Can someone explain to me how your elections work. I was just watching a forty second soundbite on Headline New's website about how David Cameron apparently won the last round of debates? Now, I'll be blissfully honest, I know you have Labour, Tories, Greens, and some extreme groups. What I "don't" know is how they proportion them in Parliament. I guess what I am asking is if Cameron's party wins the election, does that mean the Tories are back in charge, or David Cameron just becomes Prime Minister with a Labour Parliament? Fill us in, please. They don't teach us anything over here about Great Britain besides it's a big island in Europe once ruled by King George III who allegedly was crazy, we rebelled against Parliament and defeated the Redcoats (if you ever called them that) to form the USA. Yes, I can freely admit that our educational system is probably one of the most broken in the world. Most of my time in social studies in high school was spent learning about China, how wondrous democracy is and African orphans whom I should help with money. Thoughts? Comments? Discussion?
Not a Brit, but from what I have gathered is that the election that Brits have is similar to our House of Representative elections. Each "constituency" votes in the individual that they like to a post in Parliament (House of Commons). When all is said and done, the party with the most candidates elected gets the PM spot. I think the "party leader" winds up as PM. If no party gets a clear majority, I think the "non-majority" parties can try to form a "coalition" to make a majority, and then they go through some process I don't know about to select the PM, or maybe the biggest party in the coalition provides the PM. How did I do?
Not far wrong. You left out the possibility of a minority government, which is what Cameron might try to govern with. He won't have a majority, but he might try to use his 45% (or whatever) along with whatever support he can gather from elsewhere to get his legislation through. It's very likely in this election that there won't be an overall majority for anyone, though the Tories will be closest. There's a major problem with the voting system though, which is biased toward Labour and the Tories. At the moment, polls are showing roughly 35%-30%-27% for the three main parties in terms of the popular vote. But in all likelihood that will translate into something like 45%-40%-10% in terms of seats. The LibDems will therefore make reform of this a precondition to doing a deal with either of the other two.
Yes, 650 constituencies (of which 649 will vote tomorrow) each electing an MP to the House of Commons as either a member of a party or an independent (there are very few of the latter). The party with a clear majority forms a government. If there is no clear majority then horse trading ensues with coalition government potentially being necessary (formally or not). An interesting possibility this time is that Labour does not win most seats and indeed wins many fewer than the conservatives but Gordon Brown could claim that as the sitting prime minister he has the rigth to try to form a coalition (rather than vacate Doewning Street). He would then essentially remain in power until he achieved that and continued as PM or the effort failed. Whether the tories and a lot of people who voted tory will stand for that is another matter...
^^^ How does a "vote of no confidence" factor into this government making business? I only ask because I have heard the term before in regards to the UK Parliament.
From my understanding (I had several British History classes in college), since the government is formed by a coalition majority (different parties coming together for a vote). If a spending bill put forward by the PM (the government) fails, they're gone. I had thought that if ANY bill put forward by them failed, they were out, but that doesn't appear to be the case. I think it's that way in Canada. But basically, confidence is the ability to get things done. If they loose too much, they prove they can't get stuff done and they're gone. We call it a "lame duck" presidency here. We have to live with it. They get booted out on early elections. If I understand correctly, elections are sometimes called if a government thinks they can't currently get something done, but could pick up the seats they need to in an election.
