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Last year, we all saw the extension of Bush's presidency for another term. In this year, on May 5th, the UK is having their equivalent election - The General Election.

Some of you may have heard about it in the news, some of you may not have (the US media - you can't beat it ), but here's a rundown of how our system works, and the main contenders in the race.

The UK equivalent of Congress, Parliament, has 646 seats waiting to be filled. Each seat represents a certain area of the country, and people vote at a local level for who they want to govern their area.

Currently, the Labour Party under Tony Blair are in a seemingly unassailable position, and have been since 1997. The official Opposition is the Conservative Party, under Michael Howard, which dates back to the 1700s, and the only other main contender is the Liberal Democrat Party under the leadership of Charles Kennedy.

Here is how they stand currently:
Labour - 403 seats
Conservative - 165 seats
Lib Dem - 51 seats

At the moment, it looks like Labour will win again, but they will not have as much of a majority this time. Some people think that we will have a 'Hung Parliament,' where the winning party has such an insignificant majority that they don't have much governing power. People are becoming increasingly disaffected with Labour, and a lot of people think of Tony Blair as a liar who doesn't deserve a third term (yes, you can have as many terms as you like in the UK).

Here are some of the basic policies of the major parties on the very good BBC website.

So, who would you vote for if you were allowed to vote in the UK? Our country probably seems very liberal to you,

For the LONGEST time, i thought u were Australian CaptainWill.... lol

Because i could've sworn i saw ur pin pinned on the australian continent in the Members Map Page.
Must've been seeing things...

Hmm, at least the parties are more specific about what they stand for exactly and offer more definite plans than our US parties... I'd probably vote for the Conservatives... Blair's been around long enough thhough I liked some of the policy ideas for both and the Labour Party will probably keep its majority regardless.

I added a poll to see if my hypothesis is correct: 'Most Americans would vote Conservative.'

-BW-Map_God is one already!

Most probably would... but outta the ones on this site I'm not so sure... seems to be a more liberal bunch of Americans around here for the most part, but will see if your hypothesis ends up correct anyways .

Here's how I see it

Conservatives think too short term.
Labour is overshooting their goals.
Liberal Democrat has the most sound manifesto.

Yeah, I'd probably vote Lib Dem if I thought they could run a country. They have little manpower and no experience, having never been in power before (they used to be the Liberal Party a long long time ago, but they collapsed between the world wars and haven't been in power since).

You're right about the Conservatives though - they are trying to capitalise on the short-term problems affecting the nation at the moment, as they are good vote-winners.

Too bad I really don't know a lot abour UK politics. It sounds as bad over there as it does over here though.

Our 3rd party isn't even big enough to consider. I think they pulled a total of something around .3 to 1% of the nations vote last election.

vote conservative! and since when do conservatives think short term? Or is that only in the UK?

Consevatives generally are short term thinkers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/is...=LD_UK&x=9&y=11

You could also say that the Conservatives have more clearly defined goals, while Labour's are vague sweeping statements like 'A strong economy' and 'Better quality of life.'

The opinion polls seem to show a Labour majority at the moment, and people seem to be a little uneasy at Michael Howard's obsession with the issue of immigration - leading some to brand him a racist.

For all the latest opinions from the UK student Internet community, visit

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/f142.html

I'm not sure if you have to be registered to view that forum - but it seemed to work ok for me after I logged out. I'm not a big poster on those forums (I have about 780 posts), and not well-known/controversial enough to have an impact in debates there unfortunately.

oh, I geuss its UK conservatives that think short term cause in America, Bush is thinking long term, example would be trying to revise social security -- which no other party has yet tryed to do this year or even help out to my knowledge.

I'm voting Conservative but if I could, I'd vote for a hybrid between Conservatives and Labour.

Conservative is clearly thinking about long-term education, allowing that many new schools and all the older schools to expand will allow for a betetr school choice and expanding those school will allow them to have specialist programs.

Scraping the Supreme Court is a just idea. Having just one judge decide on wether you are guilty or inocent is unjust. I'd be better to have a Supreme Court Council where instead of having just one judge judge you, there would be several judges. Making the House of Lords a msotly elected membership is also a good idea. Heredetary membership is partially a good idea because those heredatary members know they will belong to the House of Lords since childhood and thus will be better prepared.

Labour has a good point on the new currency of that of the Euro. You can't just hold back and stick to something that will start to loose it's power over time.

Ok, I decided to rouse myself from my sleep to let you know that the results of the election are starting to come in.

Exit polls suggest that Labour and Blair are in for a third term, but with a reduced majority.

The current results at time of posting are:
Labour: 25
Lib Dem: 2
Conservative: 1

For the results as they come in, go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/default.stm

There you can also get a live showing of the BBC programme on the TV at the moment, which is quite interesting.