A
General election to the
first house (
House of Commons) of the
United Kingdom's
Parliament
will be held on the
June 7, 2001 under the
First Past the Post electoral system.
The three main
parties contending are:
Some other parties involved that will not win any seats are the
Green Party; the
UK Independence Party;
the
Socialist Alliance and the
Socialist Labour Party.
The
Scottish National Party,
Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nats) and several
Northern Irish
Parties (inc.
Ulster Unionists and
Sinn Fein) usually win a few seats due to their
concentration in particular
constituencies.
Election News
June 9, 2001
Party------Seats-----Seats Change (since 97)-----% Vote
Labour-----413-------------------- -6-----------------------42
Cons-------166-------------------- +1-----------------------33
LibDem------52-------------------- +6-----------------------19
Other-------28-------------------- -1------------------------6
William Hague has resigned as
leader of the
Conservative Party, while
Tony Blair is appearing to get promptly back to
work and
Charlie Kennedy happily
relaxes.
June 5, 2001
Margaret Thatcher's mysterious persistence in coming out to
campaign for
Hague's
Tories (Much more than in
1997) has apparently
sparked another odd
debate.
Labour have accused the
Conservatives of being '
stuck' in
Thatcherism. They - on the other hand - have identified and extracted the best bits (
Blair is quite (in)
famous for his identifications of the good in
Thatcherite policy) of Maggie's
New Right reforms and built upon them.
Otherwise all
parties continue to, at an increased rate, push their favourite points (Lab - Service improvement; Lib -
Honest tax & spend; Con - No
Euro,
Tax Cuts) across the
nations of
Great Britain.
By the way, I got a leaflet through the door today promoting a candidate for the 'Pro-Life' Party. I thought we didn't have this sort of thing over here:
Go Back to the USA!
June 2, 2001
Labour have been emphasising the need to go and
vote, as they are afraid of losing
seats due to
voter
apathy (now somewhat evident in this very
node!). They are trying to make people
see a difference between the
parties (
Labour-
Spend more,
Tories-
Tax less) and then to get
people to think that
Labour aren't quite so certain to
win as it would seem.
The
Conservatives have been pursuing a strange
argument, to say the least. They say that
people shouldn't vote
Labour as another
big majority would be
bad for
democracy (an
elected dictatorship).
May 29, 2001
The
Conservatives have suceeded in keeping
Europe on the agenda, helped by
French PM Lionel Jospin saying that he wants
EU business tax harmonisation. The
Tories have also been making the point that their projected cost of joining the
Euro (£36 billion) is like getting A
Millennium Dome every month for three years. They used 36
pictures of
Domes for
campaigning!
Labour has said that they do not want any
tax harmony and that the
figure is
rubbish. The
LibDems said the
Conservatives are talking
rubbish.
May 27, 2001
The
Conservatives released their
manifesto first, its main feature being a
promise to cut
£8 billion in
tax. The party followed this up with attacks related to
tax on
Labour and
were widely thought to have got off to a good start.
Labour's
campaign is based around the stable
economy that their
government has built and
how they can now go on to save
public services - the
NHS particularly.
Tony Blair was
confronted on camera by an
angry relative of a current
NHS patient and his deputy,
John Prescott,
punched a
protester (who had thrown an
egg at him) in the face.
The
Liberal Democrats have done well so far, (mainly down to
Kennedy) it is
thought. As usual, they promise to improve
public services by putting 1p per pound on
income tax and sticking up highest rate
income tax. 'The honest way'.
Despite doing as well as anyone thought they could
campaign wise, the
Conservatives have seen
the
Labour lead in the
polls rise by a few
percent. Bad luck billy!