lawyer

tomorrow, the people of the uk go to the polls to vote in our general election. our electoral system is kind of weird and complex, and there are a lot of acronyms thrown around that never get explained, so i thought it might help to do a post to give people the lowdown on what s happening.

note: i am not impartial! i am very left-wing. i make no attempts to hide this. if you are looking for a post that praises david cameron s leadership skills, this is the wrong post for you.

the basics

what we vote for in uk general elections is actually who gets to sit in the house of commons. the elected part of parliament. the house of commons is both a group of people and a literal room in the houses of parliament where those people sit to debate and vote on laws.

the uk is divided up into 650 constituencies. each of these constituencies elects one member of parliament (mp), who then goes to westminster in london and represents their interests in the government. most, but not all, candidates for mp stand as a member of a party.

mp elections are based on the first past the post system. each voter chooses one candidate to vote for, and the candidate with the most votes wins. your constituency is where you are normally resident if you have two homes (like a lot of uni students), you can vote in two constituencies.

a party government is elected in the uk by winning a majority of mps, called seats. if a single party gets more than 325 seats they have a majority, and they become the next government. the other parties become the opposition, and sit on the other side of the room in the house of commons. if no party gets a majority, things get rather more complicated.

we do not actually vote for our prime minister directly! the person who becomes the prime minister is the leader of the ruling party. currently, that s david cameron. leader of the conservatives. the leader of the party is an mp who s voted on by members of the party to become their leader. for most parties this changes every five years or so the leader of a party that loses an election generally stands down.

what happened last time

our current government is a coalition between the conservatives and the liberal democrats. at the last election, five years ago, the conservatives got more seats than any other party (306) but not enough to have a majority. after a couple of days of meetings, they formed a coalition with the liberal democrats, making the conservative leader david cameron prime minister and the liberal democrat leader nick clegg deputy prime minister.

the conservatives implemented afixed term system of five years, which we d never had before. in the past, the ruling party would call a general election basically whenever they felt like it, from as quickly as seven months after the last one (1806-7) to as long as ten years after (1935-45, because of wwii).

the parties

there are nine(ish) main parties in the uk: the conservatives (also called the tories),labour ,the liberal democrats ( lib dems),the green party ,the scottish national party (snp),plaid cymru (pronounced plied coomree),the united kingdom independence party (ukip) ,the democratic unionist party (dup), andsinn f in (pronounced shin fain). only two of those parties have ever held power on their own: the conservatives and labour. in practice, we have a two party system.

what complicates things is that a lot of those parties are regional. they only stand in a specific part of the united kingdom. the snp only stand in scotland. plaid cymru in wales. and the dup and sinn f in in northern ireland. as a general rule, regional parties support greater independence of their nation from england, called devolution.

let s have a look at the parties individually.

the conservatives

the current ruling party in coalition with the lib dems. as the name suggests, they re socially and economically conservative. right-wing. favour large-scale welfare cuts, privatisation of industry and services, leaving the european union, strict immigration controls, and favourable treatment of the financial sector. seen by most people as posh and out-of-touch, definitely more white and upper-class than the other parties (except maybe ukip). spend a lot of time trying to rebrand and failing miserably. this was thatcher s party, to give you an idea of the kind of people they are. led by david i literally do not have a soul cameron.

labour

the previous ruling party, once led by tony blair. in the past they were working-class left-wing, focusing on worker s rights, especially during the miners strikes of the 1980s. nowadays they re a centrist neoliberal party, left of the conservatives but not by much. favour smaller-scale public sector cuts, staying in the eu, and stricter immigration controls. a lot of people distrust them because of the previous labour government, which led the uk into the iraq and afghanistan wars and buggered the economy. led by ed awkward miliband.

the liberal democrats

the junior partner in the current coalition government. mostly left-wing but in the past five years their politics have been all over the place. favour stronger environmental laws, staying in the eu, a higher income tax threshold, and stricter taxing of big businesses. seen widely as traitors because of the coalition, especially the bit where they promised to abolish university tuition fees and then tripled them. very very unlikely to get much of a look in at this election. led by nick i m so sorry clegg.

