Election coverage: Parties and Candidates

(This is obviously a vast over-simplification of a very complex election, so forgive the gaps...)

Labour--Gordon Brown is the incumbent, and not a popular one. He does this strange jaw thing when he's giving speeches. (There's even a facebook group called "The way Gordon Brown drops his jaw after a sentence.") You can sort of see it in the below video.

The Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement, and they still advocate workers' rights. Here are some excerpts from their party manifesto: "...by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone...a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few..." Sounds pretty good to me!

Conservatives (aka Tory Party)--David Cameron is their leader, and he's a well-spoken, charismatic guy. He's also the 'elite' guy: Eton, Oxford, descendant of King William IV. The party has been pretty divided over things like immigration and European Union involvement. They're in favour of lower taxes than the others but still see the benefit of taxation to fund programs. They're pro-military and pro-defence of the union (with Scotland and Wales and N. Ireland).

As the Leader of the Opposition he goes against the Prime Minister in the Prime Minister's Questions every Wednesday where Gordon Brown has to answer questions from Members of Parliament (I like the accountability aspect!). I know you're hungry for a taste. This video is from 2007 when Gordon Brown was going to hold an election but called it off. What really matters in this video isn't what they're talking about; it's the input from the crowd and the argumentative format. It's so much fun, and it happens every Wednesday!




Liberal Democrats--Nick Clegg is the leader of the party that stands for civil liberties, higher taxes to fund social programs and environmentalism. Foreign policy-wise they're the most in favour of the European Union and multilateral approaches in general.

There are many other parties, which is vastly different from the 2-party US system. But these 3 are really the only ones with enough support to sway the balance of power.