Word: clegg
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...appreciate how surprising it is that Nick Clegg, the personable leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats, could be poised to become one of Britain's most powerful politicians after national elections tipped for May 6, it's necessary to understand something of Middle England. Defined by attitude, not geographical location, the country's heartland is inhabited by small-c conservatives and big-E Euroskeptics, people unsettled by rapid social change and radical ideas. Such voters, historically decisive in U.K. polls, tend to view liberals and urban sophisticates with deep suspicion, and might be expected to react to the profoundly liberal...
...Clegg, 43 and fresh-faced, has led Britain's third party since 2007. He is multinational (his mother is Dutch; his father half Russian) and multilingual (he speaks five languages). A supporter of the European Union, he worked first at the European Commission, then as a member of the European Parliament, until he gave up being an MEP in 2004 because the traveling undermined his family life. He's a new man, and if he looks a little bleary it's probably because he's been woken by his young sons or risen early to take his wife, a high...
...this Clegg's fervent allegiance to a liberal movement that hasn't led a government since World War I and you have some idea of how distant the gates of Downing Street might appear. Yet Britain's battered Prime Minister Gordon Brown is rallying support, while his untested Conservative challenger David Cameron has watched a 20-point lead dwindle to as little as two points. With neither of the two main parties on course to win an outright majority, Clegg and his Lib Dems could wake up on May 7 holding the balance of power...
Then what? A 1977 Lib-Lab pact to shore up a minority Labour government proved short-lived. The Lib Dems will only agree such a course again in return for very significant pledges. Clegg resists all speculation about possible deals. If there's a hung parliament "of course we'll work out a stable government," he says. "What people are entitled to ask is what are the things you will push for in whatever situation you find yourself?" (Read: "David Cameron: UK's Next Leader...
...good question. Few Brits would disagree with Clegg's calls for greater transparency in a parliament tainted by last year's serial revelations of the ways in which some MPs and peers milked a lax expenses regimen, Lib Dems among them. He's also likely to use any leverage to push for the introduction of a proportional-voting system and a right for constituents to recall MPs who break the rules. The second of those, at least, should prove uncontroversial in a country that regards its political classes as even more venal than its bankers. But Clegg's modernizing zeal...