British Parliamentary Elections

About the British Parliamentary Elections
The United Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy with one the world’s longest traditions, is going to hold its general election on 6 May 2010 in all UK constituencies to elect Members of Parliament. The United Kingdom is composed of the Crown that is the monarch, he House of Lords, an appointive and hereditary upper chamber and the popularly elected lower chamber, the House of Commons. The latter enjoys supremacy over the former, the House of Lords’ powers, originally equal to those of the House of Commons, were drastically reduced in 1911 and 1949 to delay of no money bills. Since 1999 most of the country’s hereditary peers are excluded from membership from in the House of Lords .So, general elections in the UK only affect the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament ,as members of the House of Lords are unelected.
For general election purposes, the United Kingdom is currently divided into 646 constituencies, each of which returns one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons, elected for a maximum term of five years. Of these, 529 are in England, 59 in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland. Although these constituencies are for the most part approximately equal in population size, there are built-in balances. The May 6, 2010 general election will be held under redrawn constituency boundaries in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The number of seats in Scotland, Wales and Ireland will remain unchanged. But England will see four additional constituencies totaling 533 and the size of the House of Commons will increase to 650 seats.
All three main parties will go into the general election having changed leaders since the last general election. David Cameron became Conservative leader in December 2005, replacing Michael Howard. Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as leader of the Labor Party on 24 June 2007 and became Prime Minister on 27 June 2007. Nick Clegg was elected as leader of Liberal Democrats in December 2007 succeeding Sir Menzies Campbell who resigned on 15 October 2007 after having replaced Charles Kennedy, who had himself resigned in March 2006. The last time all three main parties went into a general election with new leaders was in the 1979 election, when James Callaghan as Labor leader, Margaret Thatcher for the conservatives and David Steel with the then-Liberal Party took to the polls. Within Northern Ireland, none of the main parties from Great Britain has any representation. At the 2005 election, Sinn Fein whose MPs do not take their seats as they will not swear the Oath of Allegiance to the Queen won five seats whilst the Democratic Unionist Party won nine. The continued their expansion at the expense of the Social Democratic and Labor Party 3 seats and the Ulster Unionist Party 1 seat respectively. The sole Ulster Unionist Patty MP subsequently resigned from the party leaving them with no representation at Westminster.
Labour formed two short-lived minority governments in 1923-24 and 1929-31 and altered in office with the Conservatives from 1945 until 1979 when the Conservative Party was returned to power and Margaret Thatcher became Great Britain’s first female prime minster. Mrs. Thatcher held office until 1990, when she lost the confidence of Conservative MPs and was forced to resign. John Major who succeeded Mrs. Thatcher as party leader and prime minster led the Conservatives to a fourth consecutive victory in the 1992 general election, although with a reduced parliamentary majority. However, the events of ‘ Black Wednesday’ September 16,1992 when speculative attacks on the pound sterling forced the government to leave the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and devalue the currency-rate a fatal blow to the Conservatives reputation for competent management of the economy. The Conservative majority in the Hose of Commons was gradually eroded by a number of defections and spectacular defeats in by elections held to fill parliamentary vacancies but the unpopular Major government clung to power without holding a general election until the very last possible moment hoping that by then the economic recovery would turn public opinion around . it proved to be of no avail the 1997 general election broth eighteen years of Conservative government to an end and a rejuvenated Labor Party under the leadership of Tony Blair returned to power in a landslide victory. In the 2001 general election, Labor scored a second landslide victory, while the Conservatives who have yet to recover their crushing defeat in 1997 had a net gain to just one seat. Labor won an unprecedented third-term victory in the 2005 general election albeit with a smaller parliamentary majority. Blair continued in office until June 2007 when he stepped down after ten years as head of government and Gordon Brown who had served as finance minster since 1997, succeeded Blair as prime minster.
Now the governing Labour Party will be looking to secure a fourth consecutive term in office and to restore support lost since 1997. The Conservative Party will seek to regain its dominant position in polices after losses in the 1990s and to replace Labor as the governing party. The Liberal Democrats hope to make gains from both sides, although they too would ideally wish to form a government, their more realistic ambition is to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament. The Scottish Party , encouraged by their victory in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, have set themselves a target of 20 MPs and will also be hoping to find themselves in a balance of power position. Equally, Plaid Cymru is seeking gains in Wales. Smaller parties who have had success at local elections and the 2009 European elections will look to extend their representation to seat in the House of Commons.
Some people are turning to the British Nationalist Party, a far-right party that proposes to repatriate residents of foreign descent and stop all migration. It has mobilized the disgruntled voters to its side. Already they have been able to control 12 out of 51 Local Council seats, making it the second largest party after Labor. Most polls now point to a hung parliament where no party has a majority. This raises two possibilities. Since the 1970s, Britain may be ruled by a coalition government and smaller parties will flex their muscles to get into the government. The other one is that Britons may face a second general election within a year. Political instability may reign in Britain after the election.
Traditionally with the sole expectation of 1923, the UK effectively has had a two party system arising from the use of the First-Past- The –post system for general and local elections. Duvergers’ law certainly seems borne out in the history of British Parliamentary politics. Before World War-1, Britain had a true two –party system, the main parties being the Tories which became the Conservative Party and the Whigs which became the Liberal Party though after Catholic Emancipation there was also a substantial Irish Parliament Party. After World War II, the dominant parties have been Conservative and Labour. No third party has come close to winning a parliamentary majority.

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