British Politics: It's Election Time! (by Brian)

For those who haven’t heard, Gordon Brown, Britain’s current Prime Minister (PM), recently called for an election to be held in the UK on May 6th. Over the past few weeks, all of the news stations have been flooded with political coverage, much like we see in the States. In general I’m not a huge fan of politics, but I’ve been fascinated by many of the differences between the British and American political systems. I thought it would be fun to share with everyone some of the differences that I’ve seen.

Did you notice I mentioned that the current Prime Minister decided to call an election? That wasn’t a typo. The current Prime Minister gets to choose when he/she would like to hold the next election (i.e. they do not have defined terms). When he/she does call an election, parliament is “dissolved” and all of the current Members of Parliament (MPs) go back to their constituencies and seek re-election.

Unlike in the US’s presidential elections, you’ll never see a place on the British ballot where you choose between the many Prime Minister candidates… instead, you vote for your local MP, and the party with the most MPs appoints the Prime Minister. The parties choose their candidate for PM well before the elections so people know who will take control of power if their party wins the most seats.

Also unlike the US, where it’s strictly a two-party system (for all intensive purposes), Britain has what I refer to as a 3+ party system.

• Labour – A centre-left political party led by Gordon Brown (center), they currently hold 356 seats in parliament (a majority) and have been the ruling party for the past 13 years (starting with Tony Blair, who passed on power to Gordon Brown in 2007, two years into his third term… no election, he just decided to step down and hand it over to Gordon Brown). 
• Conservatives (aka the “Torries”) – A centre-right political party led by David Cameron (left), they currently hold 198 seats in parliament and are attempting to overtake Labour’s longstanding majority.
• Liberal Democrats (aka the “Lib Dems”) – A centrist political party led by Nick Clegg (right), they currently hold 62 seats in parliament. Until recently they’ve been seen as a distant third, but Nick Clegg’s performance in this past Thursday’s televised political debate (the first in the nation’s history!) has helped them move into a virtual tie with Labour and Conservative.

The plus portion of the “3+” refers to the many different independent parties, which actually hold a combined total of more than 10% of the parliamentary seats. These include the Plaid Cymru party from Wales and the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Hopefully this gives you a quick overview of the upcoming British elections. For more info, check out BBC’s coverage of this year’s election. Stay tuned for future blog posts covering some of the other major differences that I see between now and election day.