the green party

the left-wing environmental party. relatively new in british politics, but slowly gaining popularity especially amongst young people. favour ending public sector cuts, a guaranteed living wage, strong environmental regulations, nationalisation of services, and scrapping university tuition fees. seen by some as woolly-cardigan hippies and by others as a breath of fresh air in an increasingly right-wing political scene. the nice party, except for the bit where one of their candidates is super transphobic and hasn t been criticised by the party for it. likely to win very few seats. led by natalie bennett.

the snp

like it says on the tin: scottish nationalists. pro scottish independence, but also generally left-wing. favour a higher minimum wage, ending the uk s nuclear weapons programme trident, higher taxes on the rich, and more affordable homes. popular in scotland, and surprisingly so in england, where they are fielding no candidates. led by nicola sturgeon.

plaid cymru

the welsh nationalist party. pro welsh independence and left-wing. favour living wages for all employees, ending trident, staying in the eu, stopping welfare cuts, and higher taxes on the rich. like the snp, they re popular in and out of wales, especially after the televised leaders debates. led by leanne wood.

ukip

very, very right-wing, xenophobic, openly racist party. anti-eu, anti-immigration, anti-lgbtq rights, anti-feminist, basically anti-decency and goodness in all forms. for half of the uk they re a cartoonish parade of racist old men. for the other half, their immigrants are taking your jobs rhetoric is worryingly appealing. avoid at all costs, unless you want to throw eggs at them. led by nigel farage, who is basically voldemort.

the dup

one of the two main parties in northern ireland. pro northern irish economic and political power, but also of staying in the uk. favour a higher personal tax allowance, maintaining defence spending, stronger immigration controls, and an increased minimum wage. no-one outside of northern ireland really thinks about northern irish politics, sorry. led by peter robinson.

sinn f in

the other main northern irish party. pro northern irish devolution and a referendum on a united ireland. favour ending welfare cuts, irish neutrality in conflict, northern irish fiscal independence, and staying in the eu but critically . i repeat: no-one outside of northern ireland knows anything about this. led by gerry adams.

what actually happens in an election?

like the us system, a two party system means that a lot of constituencies are safe seats : places where one party is more or less guaranteed to win, so no-one really campaigns there. i live in one. it sucks. this system means that a lot of people engage in tactical voting. voting for parties you might not like to keep the party you really don t like out. in practice this often takes the form of left-wing people voting for labour instead of the greens or the lib dems because they don t want to split the anti-tory vote. it s a horrible, anti-democratic system, and people are trying really hard to fix it, but the government is very resistant to the idea of change.

right now all the parties are campaigning in marginal seats. seats where the elected party might change. you might have seen footage of them looking awkward around workers, trying to bake bread or hammer nails or something. this is part of them trying to appeal to the people . they re not very good at it.

a few weeks ago there were televised debates between the leaders of the main parties (except for the northern irish parties). not much changed with those, except that a lot of english voters decided they really liked welsh and scottish parties they can t vote for.

current political stunts include: ed miliband carving election promises on a big slab of stone, nick clegg travelling the entire length of the country, and david cameron deciding that he s going to win the election just because he says so.

so now what?

so now we vote! no-one really knows what s going to happen tomorrow. some people are suggesting a labour-snp coalition could be the outcome, or maybe a tory minority, or something else entirely. results will start filtering in from 10pm tomorrow night, as constituencies report in.

the best place to watch things unfold is on the bbc. with their (in)famous swingometer , which shows how far the country has swung to labour or the tories since last time. if you re in the uk you can also use the bbc s site to find out who s standing in your constituency.

it s going to be a close one. expect a lot of frantic blogging from hacks like me, and at least one half the population to be very disappointed.

if you have uk politics questions, feel free to swing by my askbox and i ll answer them as best i can.

this has been an entirely biased political post by cardboardmoose. we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.