the three debates.  The themes were Domestic Affairs, Foreign Affairs and The Economy as well as topical issues that arose.  Sceptics believed the debates focused on Leaders' personalities instead of the all-important policy matters.  It was widely agreed that the debates were a success and will feature prominently in future elections.

The election itself was held on May 6th and within a matter of minutes of polling stations closing the first results were announced.  The overall picture was not evident until much later but the expectation was that a “hung” or “balanced” Parliament would be the final outcome.  In the end, there was a hung Parliament, with the Tories achieving 306 (a gain of 97) seats out of a possible 650.  Labour did better than expected, losing only 91 seats, finishing with 258 seats. The Liberal Democrats unexpectedly lost 5 seats and finished with 57 seats. They were anticipated to make significant gains with some predicting they may even overtake the Labour Party to second place. This was not to be, given the bizarre voting system in the UK. 

The "first-past-the-post" system operated in Britain is grossly biased in favour of the Labour Party.  Nearly ¼ of all voters voted for the Liberal Democrats yet they achieved less than 10% of the seats within the House of Commons. Yet 29% of voters went in favour of Labour but they still command nearly 40% of the seats within the house.  The Liberal Democrats understandably felt aggrieved by this unfair system and in their coalition talks with the Conservatives came to an agreement to a more complicated but fairer system called Alternative Vote.  The Tories were reluctant to agree as they fare better under the current system. 

Tuesday, 11th May, was proclaimed as “Decision Day.”  The Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party pushed Labour onto the opposition benches as they formed an alliance with David Cameron as Prime Minister and Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister. Time will tell whether parties with considerable differing views can work together, but one thing is for certain, Labour has to rebuild a broken brand firstly by electing a new leader and progressing on to have aspirations of regaining power in years to come.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/election2010/results/ shows a simple breakdown of the UK election results