Campaigns kick off as Brown announces election date

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown set the date for parliamentary elections for 6 May, setting off a month-long campaign that will put the Labour party on the defensive as it tries to win a fourth consecutive term.

Reuters

"It's probably the least well kept secret of recent years, but the queen has kindly agreed to the dissolution of parliament and a general election will take place on 6 May," said Brown outside Downing Street after visiting Buckingham Palace to ask Queen Elizabeth II to dissolve parliament.

An unofficial campaign has been underway for some months now, and opinion polls suggest a very close contest between Brown’s ruling Labour Party, which has been in power for the last 13 years, and the main opposition Conservative Party, led by David Cameron.

The Torries are also in the running, hoping for what would be their first victory since a surprise win in 1992.

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John Barnes, Emeritus Professor of Government, London School of Economics

Angela Diffley

But there is a sense of a lack of enthusiasm among voters, which John Barnes, Emeritus Professor of Government at the London School of Economics, says is a widespread disappointment with government in general.

“Normally I think when the government is discredited, you would have expected more enthusiasm to get rid of them,” he told RFI. “Instead I think you have disillusion with the political class generally.”

He attributes this to what he calls the government’s “media manipulation”, which he says misrepresents what they have done, coupled with an expenses scandal that involved MPs from all three parties.

“Those two factors together I think have made people very sick with politicians,” he said.

The campaign will certainly focus on the economy, and Brown will have to convince electors that he has been managing the financial and economic crisis correctly and will continue to do so.

"Britain is on the road to recovery and nothing we do should put that recovery at risk," he told reporters after confirming the date of the election.

"Get the big decisions right -- as we did in the last 18 months since the world recession - and jobs, prosperity and better standards of living will result. Get the big decisions wrong and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people are diminished as a result."

Cameron called the upcoming polls "the most important general election for a generation".

"It is about the future of our economy, it's about the future of our society, it's about the future of our country," he told supporters at County Hall in central London after the election date was announced.

"It comes down to this. You don't have to put up with another five years of Gordon Brown."

Analyst John Barnes says the economy will certainly matter for electors, but they also want a vision.

“If [candidates] don’t actually couple their determination to deal with the deficit with some picture of the kind of Britain they hope to build in the next five to ten years, then I don’t think they’re going to get across to the electorate,” he said.

For the first time, in this campaign candidates from all three parties will participate in an American-style televised debate. Barnes is sceptical.

“It’s an important precedent, and the media are going to be overjoyed,” he says. “But I suspect it will turn out to be a draw.”

As for turnout, “my own guess is that it will be higher than 2005”, he says. “And I think the Conservatives in particular will be very determined to vote.”