Antafrica wrote:I'm American but I'm in college right now and I've been learning about politics in the UK. The one thing I can't really grasp are what the major policy platform differences are between the Liberal Democrats and Labour? To me they both look like progressive centre left parties. Also why did the Lib Dems form a coalition with the Conservatives? I know if there's no majority new elections have to be called (at least that's how it is in other parliamentary systems, correct me if I'm wrong about the UK) but to me that makes more sense than a right-left coalition. Has it forced Cameron to be more moderate?
Last but not least I know the UK is unitary but I've only ever lived in a Federal system and I was wondering if the local governments have any power at all and what turnout is like in local elections.
I know these questions might seem like something that could be easily looked up but I have looked them up and I'm still not really grasping it so I thought the insight of someone who actually lives in the UK (or any other unitary system) would help.
After the last election, Labour and the Liberal Democrats couldn't have formed a coalition because they were about 10 seats short of a majority. They wouldn't have been able to get any legislation passed unless one of the minor parties agreed to support them.
It's not true that new elections have to be called if no party has a majority. In fact, in most parliamentary systems no party ever holds a majority. The opposite is true in Britain because it has the FPTP system, which is biased towards whichever party wins the most votes. The rule is that the parties in government must hold the majority of seats in parliament (in this case, I mean the House of Commons. The House of Lords doesn't have much influence). Otherwise, the parliament can simply vote to remove the prime minister from office (called a "vote of no confidence") which means an election has to be called.
The Liberal Democrats identify themselves as being closer to Labour than the Conservatives, but willing to work with either. They tend to be more pro-European than pro-US; for example they opposed the Iraq War. They are the most pro-EU party in Parliament. Labour are also pro-EU, but lately they've been considering holding a referendum on EU membership. They also support civil liberties and oppose increasing surveillance or anti-terror laws. Unfortunately, they had a "read my lips: no new taxes moment" last year when Nick Clegg (their leader) supported a rise in tuition fees which he'd previously promised to block.
The Liberal Democrats have always been underrepresented in parliament; in the last election they took 24% of the vote but just 8% of the seats. They have long campaigned for changing the voting system to a proportional system. The only move the coalition made towards this was to hold a referendum on the AV system (which isn't actually much different from FPTP in terms of the results it produces) and this was rejected by voters. Neither Labour or the Conservatives want to change the voting system, since it works in their favour.
In effect, David Cameron is more moderate than he would have been if the Conservatives had won a majority, especially on EU issues.
The UK is quite centralised. Local councils only really have control over running public services and planning. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own "devolved" governments, which are much more powerful and control some things such as education and transport. However, there exists a problem called the "West Lothian Question". England has no devolved government and given that it contains 85% of the population, it would be a bit pointless to create one. But under the current arrangement, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs can vote on issues affecting England which don't affect them.