At long last, the UK election campaign begins

Prime Minister David Cameron has told the Queen that it’s time to dissolve Parliament, as per the fixed election law passed in 2010. Thus, the most anticipated campaign in the history of British punditry (and likely the most dreaded by its electorate) is finally underway.

Even under normal circumstances (well, normal to Americans), this would be a tough election to predict: voters clearly prefer the Conservative Cameron to his Labour opponent (Ed Milliband), but they like the Labour Party more. Of course, that doesn’t take into account the ten other parties involved – yes, I said ten.

Left and right have their own “true blue” parties (UKIP on the right, Greens on the left) who are bleeding votes from the major parties, both of whom have been so focused on “the center ground” that they’ve been unable to stop the base bleeding.

Throw in the Scottish National Party (“Nats”), who are eating Labour’s lunch in Scotland…by promising to keep it in power in Westminster, and you get an idea of how things are.

Wales and Northern Ireland have their own nationalist parties, which tend to lean leftward. NI also has rightist pro-UK parties that have usually been ignored, but may not this time as no one thinks the Tories or Labour will have a majority in Parliament.

Of course, voters seem to be happy with that, as they’ve made it clear they’d prefer someone to keep the two big parties restrained. The only trouble is, they’re rewarding the one party that has actually done that (the Liberal Democrats) by cutting their support in half.

Yeah, it’s that kind of election.

Even that hallmark of dissent-can-never-be-brooked-at-any-cost (the Obama campaign) is cracked in two over this one: David Axelrod is a consultant to Labour, while Jim Messina is running the Tory campaign.

To be fair, a decent political leader could see through the mess and stride to victory…but anyone watching British politics since 2010 is well aware that Cameron and Milliband aren’t those kind of leaders – Cameron by design, Milliband largely because he can’t get out of his own way.

Both played to form on the first day: Cameron with a pedestrian call for votes, Milliband by bringing up the one issue where he’s completely in disagreement with the voters (a referendum on the European Union), by quoting leading business executives…who did not agree to be quoted in a political ad (Telegraph).

All we know is that after the 7th of May, despite everyone’s best efforts, someone will have to be Prime Minister.

@deejaymcguire | facebook.com/people/Dj-McGuire | DJ’s posts

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