Pre-election Britain: a new riddle for Europe

FROM the European perspective, one is tempted to describe present-day Britain with Winston Churchill's famous words about the old Soviet Union - "a riddle inside an enigma wrapped in a mystery". Everything appears up in the air, making predictions of the election outcome on May 7 a hazardous game.

Continental Europe, by and large a traditional anglophile redoubt, is having its doubts about Great Britain as we used to know it. The party landscape is fragmenting. The demarcation lines that used to divide the parties are blurring. There is little evidence of a union of minds or, for that matter, of the Britain that Europe or the rest of the world would recognise.

There is growing concern about the role Britain wishes to play on the world stage. President Barack Obama's reluctance to commit the US to incalculable and intractable foreign conflicts appears mirrored in London, where the Conservatives cannot even pledge themselves to the Nato-agreed 2 per cent annual increase in defence spending. Adding to other uncertainties about Europe, one of the few winners from this state of flux must be Russian President Vladimir Putin.