Abstract
A s I write this, the confluence of global crises and national pressures in the UK has produced a perfect storm of “State of the Nation” questioning. With Labour now into its thirteenth year of government, a natural dissatisfaction arises with the status quo. Wide-ranging scandals over MP’s expenses threaten any faith in government. Gordon Brown’s status as unelected Prime Minister (and one who has made a variety of seemingly bad political—not policy—decisions) yields poor approval ratings, and the newspapers have readily dubbed David Cameron the “Prime Minister-in-waiting.” While current poll numbers show a Tory lead, a clear-cut conservative victory is far from certain; with a narrow 6% gap between the two leading parties, a hung parliament looks fairly likely (although with an election necessary no later than June 3, 2010, the situation may be drastically different as this appears in press). Unhappiness over wars in Iraq and Afghanistan remain in the news, with the death toll of British soldiers steadily increasing in Afghanistan, and public hearings into the Iraq war under way. The credit crunch hangs over everyone’s heads, and with the UK’s 0.1% economic growth in the last quarter of 2009, it just barely squeaked out of recession. Brown’s tenure as Chancellor is read as having produced Great Britain’s precarious financial state, with the past year seeing both the largest devaluation of the pound since the 1930s and an increasing trade deficit.
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