Word: labouring
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...results may have primarily reflected the sway of personality politics, a phenomenon familiar to Americans but less known to Britons. Right up to the photo finish, the gentlemanly, mild-mannered Major bested Labour leader Neil Kinnock in popularity polls by 10 points. Although Kinnock delivered a slick performance that outshone Major's on the campaign trail, he could not shake the widely held perception that he is a rather ruthless opportunist who -- Bill Clinton, take note -- is not entirely to be trusted. Polls indicated that if Labour's shadow chancellor, the brainy, witty John Smith, had been party leader, Labour...
...unfounded. Expected to siphon off blue-collar and middle-class votes from both major rivals, the party instead ended up losing two of its 22 seats. The disappointing showing owed much to alarmist Tory warnings that a vote for the Liberal Democrats would be tantamount to a vote for Labour, since a hung Parliament would surely result in a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition. British voters did not want the uncertainty of either a minority or coalition government. Voters may also have become convinced -- Ross Perot, take note -- that a vote for a third party is a wasted ballot...
...strategy of the Labour effort was far plainer. Using the slogan "It's Time for Change," the party played its trump card -- the recession -- to good advantage. Labourites attacked the Tories for insufficient school funding, delays in the care offered by the National Health Service, and high unemployment. Though Kinnock displays a sharp tongue in House of Commons debates, he has a penchant for obscure verbal meanderings when campaigning; a platoon of media advisers and spin doctors limited Kinnock's appearances and oversaw his every move...
...socialism to more centrist policies. During the campaign, Kinnock dismissed some of his old positions as "errors of judgment," among them his insistence on unilateral nuclear disarmament and the renationalization of some state assets sold off by the Conservatives. Why the switch? "We lost three elections," said Jack Cunningham, Labour's campaign coordinator. "That is good enough reason to change policy." Many voters were left doubting Labour's sincerity. "Labour jettisoned its ideological baggage without acquiring any new ideas distinctively its own," says Anthony King, a professor of government at Essex University. "Most people found it hard to say what...
...nuclear jitters have eased; socialism has been discredited. No longer able to draw sharp ideological differences among themselves, Britain's three largest parties scrambled after the same political turf. All tinkered around the edges of the National Health Service and educational programs. The Conservatives pledged to lower taxes, while Labour promised some hikes -- but the differences were not as pronounced as in the past. The most far-reaching change was championed by the Liberal Democrats, who sought to replace the winner-take-all electoral system with proportional representation -- an idea that won the support of neither major party...