For starters..

I thought a good way to kick off this politics-based blog would be to look at the U.S elections. Now obviously, these events have a massive effect on the world, as America's choice of president could determine the global economic forecast or whether or not the human race will be wiped out in a nuclear holocaust.

But questions have been raised recently in Britain about how much coverage is being given in the media to the race, in comparison to our own politics. For example, an article I read on the Badger Herald's website (The University of Wisconin-Madison's student newspaper), portrayed just how little attention we pay to our own politics.

One of the student writers, Laura Brennan, on a trip to London, was stunned at how much British students knew about the U.S race:

I asked another British student about the American elections. “I really like Obama,” he told me. Really? He continued, “I just wish he would elaborate more on his policies and actually tell us what he wants to change. I think he’s got some real potential, but I think I’d go for Hilary instead.” I know Mr. Brown is part of the Labour Party, but I couldn’t even begin to elaborate on his policies.

And she was also suprised at how little we knew about our own politics:

When I commented on Tony Blair’s recent conversion to Catholicism — a big story in the United Kingdom, which is predominantly Anglican — his eyes popped. “You know about that?” He laughed, sipping a rather large mug of lager. “My best friend didn’t even know! How would a bloody American know that? I’m impressed!”

Certain sections of the media, for example, Guardian Unlimited, have set up a whole series of blogs on the U.S presidential race. And this coverage, as the Britain and America blog explains, is being hyped to such an extent because sites such as BBC News online and Guardian Unlimited receive so much U.S traffic. The advantage for us is that we gain a detailed knowledge of the race, but is this a detriment to the reporting of our own, perhaps more relevant, politics?

There's no solid evidence that it is, but I think part of the reason why the race is being hyped so much is because, to put it simply, it sells. For the first time, there is a real prospect that we could have either a female or a black president. It's attractive and it's exciting, a lot of the time, a far cry from the often dull British political landscape. As long as the British media doesn't neglect it's own nation's politics (and it's already fighting past entertainment and sport), there should be little loss of empowerment for the British public.