This week we talk about the Tories, Labour, and the UK Parliament.We also discuss the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and Rishi Sunak’s gamble.Recommended Book: Like, Literally, Dude by Valerie FridlandTranscriptThe government of the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy led by a Prime Minister and their cabinet, the Prime Minister attaining their position through the primacy of their party in the country's key legislation-passing body, its Parliament.So the Prime Minister runs day-to-day operations in the country, they are technically appointed by the monarch, who is currently Charles III, as of 2022, though that appointment is generally determined by other factors, like who has the most support within Parliament—the most seats held by their party, and in many cases seats held by allies and allies of convenience, as well; when this happens, the resulting government is called a coalition government, because while the Prime Minister is from one party, usually the one with the most seated MPs, Members of Parliament, they're only able to govern because they have one or more other parties working with them as part of a coalition.Now, the UK government has two houses in its Parliament, the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and the names of these houses tell you a lot about them: the House of Lords consists of folks who have been granted Lordships by government higher-ups, alongside those who have inherited Lordships from their parents, but it also includes experts in various fields who have been granted that status by the Prime Minister—economists, for instance.The House of Commons, in contrast, is voted upon by the people, so when there are Parliamentary elections in the UK, that's what we're talking about, votes for MPs who represent a region, a parliamentary constituency—of which there are 650 across the UK's constituent countries, England, Scotland, Wales, and North Ireland.Within the UK, political parties have to be officially registered to participate in governance and votes, though folks who want to run solo can register as independent or label-less candidates for voting purposes.As of late-May 2024, there were 393 officially registered political parties in the UK, though only 13 of them currently have representatives in the House of Commons, and only four of those have more than 10 seated representatives—the Conservative and Unionist Party, often called the Tories or Conservatives, the Labour Party, which is the main center-left party in the UK, the Scottish National Party, which is also generally center-left, but tends to be focused on Scottish politics and priorities, and the Liberal Democrats, who are generally seen as a sort of blend of the Tories and Labour.General elections, during which MPs are voted upon, are held every five years or so, but elections can also be held sooner if the current Prime Minister asks the monarch to dissolve parliament, which in practice means the Prime Minister is calling for a general election, generally scheduled for a specific date in the future, usually because the House of Commons has lost faith in the current government, which makes passing law and overall getting things done difficult; they don't have enough votes to pass anything, basically, though in some cases it's because of more general political circumstances that indicate calling for an election, now, might be better than holding an election sometime later in the future.That latter case seems to be the impetus for what I'd like to talk about today, which is the recently called and now upcoming UK general election, and the state of political play in this, one of the world's wealthiest and most influential countries.—On May 22, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that he was calling for a snap election on July 4 of this year, just a half-dozen weeks in the future, surprising many analysts who expected he would wait as long as possible before committing to a date.That expectation was predicated on the reality of how Sunak's party, the Tories, have been doing in the polls in recent years; pretty abysmally.Labour has been crushing the Conservatives in these polls, of late; the Tories have been in power since 2010, which means purely by virtue of having been governing that long, a lot of people will tend to blame them for a lot of things, their party having been in charge all that time, but they also catalyzed and oversaw the secession of the UK from the European Union, which is a move that was initially pushed by many on the further right wing of the party, but the populist nature of the movement eventually claimed the majority of Tory politicians who changed their vote to support it, rewiring politics in the UK, similar to how former President Trump rewired the Republican Party in the US—a lot of power changing hands, a lot of previously top people being elbowed aside or pushed into retirement, a lot of new policies ascending to the front-burner, while previous ...
