Filed under: Election •Foreign Policy •View from

Nick Clegg has emerged from obscurity to challenge Britain's two main party leaders.

Elections, the American commentator H.L. Mencken once insisted, are the process in which all the parties rush around the country insisting that the others are unfit to govern, and in the end they are all proved right.

Certainly the tone of the second TV debate between the leaders of the three main parties was a great deal sharper. When Gordon Brown joked, with the aid of his speaking notes, that hearing Messrs Clegg and Cameron in dispute reminded him of his two young sons squabbling at bath time, Nick Clegg retorted sharply that Brown's joke had probably been better delivered in rehearsal.

"Get Real, Nick" said Gordon Brown and he and David Cameron ganged up in trying to depict Clegg as irresponsible over his willingness to put the future of Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system into the defense review they all agree should be conducted.

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Posted by: CNN Policital Contributor Robin Oakley
Filed under: Debates •Election •Foreign Policy

UK PM Gordon Brown and U.S. President Barack Obama pictured in London in April 2009 (AFP/Getty)

WASHINGTON – Winston Churchill, the great British wartime prime minister with a knack for a catchy phrase, declared in 1946 that there was a "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain: strands of culture, language, world view - as well as military cooperation and intelligence-sharing - that knit the two countries so closely together.

But that was generations ago, and Washington is now focused on the financial crisis, health care, China and other issues that have little to do with America's cousins across the pond.

With world affairs top of the election agenda in the UK, does the "special relationship" with the United States still have a future?

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Posted by: CNN Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Jill Dougherty
Filed under: Debates •Election •Foreign Policy •View from

Filed under: Debates •Foreign Policy

Filed under: Debates •Foreign Policy

Filed under: Debates •Foreign Policy

London, England – The leaders of the three main UK party political leaders go head to head again Thursday for the second of three TV debates, this time on world affairs.

CNN.com will carry live coverage of the debate between Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, the Conservatives’ David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg from 2000 BST/3p ET.

During the debate itself the Connect The World  team will be running a live blog, offering the latest updates and posting comments from viewers.

It gives you the chance to join the debate and comment on everything from the conflict in Afghanistan and the European Union to relations with Iran and the UK’s nuclear defenses.

Connect The World will also carry post-debate analysis from political experts after the event.

Watch the debate, post your comments – and join the global conversation!

Posted by: CNN Supervising Producer, Nick Hunt
Filed under: Debates •Foreign Policy

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg speaks in central London Wednesday. (AFP/Getty)

London, England - It's been a desperate week in politics for Messieurs Gordon Brown and David Cameron.

After the first-ever UK election leaders' debate, the heads of Britain's two biggest parties faced the ignominy of not just a slump in their approval ratings, but the stellar rise in the fortunes of one Nicholas Clegg, leader of Britain's third major party.

No sooner had the debate on domestic affairs finished than in one poll at least, Clegg was rated the most impressive party leader since Winston Churchill.

So, to round two and the foreign policy debate.

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Posted by: Becky Anderson, CNN Anchor and Correspondent
Filed under: Debates •Election •Foreign Policy •General

The role of UK troops in Afghanistan is likely to be prominent in the party leaders’ debate on world affairs. (AFP/Getty)

London, England – The leaders of the UK's three main political parties will clash again Thursday in the second of three televised debates which have energized the country's general election campaign.

Thursday's debate, which will be broadcast live on CNN International and CNN.com Live, is due to focus on foreign policy with the UK's role in the war in Afghanistan and its position in the European Union likely to dominate the agenda.

Watch the leadership debate (Foreign Affairs) and post-debate analysis on CNN.com Live: Thursday April 22, 2000 - 2200 BST / 1500 - 1700 ET.

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Posted by: CNN Digital Producer, Simon Hooper
Filed under: Debates •Election •Foreign Policy

Conservative Party leader David Cameron pictured with Barack Obama in Washington last April. (Getty Images)

London, England - Pop quiz: Which party leader launched his manifesto with a speech quoting three different United States presidents - all Democrats - and explicitly rejected Margaret Thatcher's famous assertion that there is no such thing as society?

No, not Gordon Brown, head of the (nominally) center-left Labour Party, theoretically the British counterpart of the Democrats in the US.

It was Conservative leader David Cameron, who ripped a page right out of Barack Obama's successful 2008 playbook when he said the country needed millions of people to be "fired up" to play a part in the nation's future.

(Obama famously psyched himself, his staff and his supporters up with a call-and-response of "fired up!" and "ready to go!")

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Posted by: Richard Allen Greene, The CNN Wire
Filed under: Election •Foreign Policy