British Politics Thread

The UUP haven't done very well. They're a spent force. I give them until the next general election until they decide to pack it in.

The fact that Labour has exactly 50% of the seats though means they only need one from all other parties combined in a vote. Meaning even a single rebel will see them through.

Interestingly, in Scotland the SNP won 9 fewer seats on the PR side of the vote (the Regional List) - 16 this time against 25 last time. It was those 32 gains on the FPTP bit that one it. I voted SNP in the constituency and Green on the list. The list had more parties, so I wasn't able to vote Green on both (which I would have).

Interesting: Rally to Support the Cuts — in fact they say that the Cuts don't go far enough...

And considering the way the British and American Right are becoming increasingly alike (due to the Internet), this is rather interesting:

Oh god, it's the Reagan-Thatcher thing all over again.

UKIP have no credibility whatsoever. They're somewhere inbetween hardline-Tory ideas on the soft side and BNP views on the more extreme side.

As such, less-fundamentalist right wingers just vote Conservative, considering UKIP too extreme, and likewise their more-hardline demographic who just vote BNP.

Clegg unveils reform plans for the House of Lords.

Meanwhile, UK inflation leaps to 4.5%. Hooray!

Meanwhile meanwhile, government apparently hates the police service.

What a day.

It sounds like somebody needs a history lesson.

They're gonna cut and generally hamper the police? I get lots of warm fuzzies about it.

If it was up to me, I'd defund those guys until they had to beg for funds on the streets.

^ Well, yeah.

That's especially amusing coming from UKIP, a party whose entire platform is based on the idea of defending British sovereignty.

On Lords reform: I certainly like that proposal; a democratically elected second chamber is infinitely harder to abuse than the current one, where the government can create as many new Lords as they want. And it'd use proportional representation, which is always good news. But I'm not sure if the political will to pass this is there. The Tories are, unsurprisingly, opposed to this and there's the (not entirely unjustified) perception that Clegg's doing this to make up for the failure of AV, which isn't likely to create much enthusiasm for this. So while I'd like it to happen, I'm not confident that it will.

edited 17th May '11 2:20:40 PM by TheJackal

For us non-British tropers trying to learn more about the UK by following this thread, can someone explain the basics of the bicameral Parliament? What are the chambers and how are people elected into each, and what are the legislative powers of each chamber? The power dynamics - as well as social and by extension political dynamics - of this system must be very interesting.

Obviously, like any Western person with a high school education, I actually do know some of the basics; but since it's impossible to know which parts I'm missing or misunderstanding without actually reading up on the system, thus removing the need to ask this question and getting a response that anyone can read, I'd like an explanation that covers all of the basic features (and possibly some history) of the UK Parliament.

If you're still unsure about what I'm asking, I'd like to have something similar to my initial posts in my thread about Finnish politics.

At the moment the function of the House of Lords is, essentially, a quality-control function. They can hold up a law for one year, essentially allowing them to take one look at a poorly thought-out legal document and say "bloody hell, you guys really need to review this. Give it back to us when its in decent shape." They can hold it up for one year; after that, the House of Commons gets its way.

Britain isn't so much a bicameral system as a unicameral one with an unelected quality-control service.

That actually sounds like a very good idea, as I happen to know that there are several very smart people who deserve authority but can't gain it through popular support because of their immersion, at times, in their respective fields, which removes from them the privilege to spend their time on PR, as well as their (learned, to the extent that they've become built-in) standards of behaviour and expression that make them more vulnerable to underhanded tactics that work in political campaigns, because you can't make a 2-minute You Tube clip that explains why you deserve a say on certain matters if those matters cannot be expressed in less than several hours.

Obviously, I'm talking about the "intelligentsia".

So, do you get a seat in the House of Lords through academic or cultural achievement, or do you get it by purchasing a title?

Actually, now that I wrote the above paragraph, I'd really like a wall of text about your system, in as much detail as is reasonable to expect a foreigner to want to know, based purely on curiosity and a desire to compare your system to others. As I said, something like the larger posts I wrote in my thread about my country, but I don't require the sociopolitical commentary that I (though trying to keep it brief) inserted into my posts; just a description of the system, in your own words (whoever has the time to actually write up such an answer).

Sure Best Of, I'll give it a go! (Edit: this was three minutes after your last post - the above three posts ninja'd me, I started typing this after your first request for detailed info. I'm a fast typist, but not that fast!)

The Houses of Parliament are actually many, but the ones that are actually relevant at the top level are The House of Commons and The House of Lords.

The Commons is the one you vote for. When you vote in elections, you do not vote for your party, you vote for a representative of that party, chosen by its leaders with involvement from rank and file paying members. How candidates are chosen will depend on the constitution of the party. Each elected Member of Parliament (MP) represents their area, the boundaries of which are subject to frequent change, which can result in the actual number fluctuating a bit if new areas are created or others disappear. Party leadership is dealt with through voting among serving M Ps and rank and file members. Whoever leads the party at the time of an election they win will become the Prime Minister, and thus the leader of the country by default.

As such, we do not vote for a Prime Minister; he must be elected to a constituency seat first. Theoretically, a serving Prime Minister could be removed from office by losing his seat in parliament, though since they always get the safest seats this doesn't actuall yever happen in practice. Note that this will absolutely not stop people claiming that a party leader who takes over midway through a parliamentary session has not been elected. Gordon Brown got this a lot when he took over from Tony Blair as leader of the incumbent Labour party. In reality, he had been elected as an MP in every election since 1983, so nearly 25 years.

