England Elections

Candidates in the national election campaign routinely talk of fighting for Britain's people, but one politician took the battle directly to a voter's jaw. John Prescott, the No. 2 figure in Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, was walking past a noisy and hostile crowd on the hustings in Wales on Wednesday when one of the hecklers threw an egg at point-blank range, splattering the deputy prime minister's head.

Paul Humphries was washing his car when the Protestant leader of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government jogged up the driveway to ask for his vote in Britain's parliamentary elections. The 44-year-old police officer and father of three held up soapy hands and shrugged at David Trimble. It was one of the more polite rejections the Nobel Peace laureate and Ulster Unionist Party chief received that evening.

The economy is strong, the Conservative opposition has pilloried itself, and even the sun, seldom seen in Britain, is smiling on his campaign. Polls give Prime Minister Tony Blair an overwhelming lead going into Thursday's election, suggesting that his Labor Party will increase its majority in Parliament and, barring a political train wreck, he will be elected to a second term. And yet the British prime minister is campaigning like a man fighting for survival.

For a candidate on the brink of what may be a historic landslide, British Prime Minister Tony Blair seems strangely penitent these days. After four years in office, Blair approaches Thursday's election with a solid record of centrist accomplishment: more people working, fewer children in poverty; expanded preschool, reduced class sizes; greater help for the working poor, a new minimum wage.

As British voters mark their ballots today--and they do mark them, with a pencil--Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party appears headed for a conditional landslide. Polls show Blair holding a commanding lead over the enfeebled Conservative Party, virtually guaranteeing him a second term. However, an expected low voter turnout would underscore public disappointment with the pace of change in his first term.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party stormed to a landslide election victory Thursday but with the lowest voter turnout since World War I. A healthy economy and public patience for change apparently swept the 48-year-old Blair back into power. His return is a first for the 100-year-old party, which had never before managed to retake 10 Downing St. after a full term in office.

As Prime Minister Tony Blair formed a new government Friday on the heels of a sweeping electoral victory, his Protestant allies in Northern Ireland suffered a setback, casting doubt on the future of the peace process there. Blair paid a traditional postelection call on Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace before returning to 10 Downing St. to reshuffle his Cabinet for the Labor Party's second term.

Wake a card-carrying member of Common Cause in the middle of the night, ask him to describe his ideal way to elect America's leaders and he'd probably come back with something very similar to the system they use in England. Compared with an American presidential campaign, British elections are short, unobtrusive and inexpensive. It's the difference between a week on the strip in Las Vegas and a night out at the bingo parlor in Liverpool. To U.S.

The House of Lords, the traditional domain of Britain's aristocracy, should have some popularly elected members and must represent all sectors of an increasingly diverse society, a government-appointed commission said Thursday. But the panel ruled out a fully elected upper chamber of Parliament on the order of the U.S. Senate, saying that the House of Lords shouldn't challenge the authority of the more powerful House of Commons.

Ideology is dead, historic differences are blurred, personalities dominate. Sex and sleaze grab bigger headlines than ideas and issues. Sound familiar? Well, this time it is the British who are voting. Not Bill and Bob, but close enough: John and Tony are waging a "presidential-style" election campaign with a strong American accent. The winner, incumbent Conservative John Major or Labor Party challenger Tony Blair, gets a five-year term as prime minister.