Abstract

It might be said that in the UK and USA, politics is suffering something of an image crisis. In the UK, the initial euphoria that followed the election of ‘New Labour’ in 1997 appears to have been replaced by an atmosphere of distrust and disillusionment. This is evidenced by an Ipsos MORI poll for the newspaper the Sunday Times which suggested that 64 per cent of the British public felt that their politicians were ‘all spin and no substance’ (Anonymous 2006). Similarly in the USA, having been the first US President to win an election with over 50 per cent of the vote since his father, George Bush Senior, President George W. Bush’s popularity has plummeted to an all-time low according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll which recorded a 65 per cent disapproval rate.