Liberal Democrats Surge In Britain

Things start getting interesting in Britain:

What, you ask, is going on? The honest answer is that no one in Britain really knows what is happening with our election. Just a few months ago, it was all very simple: Fiscal collapse and a much-loathed prime minister equals stonking victory for David Cameron's remodeled Conservative Party.

The next government will still have to survive an Era of No Money, and Gordon Brown is no more popular than he was last year, but everything else has changed and an election that once promised to be somewhat dull has become a deliciously unpredictable, even absurd, spectacle.

The first seeds that something odd and unusual might be growing came in the first week of the campaign, when polls reported surprisingly strong showings for the Liberal Democrats in key marginals. But it was last Thursday's televised debate that really allowed Nick Clegg, the young, hitherto little recognised Liberal Democrat leader to make a startling impression that has changed the election utterly.

Clegg devised a ploy that was devilishly cunning: He reminded viewers that, despite what they may have been told, it is not actually illegal or even socially embarrassing to vote for the Liberal Democrats.

...For the last five days, Britain has been waiting for two things: the Iclandic ash cloud to move on and the Liberal Democrats to come back down to earth. Neither shows any sign of happening.

All this poses a number of problems, not the least of which is that the nature of Britain's political system is such that the Liberals could "win" the election in terms of votes but actually come third in terms of seats won. The great virtue of the first-past-the-post system is its clarity in awarding victory; the problem is that this clarity depends upon there only being two viable parties. For the first time since Labour supplanted the old Liberal party in the 1920s, this is no longer the case.

So, yes, the party with the fewest votes could win the most seats, while the one with the most votes could end up with the fewest seats. And you thought the electoral college was odd? Labour support is narrow but deep, while the Lib Dems' vote is wide but thin. Out-of-date constituency boundaries also favour Labour.