With so much media coverage about the forthcoming US presidential elections, literally everywhere in the world, just about any other political news tends to get a bit overlooked.
For instance, other than in UK media, I’ve seen little wide coverage about what’s going on in the UK as things move along in preparation for a general election next year.
What is the governing Labour Party – really Conservatives in disguise – planning if they win a new term? What about the original Conservatives, who still look as totally unelectable as they did when they lost to Labour in 1997? The Liberal Democrats (the Tim Henman of British politics)? The UK Independence Party, that scary bastion of jingoistic politicking and xenophobic viewpoints?
Yes, I can look at the websites and read the official presentations and all that type of boring stuff. I want some analysis that tells me what it all means.
I’ve been trying to keep up with UK political perspectives mainly through broadcasts on the domestic BBC TV channels that we get here in Amsterdam on our local cable service, as well as BBC World TV which provides slightly different commentary from its global audience viewpoint, and CNN which has the rosy American view. Plus various websites and RSS feeds, of course.
Today I found just what I need, information that will do nicely for the time being: an exellent commentary by arguably the best political journalist in the UK – Andrew Marr, the BBC’s political editor.
His commentary today on the BBC News website provides a concise but sufficient analysis on where things are following the ending of the party conference season. For me, the bottom line in Andrew’s commentary is this:
We’ve learned a bit more about the main parties’ electoral strategies, too. They are all struggling, one way or another, with the perceived problem of trust, or rather general electoral mistrust of the political classes. How to get the voters to take notice once more?
Communication in politics, again!
I wish Andrew had a blog…