LONDON -- Britain is now in the grip of a general election campaign with voting due May 5. As with political campaigns generally in the modern world, this one is heavily oriented toward domestic issues and disputes. Globalization and the worldwide information revolution seem to have had the opposite effect to that predicted by many experts.
Far from electorates becoming more cosmopolitan and looking to wider horizons, they appear to have narrowed their focus to more inward-looking and local issues, or so the opinion-polling authorities have concluded. The political party strategists have duly responded.
In the British case, this is being vividly demonstrated in the current battle for votes. Matters such as Britain's relationship with the rest of Europe, or whether the Iraq invasion was right, or even legal, have vanished from the airwaves as the rival parties' protagonists clash over tax rates, public-spending promises, street crime, school standards, transport facilities, immigration and health provision.