Polling stations across the United Kingdom will open on the Fourth of July as the nation prepares to usher in a new government after 14 years of Conservative rule.
This is the one that counts. A nationwide vote called by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, it will lead to the formation of a new government for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, for up to five years.
The UK is divided into 650 constituencies, with parties putting up candidates who will win their seat and become a member of parliament (MP) by a simple majority of voters. This system is known as first past the post. There is no proportional representation in general elections. This tends to be good news for the main parties – the Conservatives and Labour – and terrible for smaller parties, which can win a lot of votes across many constituencies but not enough to win many seats outright. The party with the most MPs will have the chance to form a government – and if it does so, its leader becomes prime minister.
www.theguardian.com/…
After 14 years of center-right government, a person in the United Kingdom is much worse off than if the economy had continued to grow as fast as its pre-2010 trajectory.
Britons had on average £10,200 ($12,950) less to spend or save in total during 2010-2022, when compared with 1998-2010 growth rates, according to an analysis of disposable incomes by the nonpartisan Centre for Cities research institute.
www.aljazeera.com/…
After a few years working and living in England, this is my first up close look at their election season.
What is the major difference to an average American election? The election season is only 6 weeks long as opposed to 18 months. You are not flooded by political TV commercials. No sightings of obnoxious bumper stickers or lawn signs. The political battleground seems to be safely contained to the newspaper headlines.
The common folks out and about on the streets don’t seem to be as emotionally riled up as Americans. Unhappy conservatives will either stay home or vote for the right-wing Reform UK Party as a protest. Unsatisfied liberals will either stay home or vote for the left-wing Green Party. Confused moderates will stay home or vote for the centrist Liberal Democrats.
Whatever happens, it looks like a sure bet that the center-left Labour Party will win in a landslide.
news.sky.com/...
When you live abroad, you cannot help but compare things with how things are back home and what is clear to me now is that politics in polarized America is very toxic. Especially on the Right, and less so on the Left.
It is entangled into culture, religion, regionalism, tribalism and identity. Political leanings has become the defining factor over who a person is more than anything else. It is the new religion.
Where it this all heading? I fear that the next step is political violence, maybe just shy of a civil war, and the best example is the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The Troubles were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted for about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "irregular war" or "low-level war".
www.britannica.com/...
Why did American politics become this? I believe that we live in a political environment created by the giant demographic bulge known as the Baby Boomers and it started in that pivotal year of 1968.
1968 was a turning point in U.S. history, a year of triumphs and tragedies, social and political upheavals, that forever changed our country. This was when the first Boomers entered the political space — political traumatized.
i don’t believe that America will be cured of this toxicity until the last of that generation has moved on. And I will wait safely on this side of the Atlantic until then.