British politics has been turned upside down by recent events. The traditional two-party battle between Labour and Conservatives has been thrown into confusion by a big surge in support for a third party, the Liberal Democrats. The likely result could be a "hung parliament," with the Conservatives being denied the overall majority of seats in the House of Commons they need to form a firm one-party government — although of course nothing is ever certain on the political stage.

Hitherto, or at least in recent decades, this third party has been regarded as a marginal player in British national politics, with only a small percentage of seats in Parliament and with an appeal confined mostly to the fringe areas of Britain.

But an agreement to stage a series of tripartite television debates among the three parties, in American presidential style, has given the fresh young Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, his chance. He has seized it by depicting the two bigger parties as giants from the past and his own small band as the new wave of warriors for radical change in British society and for the overthrow of the British political establishment.