It would seem that the modern trend toward people having less loyalty toward their political parties has helped the third-place Liberal-Democrats surge in the polls. Maybe there's a lesson here for the NDP?
The third party Liberal Democrats, who have recently averaged slightly under 19% in opinion polls, seem to have the most momentum after Nick Clegg's excellent showing in the first debate. People in the UK seem to be willing to try a third party over the two parties that have monopolized power in the UK.
Clegg`s ability to harness pent up dissatisfaction against the political status quo may be something the NDP could emulate.
Nick Clegg factor wins Liberal Democrats record surge in popularity
AN unprecedented surge in support for the Liberal Democrats has followed Nick Clegg's "victory" in the first prime ministerial debate, an astonishing reflection of the power of the inaugural TV event.
Support for the Liberals among those who watched Thursday night's programme rocketed from 21 per cent beforehand to 35 per cent immediately afterwards, according to a poll of 4,000 viewers released yesterday.
Electoral Reform is one of the major issues in the election. The Liberal Democrats are supporting having a referendum for fair voting in the election in the form of the Single Transferable Vote or STV. STV is a great choice for the UK because they have over 600 seats in their House of Commons covering a very small territory compared to Canada.The UK could have 100 six seat STV ridings covering a relatively small territory. Since Canada has far fewer MP's covering a much larger area, fair voting would require a variant of MMP. (My personal favorite is the Baden-Wurttemberg version of MMP that requires no lists.)
Labour also having suports a referendum on electoral reform. They support the Alternative Vote which is not a fair voting system. It's an improvement over FPTP but not nearly as much as should be expected.
The Conservatives want to keep FPTP.
If the Liberal-Democrats can keep their momentum they will be able to at least exert a lot of influence in a coalition government. They would be able to have a referendum on STV.
Opinion polling in the United Kingdom general election, 2010
Latest poll: April 16
Conservative: 33%
Liberal-Democrat: 30%
Labour: 28%
Other: 9%