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"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

Not entirley sure what you mean by 'qualifications' - I'm not going to tell you the life stories of all 400 MPs!

The House of Commons is the real seat of power; the people of Britain elect Members of Parliament through their constituencies. Whosoever gets the most votes in their constituencies takes a seat in the House of Commons (although there aren't actually enough seats - PM question time can be quite funny in this respect!). The party with the most seats takes up the position on the left. The leader of the opposition (i.e. second most votes) sits directly opposite the PM on the right. These two seats are furthest away from the entrance. The parties with fewer votes are pushed closer to the entrance, away from the main speaking stand.
The HoC draws up the bills that, with a majority vote, are passed onto the HoL and usually made into law by the Queen.

The House of Lords is (in my opinion) an outdated, old fashioned, undemocratic institution which weilds little power. The seats here are either hereditary (most of which were abolished in 1997), or appointed by the government. They represent the 'upper echelons' of society. They take bills given to them by the HoC. These bills can be reviewed and sent back to the HoC to be re-voted on, or as is more common, they can be sent to the Queen to be made into law. If the HoL disagrees with a bill more than 3x (?) then the HoC can implement the 'Parliament Act' to force through legislation without the approval of the HoL - something which the government is using with the fox hunting bill, which has been rejected 10x by the HoL.

The main parties are;
Labour
This is the ruling party of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Some names that you may wish to remember include;
John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister;
Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown; the finances guy - he is desperatly trying to usurp Blair;
Home Secretary David Bunkett who is blind; he once flew the red flag at his constituency (Portsmouth (?)), but has now introduced trial-without-jury and other anti-terror legislation
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw; shook hands with Robert Mugabe - more than a bit of a taboo, and, in my opinoin, is a terrible replacement for Robin Cook
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon;

Labour are supposed to be left wing, represent the workers and unions party; however Blunketts anti-terrorism laws and Blair's bed-sharing with coorporations have shown how far Labour has moved to the right.

Currently sitting at 38% in opinoin polls

The Conservatives
They are the main opposition party. They are also called Tories, to clear up any confusion you may have. Lead by Michael Howard, who immigrated from Transylvania, Romania, when he was young, they are 8 points behind Labour at the moment, mostly due to poor leadership and constant in-fighting.
They are right wing, but not by American standards. They support deregulation of business, great restriction of immigrants/asylum seekers, a smaller government, and the freedom to choose your childrens school and the hopital you want to be treated at (the choice things are terrible proposals, frankly, and completely unworkable). However, on moral issues, which US-cons love so much; a bare majority support gay civil unions and abortion etc.

Currenly sitting at approx. 30% in opinoin polls

The Liberal Democrats (LibDems)
Lead by Charles Kennedy, they are the third largest party in the UK. AS you may have guessed, they have quite liberal policies. To be honest, I can't remember any right now. They are hoped to make huge strides in the May 2005 elections, possibly being the first party to replace Labour once it falls from power.

Currently sitting at approx 26% in polls

UK Indepedence Party
The one-issue (anti-EU) party of the moment, the UKIP has tried to make advances on its success it made in the recent European elections, but infighting for the leadership has hindered this, and the Tories, once greatly concerned about the growth of UKIP, has seen the party fall back t near obscurity. UKIP has now returned to its past of plodding along at 5%, which is an overall increase, but nothing for any major party to worry about. They focus simply on their target of pulling out of the EU - a very bad idea. They have tried to present themselves as a proper party, but their old image is proving hard to shake off.
If you were a born and bred Brit, I reckon this is the party you'd go for Senax, more right wing than the Tories and less so than the BNP.

British National Party
The racist fascist pigs of UK democracy. I strongly disagree with anything a BNP says, and would spit on their skin-head members with their Nazi ideals. About 1% in polls

EDIT: Oh yes, we have elections every 4 to 5 years; I'm not sure about limits on Prime Ministerial terms though.

