Sixty percent of British voters will not vote for mainstream parties

Sounds like the main parties in the UK have taking a poundingafter revelations about the expenses claims of the nation's MPs. If an election was held now, 17 percent will vote one of the minor parties - thats bigger than Labour's support - and 23 percent will not vote at all. But more than half black voters will not vote.

There's going to be a pretty low turnout at the next election. All it needs is a swing to the Liberal Democrats of the Greens and one ofthese two could be the second biggest party in parliament behind the Tories. Labour may end up being one of the minor parties. It's that bad.

Also, the Speaker is on the brink of becoming the first in more than 300 years to be forced out of office after the leader of the Liberal Democrats defied political convention and called on him to step down over his handling of the expenses. The speaker's former media advisor, John Stonborough says on his blog "It gives me no great pleasure to say “I told you so, Mr Speaker"

Ian Dale, as usual, writes well about this sorry mess. I rekon Speaker Michael Martin will stick it out until the election. But for now bloggers and the media are calling for an unprecedented boycott of the main political parties. Imagine what would happen here if there was widespread disapproval of both National and Labour in New Zealand- the left and right factions of the blogosphere would have a field day.