LONDON — And they’re off! Parliament was dissolved at midnight, making Monday the official start of what is already a bitter and bad-tempered effort to win the minds, if not the hearts, of ’s undecided voters, who by most accounts make up close to 40 percent of the electorate. This election promises to be one of the most unpredictable British elections in recent times.
The heat of the election masks what appears to be a major change in British politics. All the pollsters and analysts suggest that is on course for the first consecutive coalition governments since the early 1900s, or for a weak minority government that can command a majority in the House of Commons only with the support of minor or regional parties.
That is the expected result. But it remains quite uncertain whether the Conservative Party or the Labour Party will win the most seats and produce the next prime minister.
Both main parties are appealing to their base supporters and trying to fend off challenges from smaller regional and fringe parties. Those groups include the Scottish National Party, which could deny Labour a victory by winning the majority of Labour-held seats in Scotland, and the U.K. Independence Party, which could do the same to the Conservatives by taking away votes in marginal constituencies.
Smaller parties — the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, the Democratic Unionists in Northern Ireland, the Greens and UKIP — could hold the balance of power in the next Parliament, making government policy subject to negotiation, no matter the ringing tones and policy promises of the main party platforms.
On Monday, the leaders made the rounds, with the departing prime minister, David Cameron of the Conservative Party, making a formal visit to Queen Elizabeth II, and his deputy, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, doing the same as head of the Privy Council. But, this time, the visits were not to ask the queen’s permission because Britain is a fixed-term Parliament, and Election Day, May 7, has been on the calendar for years.
The coalition government is judged to have worked well, but politically it seems to have damaged both parties. This is especially true for the Liberal Democrats, who are traditionally the middle-of-the-road choice for those opposed to the two main parties.
But while either Mr. Cameron or the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, will end up as prime minister after the election, both main parties have lost many of their traditional voters in a more fragmented polity. Britons no longer vote so much by traditional class and family loyalties, and both main parties have turned away from the center.
Mr. Miliband, who owes his leadership to the trade unions, has criticized the broader, centrist group Labour became under former prime minister, Tony Blair. Mr. Cameron has pushed further right, calling for more budget cuts, debt reduction and tightened controls on immigration, and promising a referendum on Britain’s continued membership in the European Union.
Mr. Cameron hopes the election will turn on the economy, and his assertion that the Conservatives are best able to manage a continued recovery with less unemployment, better wages and lower taxes while still protecting social benefits for those who need them and the holy grail of British politics, the National Health Service. He promises an absolute budget surplus by the last year of the next Parliament and a reduction of the cumulative .
Mr. Miliband is arguing that the Conservatives have favored the rich and he promises less inequality, with higher pay for the working poor, still higher investment in the National Health Service and steeper taxes on the wealthy. Labour is arguing that tough budget cutting is not necessary, that deficit reduction can be much more gradual in a low-interest world. It promises only to have a balanced budget, not counting loans for investment in infrastructure, by the end of the next Parliament in 2020.
Mr. Miliband argues that for many voters, the economic recovery “feels like it’s happening to someone else, somewhere else.” He began his campaign on Monday by trying to reassure a skeptical business community. While business leaders generally favor the Tories, they are not happy with Mr. Cameron’s promise of an in-or-out referendum on British membership in the European Union in 2017.
On Monday, Labour took out a full-page ad in the business-friendly Financial Times rejecting any such referendum, saying, “The biggest threat to British business is the threat of an E.U. exit,” adding, “Labour will put the national interest first.”
Mr. Miliband is still regarded by the British as something less than prime ministerial material and is touched by “the mark of Cain.” That’s because he challenged his older brother, David, a more centrist former foreign minister, for the Labour leadership, and narrowly beat him.
But Ed Miliband is also considered resilient and sincere, and while Mr. Cameron is considered a better leader and more competent to run the economy, he also has a reputation for offhandedness and entitlement, and many in his own party think he is too soft on Europe. But Mr. Cameron is more popular than his party, polls say.
On Sunday, Mr. Cameron said at a party rally that the election “can only be cut two ways: Conservative or Labour.” On Monday, returning from Buckingham Palace, Mr. Cameron said that a Labour victory would bring “economic chaos” and warned, “Debt will rise and jobs will be lost as a result.” His campaign strategist, Lynton Crosby, has told Tories to stick to the economy.
But Mr. Cameron is also trying to recover from two recent gaffes. In an interview with the BBC in his kitchen, he . “Terms are like Shredded Wheat,” he said. “Two are wonderful but three might just be too many.”
Mr. Cameron was then attacked for being presumptuous about winning a second term and for being naïve about Tory politics — even if he becomes prime minister again, he will immediately be seen as a lame duck and rivals will maneuver in earnest to replace him.
Mr. Cameron also did less well than expected in a TV interview with Jeremy Paxman, a journalist known for his aggressive, persistent questioning. Under the same pressure, Mr. Miliband is considered to have done better, at one point saying, “You’re important, Jeremy, but not that important.”
Some polls showed an immediate boost for Mr. Miliband, who also said that he had shown his “toughness” by “standing up to the leader of the free world,” President Obama, over Syria.
But as usual in British elections, issues of defense and foreign policy are marginal compared to the state of the economy, education and the future of the National Health Service.