In Italy, a clown engineered a startling upset in February's parliamentary elections, when the Five Star Movement, a band of political novices led by comedian Beppe Grillo, took more votes than long-established mainstream parties. In the U.K., "a collection of clowns"—in the dismissive phrase of veteran Conservative Cabinet minister Ken Clarke—has just delivered a similar shock to the three large parties that have dominated Westminster politics for the best part of a century. With counting still underway in some of the 34 municipalities in England and Wales that held elections on May 2, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), founded in 1993 and for many years more adept at infighting than at fighting elections, appears to have snatched a big chunk of seats on local councils and almost a quarter of the popular vote. A parliamentary byelection, held the same day to fill the South Shields seat vacated by former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, gave UKIP another triumph: not the Westminster seat that Britain's first-past-the-post electoral system makes hard for any upstart party to win, but the satisfaction of pushing David Cameron's governing Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat coalition partners into distant third and seventh place finishes respectively. Miliband's Labour party, now under the leadership of his brother Ed, held the seat, its majority also sharply reduced as UKIP's message resonated with its blue collar voters too. That message bears a striking resemblance not only to the Five Star Movement's manifesto, but to the platforms of many other once insignificant parties that are making a mark in European politics. This isn't just about the desire to kick big, unresponsive parties where it hurts, though it's certainly that. UKIP, in common with Grillo's party and the others, is campaigning for tighter immigration controls, smaller government and, above all, a repatriation of powers from the European Union. These are ambitions that would not look out of place in a Conservative manifesto—and as Nigel Farage, UKIP's jovial leader pointed out during a recent lunch with Westminster journalists, some Thatcherites, including the original Thatcherite, might feel(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=85035&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)
Via: TIME GlobalSpin