Who would have thought? The UK’s Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is the most popular political party leader since Winston Churchill at the height of World War II, if some of the UK’s opinion polls are to be believed.

This news adds further fuel to speculation that the UK will have a hung parliament after the 6 May elections. If Conservative leader David Cameron does not achieve a majority, it will lead to Gordon Brown forming a coalition with the Lib Dems, with Labour having the smallest number of seats out of the three parties. Very interesting indeed. However, it must all be put into context.

Clegg has soared in the polls thanks to winning the UK’s first televised political leaders’ debate. He is known to be a great performer on television and his finance spokesman was one of the few who predicted the financial crisis.

But again, it must be put into context. The British public, by and large, cannot stand Gordon Brown as a prime minister, despite his good work in containing the fallout of the financial crisis. He is looked at as a grouch, a Scot at the head of British parliament – who does not go down well with English people and a man who cannot handle pressure. Yet bizarrely, his ratings surged following his election to succeed Tony Blair as leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister. In other words, it will not last.

But the heaviest pressure of all is on Cameron. For the Tories to achieve an absolute majority, they need to not only halt the sudden surge in Lib Dem ratings, but they must also push them back and win seats off them which they already hold. To put it simply, to push Labour out of office, the Tories need to take a number of seats which the Lib Dems already hold under this legislature.

Not an easy task at all. Cameron is telling the British public that in order to bring about real change, they must vote Tory. If not, as we have already mentioned, the Lib Dems would form a coalition with Gordon Brown staying on as PM. This is the point that he is trying to put across to the electorate, relying more on people wanting ‘Brown out than Cameron in’.

In the meantime, Clegg is telling people that his is the only party that can bring about a real change. The public perceives him to be a no nonsense politician that will stick to his word and be bullish in his reforms.

The British public is also still seething at the MP allowances scandal which saw hundreds of thousands of pounds being filched by mostly Labour and Tory MPs in which they claimed reimbursement for anything ranging from a mechanised tin opener to a chimney sweep on a country estate.

Meanwhile, there is the wildcard which is the Scottish National Party. SNP leader has told Scottish people to vote for the SNP to achieve a balanced parliament, seeing as the London seat ‘does little’ for Scottish people. It is all very confused and SNP leader Alex Salmond does not come across well, seeing as there are a good number of Scottish MPs and the simple fact that Mr Brown is a Scot through and through, despite his cultured accent. It is all set to unfold in the near future – although this time round, if the Raving Monster Looney Party had put forward a candidate this time round, it would surely do better than the couple of hundred of votes that their Golden Retriever had secured in the early 90s.