U.K. election turns to U.S. for Style

Politics makes strange bedfellows is a truism, a cliché, and also true; to wit: The candidates are even bringing in American handlers to help prepare. Mr. Cameron has hired Squier Knapp Dunn Communications—a Washington-based Democratic-leaning political consultancy. Mr. Brown will limber up through role play—a common feature of U.S. debate prep. Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former press secretary, will play Mr. Cameron.

The move comes at a moment when the U.S. and the U.K. are casting envious glances at each other when it comes to political debate. In the U.S., there is a groundswell to mimic PMQs and reinject reality into a political process that is tightly stage managed; in Britain, it is about adding civil debate to a political arena that habitually operates in full-on attack mode.

 There is a picture of PM Brown speaking in Parliament during Questions, and a graphic showing 3 pairs of opponents: Gladstone and Disraeli, Callaghan and Thatcher, and Hague and Blair. The first two have barbed wit.

"If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; an dif anybody pulled him out, that I suppose would be a calamity." Victorian-era PM Benjamin Disraeli on being asked the difference between a misfortune and a calamity.

"After being called a "one-man band" by Laboutr leader James Callaghan, then-opposition leader Margaret Thatcher returned, "Is that not one more man than the government have got?"