Toe to Toe

(Guardian)

We arrived back in London on Monday morning. As we rode from Heathrow into the city, a giant billboard caught our attention: there was Prime Minister Gordon Brown, shown with his eyes half-closed, as he often is, smiling while framed by the words "I doubled the national debt. Vote for me." Along the road, more followed: "I took billions from pensions. Vote for me." "I let 80,000 criminals out of jail early. Vote for me."

The Brits do sarcasm so well.

Nasty as it is, I think the poster campaign might be effective. Are they telling the truth or twisting the facts? I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Enough people will remember those posters when they enter the voting booth, and that can't be good for Gordon Brown.

The British elections will take place on May 6. The date was announced on April 6, which opened the month-long campaign season for prime minister and seats in Parliament. Unlike American elections, which drag on forever, the Brits get it all out there in thirty days. The first debate of three will take place tomorrow night. The candidates for prime minister are: Labour party incumbent Gordon Brown, Tory leader David Cameron, and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. The real contest is between Brown and Cameron, with Clegg possibly becoming a power broker by creating an alliance with one of the other two parties.

By all accounts, no clear leader has yet emerged in the polls. As an expatriate I can sit back and observe the action without the fierce emotions I felt during the last American campaign, when I was capable of primal savagery.

Gordon Brown is a lumpy fellow, often called "hapless," though his heart seems to be in the right place. He is reported to have a terrible temper. I've read that President Obama found him "a downer" and thinks he is on his way out.

David Cameron is physically attractive in a soft, British upper class kind of way, which is where he comes from. He is often called "an empty suit," a "toff" with no understanding of working people.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant British press, I've become aware of the wives of Brown and Cameron. You might say I know them down to their toes. In the battle of the little piggies, Samantha Cameron is the clear winner.

Photographed recently wearing peep toe shoes (from Zara, surely to show that she is, in fact, one of the people), she displayed an immaculate, "sleek" pedicure, though her choice of black polish led some papers to describe her as "goth." Several photos zeroed in on her feet so voters could decide for themselves if a man married to a woman who paints her toenails black would be a good prime minister.

Poor Sarah Brown suffered mightily by comparison. While visiting a Hindu temple earlier this week, she was forced to remove her shoes. "Frightful" was the way one paper described her feet. The ubiquitous press used their telescopic lenses to reveal yellowed toenails and one deformed little piggy. "She clearly doesn't have it nailed," "Badly in need of a pedicure," the papers proclaimed. As voters inspected the unattractive feet of Sarah Brown, were they wondering if a man married to a woman who neglects her toenails could lead the country?

The attractive Mrs. Clegg has not shown her bare feet, though she appears to be a woman who would take care of her toes. Should voters look at Mr. Clegg more closely?

The candidates will come together tomorrow night to debate the serious issues facing Britain: the economy, unemployment, immigration, the decline of the National Health Service, the upsurge in crime.

Voters being who they are, though (I have only to mention Sarah Palin here), there will be some thinking about the really important issues, like the state of Mrs. Brown's toes or Mrs. Cameron's possible Gothic tendencies as evidenced in her choice of toenail polish. As the candidates go head to head, their partners are going, at least in some widely read newspapers, toe to toe.