British General Election May 7th

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carl stromberg
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British General Election May 7th

Post by carl stromberg »

I thought I'd start a thread for the UK General Election on May 7th. Although the British members of the forum may be bored of the campaign. :wink:

Current polls suggest no party will win a majority.

A sample poll from http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk website

Conservatives 33.6% 281 seats
Labour 31.7% 281 seats
Liberal Democrat 10.1 % 17 seats
UK Independence Party 13.4% 1 seat
Green 5.0% 1 seat
Scottish National Party 3.9% 48 seats
Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalists 0.6% 3 seats
N.Ireland parties 18 seats
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Kristatos »

How many Scottish seats are there? I know the SNP is predicted to have a landslide there.
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by carl stromberg »

I think there are about 55 seats and the SNP are predicted to win about 50. Labour normally get around 40 Scottish seats so I think the SNP surge is a bit annoying for them!

I don't think David Cameron is bothered about being PM and would like to do something else. Unlike Blair, Brown Thacher etc who loved the job and probably worked 17 hours a day at it.
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by carl stromberg »

Image

The Monster Raving Loony Party have a candidate in my constituency. I tempted to vote for him. :wink:
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Kristatos »

carl stromberg wrote:Image

The Monster Raving Loony Party have a candidate in my constituency. I tempted to vote for him. :wink:
Why not? There are worse options.
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Kristatos »

Sir Sean's in there:

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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by carl stromberg »

The Loonies always provide an interesting protest vote.

I'm sure UKIP are pleased with the support of Ian Brady!
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Omega »

What does it entail setting up a " coalition government "?


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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Kristatos »

Well, last time, it meant both Tories and Lib Dems in the cabinet, a Tory prime minister and a Lib Dem deputy prime minister. But it looks like the Tories have an overall majority this time.
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by carl stromberg »

Shocking :shock:

The Liberal Democrats went down from 57 seat to 8 seats. :shock:

I'm a but depressed that he Conservatives have a majority as i was looking forward to parties having to work together. I hope th Conservatives don't go too loony.

I'm not an expert on US politics, but doesn't the President sometimes appoint people from other parties to be in his cabinet?
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Omega »

Yes. They sometime appoint different parties in cabinet type positions.

How does the election work? Is it like here where the leader is voted on? or is it his party and individual candidates winning that decide power ?


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Re: British General Election May 7th

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Traditionally, the leader of the party with the most seats becomes prime minister, and the leader of the second largest party becomes leader of the opposition. There is no actual law to say that this is the case, but it's so ingrained that it would be hard to imagine it done any differently. Party leaders are usually chosen by members of the party, though the exact procedure varies from party to party.
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Omega »

So it'd be like Obama wanted to be in charge but he couldn't run for president or whatever he could be leader of the party and if the people wanted him they could vote for the democrat candidates for senate and Congress and if enough were won he'd be president, if it was close he could work with the Green Party / who ever to make a majority?




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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Kristatos »

It's hard to draw direct parallels with America, because it's the only major democracy where the head of state and head of government are the same person. Most republics have a president and a prime minister. Constitutional monarchies like Britain have a king or queen and a prime minister.
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Omega »

The part I like is the forming a government and having to work with opposition . It sounds d**n fair to me and if we did do it here both our parties would go nuts .

Of course in a blow out you are as screwed as we are. Bush & Obama didn't have to work with opposition to get their way




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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by carl stromberg »

Omega wrote:The part I like is the forming a government and having to work with opposition . It sounds d**n fair to me and if we did do it here both our parties would go nuts .

Of course in a blow out you are as screwed as we are. Bush & Obama didn't have to work with opposition to get their way




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I find the US system confusing as you have the President, House of Reps., senate, Governors, state assemblies, state senates, mayors - I don't know which has which powers.

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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Omega »

I'd assume Parliament is similar to congress. You have towns and mayors too. What do you do for states and governors?


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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Kristatos »

Omega wrote:I'd assume Parliament is similar to congress. You have towns and mayors too. What do you do for states and governors?


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Scotland and Wales have their own legislatures, but England has no intermediate level between the county and the national parliament at Westminster. Some say that an English parliament is the solution, but I can't think of any other country with a federal system of government where a single state contains 85% of the nation's population. The party I belong to, the Wessex Regionalists, campaigns for a regional parliament for an 8-county region with a population roughly the size of Greater London's. Or for Americans, Wessex is similar in both area and population to Maryland.
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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by Omega »

So Wales and Scotland are closer to what we think of as states, the rest of the country has no bigger local government than cities.?

It was only colonies of GB that got governors and territories closer to what we think of as states.

I see how this all is confusing, if your outside looking at the usa, all these names of senators and govoners, the state and city leaders come up in political news as important people who don't translate to other forms of governance around the world.

So in GB it is like this
Monarchy (as a figure head essentially)
PM (who run the country more like a presidential figure)
Parliament
City and towns
Wales and Scotland governing themselves under the GB government .

Here we have federal government, state government (essentially mini Feds ), county, city making up local government .




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Re: British General Election May 7th

Post by carl stromberg »

Omega wrote:So Wales and Scotland are closer to what we think of as states, the rest of the country has no bigger local government than cities.?

It was only colonies of GB that got governors and territories closer to what we think of as states.

I see how this all is confusing, if your outside looking at the usa, all these names of senators and govoners, the state and city leaders come up in political news as important people who don't translate to other forms of governance around the world.

So in GB it is like this
Monarchy (as a figure head essentially)
PM (who run the country more like a presidential figure)
Parliament
City and towns
Wales and Scotland governing themselves under the GB government .

Here we have federal government, state government (essentially mini Feds ), county, city making up local government .




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The US, Canada and Australia were able to set up a federal system from scratch, but the British system has just evolved and is a mess. Also we have the House of Lords (our Senate) which is unelected and has about 2000 people in it with the government always appointing more to get more support.

Also the UK is in the European Union which has it's own parliament and government.
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