The Ramblings of Guise Dugal

As many of the readers here are American they may well be unaware that we in the UK are currently holding a General Election to vote in the next Members of Parliament, with the Election Day falling on Thursday 6th May.

For those not from the UK, and indeed a vast proportion of the UK who are tabloid readers or didn’t pay attention in class (which given the numerous conversations I’ve had recently is a staggering number), I do feel the need to point out something that might come as a surprise: we are not voting for a Prime Minister.

This may come as a surprise to those who are used to an electoral system where you vote for central government directly, but it comes more of a surprise to people who expect on election day to see the leaders of the political party on their ballot sheet.

Some of you may recall that I posted a brief overview of Government in my entry Ministers in the UK – not just toffs and princlies (April 2008). Well, the General Election is used to vote for the Member of Parliament for your specific area (constituency), each MP is given a seat in the House of Commons and the division of seats is what determines who is the ruling party (or parties, in the event of a Hung Parliament where coalition is needed).

It’s actually rather shocking how many people I know who can’t name at least two candidates standing for MP in this constituency, or even who our current MP is. It isn’t that we don’t have an active MP, but that people just don’t find a reason to know. People seem to concern themselves with the National Picture, something for which we have very little effect upon.

If you consider that the largest constituency in the UK could vote unanimously on one candidate in full support of the party behind them, but the end result would be one seat, a set fraction of Parliament.

We’re also prompted to vote on local issues, because that is really all a local MP can affect, but then there’s very rarely a correlation between the party we’d trust to look after our local community and those we want running the national economy.

We also don’t get to vote on laws, and I put this in solely for those few who mentioned the Propositions that get tagged on to US elections. I rather like the idea of the public vote on legal issues, even if completely ignored by policy makers. I don’t believe the people should be the determining factor – I’ve seen some of the Prop’s that got passed stateside – but if it was a factor or could be used to garner support and awareness, I’m for it.

The Liberal Democrats have for some considerable time wanted to instigate electoral reform, including a form of proportional representation – which, as Wikipedia helpfully puts it, is aimed at securing a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates obtain in elections, and the percentage of seats they receive.

Personally, I’d like to be able to hold two votes in an election, a local representation vote to elect my local MP and a proportional representation vote to elect the governing party.

As I said on Twitter recently, it feels like the election in the UK is going the way of hairstyles. You have a choice of parting your hair on the left or right (depending on which of the current two major parties you prefer), having a combover (voting the LibDem, using the fresh alive follicles to provide enough cover) or skinhead (scary thought, but there’s a likelihood we may see the BNP win seats this year). I kinda want ‘bed head’ by this point.

You see there are plenty of parties in the UK elections, many very well established and several hundred independents, all with their own policies and manifestos. here are some examples to help you:

• Labour – The current Government. Traditionally representing Working Classes until they actual got power and became New Labour and changed from socialists to socialites under Tony Blair. Compare to the way the senate gave power to a Chancellor from Naboo who then changed a Republic Senate into a Galactic Empire. Then Blair left and left Gordon Brown in charge.

• Conservatives – The current Opposition (this being basically the official runner-up). Traditionally representing the Middle Classes and London taxi drivers who wear thick gold chains around their neck. They seem to have softened since the Thatcher era, with a soft-spoken leader of the party who whenever you seem him feel a sense of reassurance that whatever policies he may put forward you could probably take him down easily in a barfight.
• Liberal Democrats – For eons the LibDems have existed as the comic relief for the electoral process, always coming in third place and providing a foil. Frequently managing to squirrel seats and hamper plots. Something, somewhere changed that though – personally I believe it was when they made Charles Kennedy party leader. Sadly they later sacked him for being far too interesting and likable, they weren’t ready for that big a step – and currently the LibDems actually look like they might gain quite a bit of influence. Some pundits are even saying that they could ‘win’ with a Hung Parliament. Compare this to TVTrope’s The Scrappy.
• Green – The environmentalist party, if they join a Hung Parliament I am hoping that in the first meeting of the House of Commons to hear the following:
  “EARTH!”
  “FIRE!”
  “WIND!”
  “WATER!”
  “HEART!”
  “Go Planet!”
  “By your powers combined, I am Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs!”

• Official Monster Raving Loony Party – Yes, it’s a proper party that has won local elections before and it has had ‘proper’ policies, such as: Refusing to sign up to the euro, but inviting the rest of Europe to join the british pound; Drivers can go straight over a roundabout when there’s no traffic coming “to make driving through Milton Keynes more fun”; Traffic cops “too stupid” for normal police work to be retrained as vicars; Withdrawal of MPs’ expenses allowance to “in future be distributed to the poor and needy so that they can waste it instead”; The introduction of a 99p coin to “save on change”.
• British National Party (BNP) – Oi, immig’ants owt. Comin’ over here doing our jobs…on time…for an agreed reasonable price…how dare you!
• UK Independence Party (UKIP) – Oi, us owt. A party dedicated to getting us out of Europe.

As you can see, with so many parties and the system so broken apart for representation in Parliament it is very hard to seize control in the UK through a democratic process – it is also not within the British mindset to hold a bloody political coup, in the mad days of Northern Rock’s banking collapse people furiously queued to withdraw their money and the only violent projectiles ever aimed at our MPs tend to have first exited a chickens behind.

I’m hoping it’s not impossible though, because I want to be elected to power. I have a manifesto with policies, I have a vision and I reckon I could free up a few hours a week to run the country as the tyrannical Primary Malevolent Benevolence.

So, look over the page for my policies and remember to vote!