Nick Clegg: 'Cleggmania' Sweeps Britain, Liberal Democrats Surge In Polls

A week ago, most people in Britain considered Nick Clegg, the "little-known leader" of the Liberal Democrats to be, by all measures, a long shot to become Britain's next prime minister. But that was before "Cleggmania" swept the country.

The origins of Cleggmania can be traced to last week's televised debate -- a first in Great Britain -- in which Clegg was widely considered to have stolen the show from the leaders of Britain's two largest political parties: current Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, and Conservative Party leader David Cameron. The headline the next day in the London Times read "Clegg comes of age." A poll taken after the debate led the Guardian to declare that "Clegg is now in contention as potential PM."

To top it off, the latest YouGov poll shows the Liberal Democrats to now be in the lead with 34 percent of the vote. The Conservative Party came in second with 31 percent. A week ago the Liberal Dems were hovering around 16 percent. Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish referred to the poll result as "th earthquake in Britain." John Curtice of the Independent has called the Liberal Dems' surge "the biggest shock to the electoral landscape in years."

The hype around Clegg is so great that a writer for the Guardian has even taken to asking if Clegg is "the British Obama." They even mocked up a great photomontage of the famous Obama "Hope" poster featuring Clegg, which you can see here. (For the record, Clegg has also drawn comparisons to Winston Churchill and, the NYT's Lede blog notes, Jesus.)

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/21/nick-clegg-cleggmania-swe_n_546192.html

By stopping quoting at "He's a British version", he missed the important bit: "he is the new Tim Henman". Henman is the English tennis player who some people got very excited about, each time Wimbledon came around, and he made it to the semi-finals 2 or 3 times, but never any further. But he was still the most successful male tennis player Britain had produced for 60 years. But that's quite British - to get excited about not actually succeeding.

Clegg may hold the balance of power in it, with Brown as PM.

Granted the UK has single member districts so Labour and Tories might have an advantage there.

Roughly, if the vote in each seat changes by the same percentage across the country, then, to win more seats than both Labour and the Tories, the vote would have to be:

Lib Dems 36%
Con 29.5%
Labour 25%

That gives, in the Electoral Calculus calculator,
Lib Dem 206 seats
Con 205 seats
Lab 207 seats

The bookmakers' odds on the Lib Dems winning more seats than then other two are between 9/1 and 16/1; the betting indexes, which are based solely on how much is bet on each outcome, put the odds of the Lib Dems getting most seats more like 24/1. And a party with more seats is not going to hand over the prime-ministership in a coalition agreement.

http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/next-uk-general-election/most-seats

Damn.

Labour who look like they will only get the votes of Gordon Brown, his cabinet and their wives will still end up as the largest party in the House of Commons.

Based on these poll numbers

Labour 28%
Conservatives 31%
Liberal Democrats 32%

this result would give the Conservatives about 224 seats in the Commons, an increase of 26.

The Liberal Democrats would gain 60 seat but would still only have 122 seats and would therefore remain a minority party.

Labour, despite having the lowest share of the vote could still be the largest Parliamentary party with around 273 seats.

A bigger share of the vote could see a lot of Labour and Conservative seats fall to the Lib Dems - but people will still need to be convinced that they can actually win.

It's time for Compomania and Foggymania!

It's a sign, I tell you!!!! </Cleggmania>

We shall have to unleash norabattymania!

Joanna Lumley - the sleeping giant of British culture and politics.

Is Joanna Lumley with hair curlers and wrinkly stockings! :wow:

I concur. Cheers! :toast: