will step down in a clear attempt to remove himself as an obstacle. talks between the third party have failed to put together a ruling coalition. i have no desire to stay in my position longer than needed to ensure the past economic growth is assured and the process of political reform we have agreed moves forward quickly. liberal democratic leader nick cleg has made it clear he will not consider a coalition led by brown. and a prominent conservative renomination. plus, betty white s much anticipated gig draws huge ratings for snl. white kicked things off by thanking the facebook community for campaigning to get her on the show.
and of course, a lot of that wind driven and also basically at the mercy of the tide and very, very compelling to watch how it pans out. something else to watch very carefully, again, those scattered showers, possible thunderstorms in the northeast and then that area of low pressure bringing the snow to the northern peninsula of michigan. guys, that s a quick look at the forecast. more to talk about. not just on the east coast but the west coast and more on that in a few moments. let s kick it back to you at the news desk. appreciate you. we ll talk to you again shortly. it was over time for the elections in uk. we don t know who s taking over the position. this is really strange. the candidate who got the least number of votes may be key in deciding who actually wins. max foster is live in england with more. max? reporter: nick cleg, the king maker expected in the building behind me in the next half hour. who has he chosen to run the british government?
today s lesson. that s gordon brown on the left, the current prime minister and flag bearer of the labor party. you would call them moderates here in the u.s. labor has been in power since tony blair took over. in the middle, david cameron, the likely winner here. margaret thatcher led this party. they want to cut immigration and taxes for the rich. on the right or left in politics is nick cleg, called the obama of britain, because he is calling for change. they are more critical of the u.s. and want better oversight with afghanistan operations. clegg is the fast riser in all of this. he even has his own youtube admirers. zain verjee has more. reporter: we have seen spoofs and jokes and plenty of laughs in the online election. now, some new tunes. here is the latest buzz.
what you have coming up on thursday. not a good week last week for gordon brown, but elections in britain are coming up on thursday, right? exactly. the old due only we used to see between the torys and labor parties are completely blown away in the nick cleg s performance in recent debates that they had. so now we re seeing the three parties really duking it out. you ve got nick clegg holding 30% of the polls. and gordon brown is trailing the two. but no one is going to have an absolute majority in parliament. great. we hear a lot about wall street bailouts but in greece they re going to get bailed out next week. we ll be talking about that internationally. thank you, christine, thank you, jess jordan. we really appreciate you joining us. you guys joining us. coming up, we ll talk about severe weather. it turned into a life and death situation. right now people are trapped, look at that, on one interstate outside nashville between two areas of a road that are covered by water. o
american u.s. presidential debate between kennedy and nixon. well, tonight here in manchester in northern england, for the first time in a british general election, the leaders of the three main political parties debated live on british television. gordon brown took on david cameron, the leader of the conservative party who is ahead in the polls. the big surprise in manchester tonight was the performance of nick cleg, the leader of the third party, the liberal democrat. awe the instant polls suggested that cleg, outsider in the race, no chance of becoming prime minister of the u.k. was the winner of the first debate. there are two more still to come. the questions range from the sleaze and scandal in parliament, immigration, but the biggest clash was on the economy. gordon brown is trying to