Tell me what you know.
I am interested, and really dont know much!

Well from what I understand, the British have a Parlimentary system. You
wouldn't vote for Tony Blair or whoever. You would vote for his party's
candidate from your district. They may not call it district, but thats
the gist of it. The party who gets the most MP's elects the Prime
Minister. If one party doesn't get a majority then they can enter some
kind of power sharing deal to get their man or woman elected.
This is right to the best of my knowledge, I'm sure some of our British
friends can shed a lot more light on the subject than me.

you know thats what I thought at first, but its wrong they actually do
vote. The best I can tell, but when they set the date, and who the
candidates are is up to Parliament something like 46% have to agree for
them to run, and in this case if they werent registered to vote by Mar
11 th or something its too late. I was also reading something about if
one party out numbers the other when MP elections are held that they can
have another election to even up the Parliament? ? strange ?? or a good
thing Im not sure..but they dont have a primary and if you dont have an
address then you cant vote, so homeless people are left out of the
election process.
Im not exactly sure but Ive been trying to figure it out. If you think
our systems messed up read about theirs.
I do like the system they have for distributing donations though.

It sounds foreign to me but i figure since they are liable to be our
51st State I'll figure it out!!LMAO

oh well I was close lol

The British political system is archaic and is not indicative of the
will of the people.

What is happening at the moment is that the the Prime Minister, Tony
Blair has resigned.
There now follows a vote to see who will succeed him as leader of the
party that has the majority in the House of Commons.
As Fanta and I have discussed, Gordon Brown will take overthe mantel of
Leader of the Labour party. By a coincidence the elected govt is the
Labour party so Brown will become the Prime Minister.

That aside.

Every 4 years there is a General Election(or when the govt sees fit to
call one).

In the General Election, people in each of the constituencies votes for
a member of parliament (MP)

Currently the United Kingdom is divided into 646 constituencies, with
529 in England, 40 in Wales, 59 in Scotland, and 18 in Northern Ireland.

The most common system, used in Canada, India, the UK, and the USA, is
first past the post or winner-takes-all, a voting system in which a
single winner is chosen in a given constituency by having the most
votes, regardless of whether or not he or she has a majority of votes.

When the number of MPs has been counted up, the party with the largest
number forms a government.

The leader of the "winning" party becomes the Prime Minister.

If the party has an overall majority in the House of Commons, then the
government's policies get through quite easily (except when it is
something that polarises the public, like hanging or Iraq)because the
number of votes, on each given topic, will be in the government's
favour.

The reason it isnt indicative of the people's will, is that there are
ways to "fudge" the voting system.

A while ago a member of the British National Party (Right wing
extremist) actually made it into the Commons. His politicking was in a
seriously depressed, high immigration region of London, and he "scared"
the non-white population into not voting.

Also envision this. The three main parties are Labour Conservative and
the SDP

Constituency 1
Labour gets 100 votes
SDP gets 99 votes
Cons get 10

Constituency 2
Cons get 100 votes
SDP gets 99
Labour gets 10

Constituency 3
Labour 100
SDP 99
Cons 10

So the total scores are
Labour 210
SDP 298
Cons 120

So under the current system Labour would get 2 MPs and the Conservatives
would get 1.
The SDP, although having the most votes, gets no MPs.

But Labour and the Conservatives know that the current system works for
them, so they will not change it.

If the SDP got in, they would change it so that every single vote would
be counted towards the grand total and the most votes in the whole
country would form the govt. This is called proportional
representation.

Phew!

but this is only the voting system and how one set of robbing, theiving
bast4rds replaces another set!!!

Thanks Belushi,
Now is England coming along peacefully as the 51st State, or do we need
to let Bush invade? LMAO

Of course we will have to change the name, how does East NY sound to
you? LMAO

Its confusing to me but sounds ehh unjust...

Well it's there system. They can work it out.

their system.....sorry

Our system is also used in India, Australia(I think) and New Zealand ...
I wonder if it sucks there too?

Similar here as well Duncan, House of Representatives, rather than House
of Commons..

The names were changed to protect the guilty, however, our government is
still based on the first UK..the only saving grace we have is, that our
sovereign ruler, can step in and sack a government, via the Governor
General.

Isn't Canada's system of government similar, as well?

The same systen is still used in Canada as well.

so, former members of the British Commonwealth still "enjoy" the British
system of government.

Using the Monty Python method ...

What have the Brits ever done for us?