The Great Debate UK

from UK News:

Opinion poll raises spectre of hung British parliament

The latest opinion poll in Britain showing the opposition Conservatives six points ahead of the ruling Labour party has raised the possibility of a hung parliament with no one party having an overall majority and a return to the kind of political uncertainty not seen since the 1970s.

Kenneth Clarke, the Conservatives' business spokesman, said earlier this month that a hung parliament at this point in the economic cycle would be a disaster, an assertion his boss David Cameron was quick to try to play down after the latest survey.

The fact is that a landslide Conservative victory, which at one point had appeared inevitable with polls showing Cameron's party 20 points ahead, now looks far less likely after Prime Minister Gordon Brown's best opinion poll showing in almost a year.

The Ipsos MORI survey in the Observer newspaper showed Labour on 31 percent, the Conservatives on 37 percent and the Liberal Democrats on 17 percent. The last British election to deliver a hung parliament was called in February 1974 by Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath. His decision to call a snap poll in the face of labour unrest and economic turmoil disastrously backfired. A second election in October 1974 allowed Labour's Harold Wilson to turn a minority government into a small working majority.