I caught about the later two-thirds of the third and final British PM debate which just ended, and I saw the entirety of the back-and-forth about immigration. Al Sharpton might have shit his pants to see this, but the audience question which started the part about immigration came from what appeared to be and sounded like a black Briton, and his question was loaded up in a fashion that made me believe that he was against mass immigration.
If I didn’t know any better, both Gordon Brown and David Cameron might as well be Jan Brewer. Only Nick Clegg seems to advocate something close to amnesty and open borders. But I do know better — Amnesty and open borders is what you’re going to get with any one of these three. Vote BNP. Clegg, in his attempt to distract from his amnesty proposals, said that Boris Johnson, the Tory Mayor of London, and a former Tory Party MP, is for amnesty. Well, duh. Any big city (or in the case of Johnson, metropolitan area) mayor is going to be more liberal than the body politic of the country, even if the mayor belongs to the lamestream conservative party. Two words: Michael Bloomberg. Two more words: Richard Riordan.
Aside from the immigration question, most of the other rhetoric was as boring as any American Presidential debate. To make things worse, I was expecting to hear my two favorite British political acronyms, QUANGO (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization) and NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training, similar to Americans talking about the high school dropout rate.) Alas, none. NEETs were talked about, but the whole phrase was used.
This election cycle in the UK is the first to feature American-style debates. I think the reason they weren’t held until now is because of the uniqueness of Westminister-style parliamentary democracies: While either Brown, Clegg or Cameron, or, to be more hopeful, Nick Griffin, will be the head of state after these elections, he will be PM because his party won a majority of seats in Parliament. (Discounting the hung Parliament scenario, which is a real possibility this year b/c of Clegg.) Therefore, the personalities and exigencies of the politics in each individual constituency (district) come into play. I think these debates are a clue that the politics of UK elections are starting to become less about the parties and more about the leaders.
Now, hopefully for Britain’s sake, they won’t adopt that other curious feature of American Presidential elections — two-year long campaigns.