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"I see no reason why...there should not arise a United States of Europe" Winston Churchill, 1946

Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all this to me. All I can say is... wow. We over here at the colonies have some things to learn when you look at all the intricacies of your system.

Is there a big power play in the works in the near future? An election or something?

I recognized a few of the names you mentioned, but now I'm able to attach an ideology to the name and see where each side is coming from. (sort of) I'm going to refer to your post repeatedly until I become more familiar with everything. Your parliamentary system is definitely multi-faceted.

Ours seems somewhat simplified, but no less complicated in other ways.

Thanks again for your efforts on my behalf.

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"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

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"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

Yep, a general election in spring.

21 to run.

You need to pay money (£2000?) to run in a constituency. Which you will get back if you get certain % of the vote.

Yep, we have constituencies. If a candidate obtains the the majority of votes in there constituency then they become a MP. The borders for these are redrawn quite often.

We have local elections, where counselors are elected, but i don't give very good explanations so i'll just leave it alone.

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What's this i hear bed? Word has it you and Pam are sleeping together.

Is it May 7th or 9th? Either way, I'll be old enough to vote for the first time! Only just though; my birthday's May 2nd. Unfortunatley, voting LibDem in my village will be a bit of waste; its depressingly Conservative.

http://www.somerset.gov.uk/somerset/...ucture/levels/

This is a really good site laying out the levels of local government and what powers they have, even if it is supposed to be about Somerset.

Councillors are elected at Parish/Town, District/Borough and County levels in local elections which seperate to the general election; (I think there were local elections in 2002?). These people do not sit in HoC, but they do take over powers in their area. Local elections are not particulary good indicators of general elections; they are too far apart to accuratley reflect the situation. Members of Parliament are voted in, in general elections held every 4/5 years, depending on when the PM wants them to be held.

John Prescott recently championed an attempt at devolution in the North East of England; one of the most deprived areas of the country. This new Parliament, based on those now present in N. Ireland, Wales and Scotland, would combine the powers of the various levels of local government. However, the proposition fell through, as people believed it would just increase beaurocracy and reduce the effectivness of local government.

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"I see no reason why...there should not arise a United States of Europe" Winston Churchill, 1946

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_general_election,_2005

Here's a great site for learning about British politics.

May 5th i think but i could be wrong.

My town's has had the same conservative MP for 25 years,but i won't give up hope it will turn lib dem. Worse is our council. A good hospital? Good funding for school's? Nah. What we need is a bus station with holes in the roof that needs a crane to hold it up.

There were 166 counsils elected this earlier this year, at the same time a the E.U. elections.

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What's this i hear bed? Word has it you and Pam are sleeping together.

Do members of Parliament and candidate for PM have to be native born or can they be immigrants? (I'm thinking about crossing the pond and taking over your government, lol)

Why does the Labor Party align itself with the Bush administration when it is clear that their policies differ so much?

Are there any restrictions on campaigning as there are in the US?

What party was Churchill affiliated with? Would he be considered conservative or progressive on social issues?

http://www.direct.gov.uk/QuickFind/G...G2GMenu1/fs/en

Should answer any question you have on MP requirements. Just scroll down to the parliamentary candidate requirements section.

The labor party isn't as different as it would like you to believe. When labor became new Labor it's policies switched from left to right and as a result the giant pile of money labor was sitting on when it got elected has been wasted. Anyway the reason i'd say it aligns itself with the Bush regime is because it doesn't want to waste the relationship built up over the years (although Blair has taken this to far), and equally Blair's a bit of a

The link above will answer but i'd like to point out that the kind of campaigning seen in the U.S. has been used on a smaller scale in Britain and it failed, badly.

He switched between labor and conservative depending on how well they will doing at the time, like the power hungry he was. I'd have considered him a conservative on social issues but it could be argued the other way.

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What's this i hear bed? Word has it you and Pam are sleeping together.

I have one more question. Why do you spend so much of your time debating about American politics? Are things in Britain that boring?