Word: labouring
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...defied the pollsters' predictions and returned Conservative leader John Major to office by a small but respectable majority. Fears that the election would produce a hung Parliament in which no party commanded a majority proved unfounded: of the 651 seats, the Tories managed to hold 336 (down from 369); Labour took 271 (up from 229); and the Liberal Democrats stayed almost the same at 20, with the remainder going to smaller parties. While Major hailed the Tories' fourth consecutive electoral win as "a magnificent victory," in fact it was a non- loss that more aptly reflected voters' disenchantment with...
Disillusioned with the Conservatives, but in the end even more distrustful of Labour, most voters probably would have preferred to check a box marked FED UP. That puts Britain on the same political map as much of Western Europe and North America, where a fragmented vote is steadily chipping away at ruling- party majorities. On both sides of the Atlantic, voters have been seized by a throw-the-bums-out fervor that is confounded by the lack of attractive alternatives...
...comfortable majorities commanded before voters turned against the Thatcher Revolution -- the Conservatives plainly were not handed a mandate to forge ahead with a program that has plunged Britain into its longest, deepest recession since World War II. Rather, the Tories can only conclude that they remain more trusted than Labour to curb 9.4% unemployment, high interest rates and the spate of business bankruptcies and closures. Ultimately, Labour's attempts to convince voters that it had shed its socialist spots failed. The party's renunciation of its old high-taxing, free-spending habits were offset by promises to shore up education...
...however, they are prepared to exact a price: political autonomy for Scotland and Wales and a Parliament elected by proportional representation, the latter promising to give Ashdown's faithful greater clout. Since a proportional system would rob the major parties of strength, neither Major nor Kinnock favors it, though Labour has bowed to the idea of autonomy for Wales and restive Scotland. If a hung Parliament emerges, a Labour-Liberal Democrat match is the more likely partnership...
...Ashdown affair left voters sympathizing with the party leader they had not known well before. Even so, whoever comes up with a Commons majority after next week, the bold leadership Britain knew during the 1980s stands to shade into a more uncertain thing. Tories and Labour are groping for new directions. Ashdown commands the middle of the road, but he may get trampled under the stampede to join...