Hi everyone,
Here is an article from CNN about the International interest or lack of it in the British elections.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/01/opinions/weirdest-election-in-memory-campbell-opinion/index.html*********
Of the many elections I have covered in my time as a political journalist or worked in as a campaigner and strategist, the current UK general election is perhaps the weirdest, the most surreal, I have ever known.
If any readers outside the UK were unaware that we are even having one, fear not: you are far from being alone. Indeed, the seeming lack of international interest in the election is one of the many factors making it so strange.
The BBC recently ran a piece on just how little attention it is getting in the US, by comparison with the presidential election in France, for example, where Emmanuel Macron v. Marine Le Pen commanded attention around the globe for weeks.
So what is going on? Is it just that the world has to digest the daily outpourings of Donald Trump and the scandals engulfing his Administration and cannot cope with any more political news? Or does it say something about Britain becoming less interesting and less relevant to the world?
I fear it is the latter. Though Britain's vote to leave the European Union may have seemed in tune with these populist, Trumpian times, the US remains a superpower, whoever is at the helm.
Britain, on the other hand, has signaled not merely its own insularity, but with it our own future decline, reflected in the falling value of sterling -- and now in the falling interest in our politics.
When the election was called, the Russians were asked -- sign of the times -- whether they intended to hack and misinform their way into this one as they did the American and French elections. A Kremlin spokesman was possibly for once telling the truth when he said "we have no interest in the British election."
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Do you think this situation can be reversed?
Any views?
Sriram
