I believe the practice of year long elections started in the USA in the late 50’s. Nixon may have credited the democrats perfecting the technique in explaining his loss in 1960. It is really hard to avoid discussing US politics even if I wanted to.
In the UK, I think we only get a month of campaigning or so. It may be down to the rules of political advertising during elections. I think we had one leaflet through the door this year (lib dem). We did get a BNP leaflet one year, but its mainly been Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem. usually no more than 2 or 3 leaflets for the whole campaign. We’ve had no canvassers here come door knocking. I don’t think we’ve ever had any for the 20 years we’ve lived here. (The local JWs came twice in the same time.) All the resources probably get concentrated in key marginal seats. We’re not one of them. Other than that, its watching the news online (or TV, but thankfully we don’t have one). The experience may be different for other people.
I looked up who the candidates were in my constituency about a month ago, so I already knew who I’d probably vote for then. I considered not voting, but that was basically the only alternative.
We are a Labour household and have always been very political. The biggest event of this election family wise was when the UK’s chief rabbi came out against Labour for its anti-semitism. My dad was profoundly upset by that and wasn’t quite himself for several days. He was born after the war, so the associations are stronger for his generation than they are for me. Eventually, we talked and I explained that “this is how the internet works now: the most sensational and divisive story gets pushed and it doesn’t matter what it is. It could be anything as long as it makes money and gets ratings.” Honestly, none of us really wanted to vote (and that is very unusual) but we did it anyway.
