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Could England’s next prime minister be its first Jewish leader? It’s looking more likely now that Labor leader Ed Miliband just might pull off an upset victory in tomorrow’s national parliamentary elections in the United Kingdom.
Yes Benjamin Disraeli was born Jewish, but he was a convert to Christianity. The only other nation to have a Jewish elected leader was France, which had Leon Blum as its Prime Minister in the 1920s. The Soviet Union had Leon Trotsky around that time too, but he was an atheist communist who was bad for the Jews, so we do not count that one.
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Miliband has been making a last minute push talking about how he is the candidate for the average working family. The Labor leader told England’s ITV, “I hope people make a judgment on the basis of what’s best for them and their family because I’m not just asking people to vote Labor, I’m asking people to vote to put their family first in this election.
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“I think on the ballot paper is the National Health Service, tax credits and child benefits, family finances, our young people and that’s why I ask people to vote Labor.”
The latest polls show the Labor Party in a statistical dead heat with the Conservative Party, which currently leads the government. This is good news for Labor, as Miliband had been trailing in the polls for some time. There are even reports that both Miliband and the current PM, Conservative Party Leader James Cameron, are preparing for the possibility of a hung parliament, in which neither party receives a majority of the seats, and that they are negotiating already with the smaller parties about making a coalition government.
This is the case currently as Cameron’s Conservative’s failed to win a majority of the seats in the last elections and now have a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, England’s third party.
Interestingly, the more than 600 parliamentary districts in England are not equal in population. Also, voter turnout will obviously differ from one to the next. This means that a party can win a majority of the seats in the Parliament even if it did not get the most votes nationwide.
So anything can happen.
As for why he is still trailing in the polls, even though he has closed the gap, Mr. Miliband told ITV, “Many people are still making up their minds at this election and my message to all those undecided voters is: you can have another five years of a prime minister who’ll put the rich and powerful first in our country, or, if I’m prime minister, I’ll put working people first.”