Voting is always done on the day, but can be done in advance through postal voting and the like. The stations are open 7am to 10pm, and if you're in another area at the time there's workarounds so you can still vote (to some extent).

Voting covers the four primary countries of the United Kingdom - England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Crown Dependencies, such as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, are not covered as they do not have representatives in the UK parliament. Some islands, such as the Shetland and Orkney islands of Scotland, are considered part of the country though so do have M Ps.

The elections are for the London-based parliament, and as such are distinct from each country's own devolved government. Elections for the latter occur separately; as such Scotland for example will have separate MP and MSP - one reports to Westminster, the other to Edinburgh.

The Commons handles all day to day government. They propose and make the laws, and do all of that stuff.

The House of Lords is, as Game Chainsaw has said, quality assurance. They exist to ensure a sense of sanity in the governmental process, though through allowing through or blocking choice legislation they can themselves be rather mental. The Lords is non-elected, with appointment being hereditary or through special appointment. Long serving, high ranking judges and government ministers can usually rely on such appointments, and Prime Ministers tend to be assumed to have the option of a peerage by default. There was a scandal recently because of peerages being bought and sold, with large donations to the incumbent party being "cooincidentally" followed by appointment to the Lords soon after. Calls for reform are endless, including making the House partially or wholly elected.

edited 17th May '11 4:40:32 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

Its... a mix. There are life peerages, who are essentially men recognised during their lifetime by the government, appointed by the queen I think (probably the last significant power the royals have left at this point.) There are no newly created hereditary peerages but I think there are still a few inherited lordships. High ranking Church of England officials have seats too. I don't really know a lot about it... hell, here's the wiki page. It'll probably tell you more than I can. There's another one on Peerage I've only given the most cursory of glances too.

Ninja'd. And it was longer and probably a lot better (not read at the time of this EDIT) than mine was too.

edited 17th May '11 4:42:07 PM by GameChainsaw

Thanks. So, are there some interesting power dynamics between the two Houses?

Also, what do the other Houses of Parliament do? Committees, composed of MPs and specialists, devoted to single issues - House of Finance, House of Education, etc; or something else?

edited 17th May '11 4:46:32 PM by BestOf

^Do you mean the various departments?

says:

So what are the other houses, of which there are many?

If they're not departments, what are they?

Actually I was a bit mixed up there, apologies! There's only two actual governing houses, the Commons (lower) and Lords (upper). There's far more buildings than that though, and there are of course myriad departments connected to some function or other of the government which might be included in the term (Treasury functions, for example). The Monarch is also a part of the government though, being legally above both. Technically, the Queen could sack parliament and take full, individual control of all government officials, armies, services, the lot. In practice, this wouldn't happen obviously, but technically the Prime Minister is simply the lead representative of the monarchy among non-royals.

edited 17th May '11 4:54:13 PM by CaissasDeathAngel

OK, thanks.

I'll post more questions if any come to mind.

An interesting concept that comes from the devolved parliaments, whereby Scotland, Wales and Ireland have significant control of their own affairs, particularly Scotland, is what's called the West Lothian question. See, because Scotland has total control over education, and almost total control when it comes to taxation, there frequently are situations whereby laws enacted in England (and Wales) will not actually affect Scotland at all. A separate version of the law specific to Scotland will be done, their own parliament might handle it, or they just won't bother. Still, if it's voted for in Westminster, Scottish M Ps will get to vote on it, as they are in the parliament just like any other. Even though it won't have any relevance to them.

Needless to say, this is hugely controversial, as it allows Scottish M Ps to blindly support or oppose legislation (because their party wants them to, or because they can get away with expressing their true feelings on an issue) that they would insist take a flying fuck to itself if it were to affect their own constituents. Since none of them will be affected, pissing them off and thus risking their chances of being reelected next time isn't a factor in such cases.

The simplest solution might be just to ban Scottish M Ps voting in such situations, but this creates a dangerous precedent whereby M Ps can be blocked from voting on legislation, and also completely disrupts power dynamics for the vote because the number of M Ps each party has is shifted. If, for example, one party had a large concentration of M Ps in Scotland, they might find that they're disporportionately affected by measures that stop them voting. This could mean they don't have a majority of M Ps able to support and thus vote for the legislation - even if they have a huge majority in parliament. That would be rather unfair in its own way, thus the West Lothian question remains unresolved.

An excellent demonstration of the controversy is, as I recall, the Labour goverment under Blair beginning tuition fees, if I recall correctly?

^Yup. Another proud moment for Scotland.

The classic example.

In Scotland, we've made it so that Scottish students (those who went to school in Scotland moving on to university, you don't have to be biologically Scottish, and I'm not sure how it applies if you're a mature student) studying in Scotland pay absolutely nothing. Our fees are paid for entirely by the government. This does not apply to students from England or anywhere else studying in Scotland, or for Scottish students studying in England.

Scottish M Ps were able to vote for crippling rises in tuition fees, and did so in large numbers. This did not go down well among MPs or the public

Now, that's just ridiculous.

It almost sounds as if the Scottish MPs either sold their vote (either accepting bribes or other forms of corruption or, the more likely case, made deals with other MPs about their votes on matters that the Scottish MPs wanted to pass or block in exchange for this silly vote,) or that they actually just wanted to make life more difficult for people in England in retaliation to some perceived (or real) past or present injustices, in which case I hope some day they'll realise that their revenge was directed overwhelmingly at innocents.