464. Modern British Elections (Part 2)

From the turn of the 20th century, election campaigns - though still replete with politicians behaving badly - have evolved. They have become less mass-participation events or festivals, and receded, with the majority of the population growing increasingly indifferent. Though, following Nixon and Kennedy’s presidential campaigns in the 1960’s, there seeped across the Atlantic a sense that elections were a “race”, which could actively alter the outcome of an election rather than merely acting as a summoning call to predetermined voters. However, the gaffs endured. For instance, Winston Churchill’s famously controversial speech in 1945, during the election that he later lost to the politically adept Clement Attlee; Harold Wilson’s large crowd of hecklers during his 1964 campaign, and John Major's infamous soap-box orations. Then, with the landmark election of 1983, Margaret Thatcher revolutionised campaigning strategy by capitalising on television. This trend has endured through the various campaigns of her successors, many in their way just as dysfunctional, derisory, and even comical as those of their early predecessors. Join Dominic and Tom as, with a week to go until Britain ente…