British politics heat up, with the occasional eerie American parallel.

For months, the political handwriting's supposedly has been on the wall in the UK: Labour and Gordon Brown were finished, all but beaten, with the Tories notching resounding leads in the polls prefacing an election that must occur on or before June 3.

Now, suddenly, the lead is gone and while some observers are sticking with their predictions of victory for David Cameron and the Conservatives, others are forecasting a Labour win or, far more entertainingly, a hung Parliament.

Will Brown strike now, dissolve Parliament and call an early election? The story's exciting, indeed. Here are three stories from the British press that tell the tale. I keep looking at the third headline and seeing "Dubya" substituted for "Margaret Thatcher," and "(any Republican here)" for "David Cameron."

online.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7044185.ece">Gordon Brown on course to win election (Times of London)

It means Labour is heading for a total of 317 seats, nine short of an overall majority, with the Tories languishing on a total of just 263 MPs. Such an outcome would mean Brown could stay in office and deny Cameron the keys to No 10.

So, what has gone wrong for the Tories?

Voters are still unsure about the Tories, admits Cameron; Leader tries to calm party election jitters as poll lead crumbles to two points (Guardian)

David Cameron was forced to admit today that Britain harbours doubts about the Conservatives and conceded the party still faces a "real fight" if it is to persuade voters that the Tories are ready for government.

The last Tory government under John Major stood down in the mid-1990's.

Margaret Thatcher's toxic legacy; David Cameron's rhetoric on social justice is worthless given that it was his party which broke our economy (Guardian)

The Conservative economic legacy is a massive transfer of wealth and power away from the majority of the people to capital, away from the poor to the rich, and away from the country to London. The economy has been financialised at the expense of more equitable productive wealth creation. Cameron has no political economy to enact his pro-social politics and his rhetoric of social justice.