Are all parties now 'catch-all' parties? The UK is a prime example of Kirchheimers predictions coming true, with all three parties moving towards the electorally strategic centre ground.

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ARE ALL PARTIES NOW 'CATCH-ALL PARTIES'?

In most western democratic states, two or three major political parties dominate government, gaining a large proportion of votes at elections and primarily targeting each other's policies in their election campaigns. Traditionally, there has always been a party on the Left wing and a party on the Right wing, with the occasional third party in the centre of the political spectrum. In the UK, conventionally the Conservative Party were on the right wing and the Labour Party on the left. In 1988 the Liberal Party, who were the dominant left-wing party before the rise of Labour, merged with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to form the Liberal Democrats, who are today seen as the 'Third' party in the UK. As the Liberals and the Liberal Democrats have a fairly left wing agenda, they have always sided with Labour in order to oust the Tory's from power and achieve a left wing government. However, in the 2010 UK elections we saw a hung parliament for only the second time since 1929, with the Conservatives falling short of an overall majority by a few seats. Controversially, the Liberal Democrats chose to go into a coalition