Post by littlepea on May 5, 2005 14:30:57 GMT -5
can't believe i didn't mention this earlier but there's a small voting thing going on in the UK just now known as the 2005 General Election ... probably should have brought this to all your attentions earlier (whoops!) ;D
anyway, this is to decide which party has power in Westminster and who our Prime Minister will be for the next 5 years.
Labour should win again, though lots have people have been pissed off with Tony Blair after he lied to us all about Iraq and pumped up taxes though he said he wouldn't and introduced top-up fees in england for students even though he flat-out promised not to ... still the opposition parties are very weak and Labour will probably win again.
in my local constituency i voted for the SNP candidate (Scottish National Party). last time my local constituency was won by a Labour candidate, but i wasn't old enough to vote in that one so it wasn't my fault
the main opposition party for the westminster government is the Conservative party with their leader Michael Howard. he looks and sounds like an absolute creep and i have no idea why anyone would want him to be our prime minister. there are also the Liberal Democrats who have a good leader, in my opinion, called Charles Kennedy (he's scottish too ).
the order of the parties will be Labour first, Conservative second and Lib Dems third, as it has been for the last 8 years (the main question is just how much of a majority will Labour have) ... the lib dem's policies are very sensible and they have a good leader too, but there is a thing known as tactical voting in the UK - because it's not a 2 party system (like the US) often people who actually agree with the lib dems but would prefer anyone other than Tony Blair to get in will vote Conservative, because they have more chance of winning than the Lib Dems ... it depends on what constituency you are in, however ...
the voting system is known as "first past the post" - each constituency (an area of the country, there's one for every seat in parliament) has a number of candidates hoping to win it. people vote for the candidates, this is added up and the winner gets the seat in parliament. it's very different to proportional representation - the lib dems have historically lost out on the FPTP system, which is probably why they always campaign to bring in PR ...
anyway, the policies of the main parties are roughly this:
Labour - invest more in the NHS, tighter controls on asylum blah blah blah (basically keep doing what they're doing at the moment). they were pro-war and stick by it.
Conservative - encourage more use of private healthcare, annual limit on the number of immigrants and a bunch of other slightly more right-wing than labour policies. they were also-pro-war. they have some dodgy plans to lower taxes but at the same time spend more on public services ...
Liberal Democrats - scrap top-up fees for students, bring in proportional representation. they were anti-war in iraq.
SNP - you only get SNP candidates in scottish constituencies, for obvious reasons, and their main policy is to make Scotland independant of the UK (that's why i'm voting for them) because Scotland has its own set of needs and values different from the UK. they were also anti-war
there's a bunch of other smaller parties and independant candidates and stuff, you can learn all about them on the bbc website if you're interested
Scotland's values are so different from the rest of the UK that at the last election, although Conservative got 2nd place, none of their seats were won in Scotland - all the scottish seats were either Labour, Lib Dem or SNP. Conservative have historically always been regarded as the right-wing party that posh people vote for, this is not what Scottish people like so nobody votes for them ... in the Scottish parliament Labour are also the strongest party but it's the SNP who are the main challengers ... part of the Scottish Parliament is elected via proportional representation, so it's a bit more spread out than it would be under FPTP (Labour don't even have a controlling majority, they had to form a coalition with the Lib Dems to get things done) ...
anyway, this is to decide which party has power in Westminster and who our Prime Minister will be for the next 5 years.
Labour should win again, though lots have people have been pissed off with Tony Blair after he lied to us all about Iraq and pumped up taxes though he said he wouldn't and introduced top-up fees in england for students even though he flat-out promised not to ... still the opposition parties are very weak and Labour will probably win again.
in my local constituency i voted for the SNP candidate (Scottish National Party). last time my local constituency was won by a Labour candidate, but i wasn't old enough to vote in that one so it wasn't my fault
the main opposition party for the westminster government is the Conservative party with their leader Michael Howard. he looks and sounds like an absolute creep and i have no idea why anyone would want him to be our prime minister. there are also the Liberal Democrats who have a good leader, in my opinion, called Charles Kennedy (he's scottish too ).
the order of the parties will be Labour first, Conservative second and Lib Dems third, as it has been for the last 8 years (the main question is just how much of a majority will Labour have) ... the lib dem's policies are very sensible and they have a good leader too, but there is a thing known as tactical voting in the UK - because it's not a 2 party system (like the US) often people who actually agree with the lib dems but would prefer anyone other than Tony Blair to get in will vote Conservative, because they have more chance of winning than the Lib Dems ... it depends on what constituency you are in, however ...
the voting system is known as "first past the post" - each constituency (an area of the country, there's one for every seat in parliament) has a number of candidates hoping to win it. people vote for the candidates, this is added up and the winner gets the seat in parliament. it's very different to proportional representation - the lib dems have historically lost out on the FPTP system, which is probably why they always campaign to bring in PR ...
anyway, the policies of the main parties are roughly this:
Labour - invest more in the NHS, tighter controls on asylum blah blah blah (basically keep doing what they're doing at the moment). they were pro-war and stick by it.
Conservative - encourage more use of private healthcare, annual limit on the number of immigrants and a bunch of other slightly more right-wing than labour policies. they were also-pro-war. they have some dodgy plans to lower taxes but at the same time spend more on public services ...
Liberal Democrats - scrap top-up fees for students, bring in proportional representation. they were anti-war in iraq.
SNP - you only get SNP candidates in scottish constituencies, for obvious reasons, and their main policy is to make Scotland independant of the UK (that's why i'm voting for them) because Scotland has its own set of needs and values different from the UK. they were also anti-war
there's a bunch of other smaller parties and independant candidates and stuff, you can learn all about them on the bbc website if you're interested
Scotland's values are so different from the rest of the UK that at the last election, although Conservative got 2nd place, none of their seats were won in Scotland - all the scottish seats were either Labour, Lib Dem or SNP. Conservative have historically always been regarded as the right-wing party that posh people vote for, this is not what Scottish people like so nobody votes for them ... in the Scottish parliament Labour are also the strongest party but it's the SNP who are the main challengers ... part of the Scottish Parliament is elected via proportional representation, so it's a bit more spread out than it would be under FPTP (Labour don't even have a controlling majority, they had to form a coalition with the Lib Dems to get things done) ...