This is not a debate of which one is better. Just the facts, please.
What are your major parties and how do they compare to the US parties (if there are counterparts).
I’ve heard of the Conservative and Labour parties and the Tories, but I don’t know what they’re about.
I am far from expert in this field but I am UK born, and can give some broad details till an expert turns up.
UK has two main parties Conservatives (also known as Torys) and Labour. Consertavies are to the right of Labour, but would generally still fall to the left of most Democrats and all Republicans. There are several minor parties Liberal being the biggest (they do almost as well as the losing 'main; party in some ellections) which tend to fall politically between Conservatives and Labour. There is a reasonable Green Party, and a fascistic National Front party. On the fringe are the Monster Raving looney party which is fun in a very British sort of way. And this eastern-cult like linked party that seems to believe they are preordained to win one year (even though no one votes for them).
Traditionally Conservatives have been very pro-big buisness, pro-America, anti-europe. Whilst Labour has been pro-union, somewhat socialist, and somewhat ant-America. Blair has one the last few elections by being much closer to the Conservative stance than ever before for a Labour party. The current Labour policy is very pro-America, slightly pro-Europe, and low on socialist values. This has aded him greatly in getting votes from otherwise Conservative people, but causes stress within his own political party.
Is the current Liberal party the remains of that Alliance thing they had in the 90’s?
Yes.
Note, however that it’s actually the Liberal Democrat party, or LibDem for short.
There is still a Liberal party (or there was a few years ago) but its tiny.
In that case, I must withdraw my support for your Labour party and its ant-American tendencies. We have enough of the little buggers over here already.
It’s important to note that Labour underwent a serious change just before becoming the current government.
Labour used to be a single, strongly socialist party - sympathetic to trade unions and generally quite ‘red’ - from out of this sprouted ‘New Labour’, still claiming ideals of social concern and responsibility, but with significant elements of capitalism - New Labour was elected. ‘old’ Labour (or ‘real’ Labour, or ‘The Socialist Labour Party’ or something) still exists, but is somewhat marginalised.
I’m not an expert in politics, but as far as I understand it, the capitalist sympathies of new Labour arose out of expediency; The previous Conservative government embarked upon what I think could be fairly described as a runaway policy of privatisation - monolithic entities such as the rail transport system and the power companies were split up and sold off - New Labour was able to accept and work with this, Old Labour probably would have desired to immediately re-nationalise the companies, which there probably was just no practical way to do.
There is also a new kid on the block in the shape of the UK Independence Party, which is currently worrying the Conservatives by taking away some of their support, typically from the ‘right wing’ of the Conservatives. In yesterday’s by election in Hartlepool, the UKIP pushed the Conservatives into 4th place for instance - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3705866.stm
The Green party is really very small, compared to those in many other European countries. The National Front doesn’t function as a political party, but in the 90s it split, and the British National Party emerged, who are insidiously racist rather than overt ‘blacks out’ tubthumping. And they’ve had electoral successes as a result. The Natural Law Party, the new-age nut-jobs, gave up some time ago and is no longer registered as a political party.
And I certainly don’t think is accurate to portray the current attitudes to Europe as traditional leanings. After all, it was the Tories that took us into the common market in the first place.
The Alliance was the 80’s, not the 90’s, and the Liberal Party no longer exists. 
The Liberal Democrat party is a ‘new’ party so to speak. Its predecessor was the alliance between the Liberal Party (a very old parlimentary party) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which was formed in 1981, when the Labour ‘Gang of Four’ (Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and Bill Rodgers) broke away from Labour . In the mid-80s there was a series of disputes between the Liberals and the SDP which threatened to break the Alliance. Things came to a head in 1986, due to disagreements on defence. This led to a drop in the percentage of the vote that the Alliance got in the 1987 election, and the Liberal leader, David Steele, proposed a merger of the two parties, which was initially vetoed by the SDP’s leader David Owen, but he was replaced by Robert Maclennan.
The two parties merged in 1988, and on 3rd March 1988, became known as the Social and Liberal Democrats (SLD). The abbreviation SLD wasn’t popular, and the term ‘Democrats’ wasn’t too well liked either; eventually they became known as the ‘Liberal Democrats’ or LibDems for short.
You’ve done fine.
I Do you mean The Natural Law Party? Looks like they’re not a going concern any more. They gave us a laugh, IIRC one of their claims to fame was Yogic Flying.
Not quite true. http://www.liberal.org.uk/
Sorry, my mistake.
You might want to have a look at yesterday’s by-election results. The Conservative candidate was whipped into fourth place, behind the UK Independence Party. Politically they are a spent force and look increasingly in danger of being over-taken by the Liberal Democrats at the next election.
The UK Independence Party are a classic ‘protest vote’ party. They do well in mid-term by-elections, but not so good in full elections. They didn’t win a single seat at the last election. Their chief policy is basically anti-European Community, and the single Euro currency in particular, otherwise they have classic Conservative policies and probably ‘steal’ most of their support from them.
Other parties not mentioned are the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Plaid Cymru, which are basically socialist parties, but have particular policies for independence for Scotland and Wales from the UK. They have a strong presence in their countries and are the main opposition to Labour in both. The SNP hold 5 seats in the UK parliament, Plaid Cymru hold 4.
Politics and Parties in Northern Ireland are a whole different game, as you might imagine.
So the Conservatives have already slid out of sight in Scotland and Wales (Thatcher once called the Conservatives the Nationalist party of England) and are heading that way even in England.
Note also that “the Tories” is just another name for the Conservative Party. I think originally they were two different things but not for many years.
Basically, as others have said, there are three main parties: Labour, which was traditionally staunchly socialist but watered down its policies – which worked in as much as it gained power in 1997 after years of Conservative government, but in doing so alienated many of its old-school suppporters; Conservative, the right-wing party characterised by love of privatised industry and disdain for the European Union, immigrants and foreigners in general; and the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems), which claims to represent the “third way”, or “neither to the left, nor tothe right, but somewhere in between” as the Spitting Image* sketch had it. The Lib Dems were once considered to be very much the third party, with no hope of ousting either of the top two, but they have made gains in many areas over the past few years.
Whether the Green Party is in fact ‘reasonable’ is, I suppose a matter of how you define ‘reasonable’ - even though it is unlikely that they will ever run the country, in a sense, they have provided a very useful function in provoking the other parties to take a stance on environmental issues - in fact this is probably the downfall of the Green Party - it’s too easy to nick their good ideas and proclaim them as your own initiatives.
The Green party does have a dark side though, about which it isn’t so vociferous; their stance on property and wages goes beyond socialism and is bordering on communism.
Then there are the regional parties. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each has a regional assembly, though the one in NI is currently suspended. MPs sitting in the assemblies also have seats in the UK Parliament.*
Wales has Plaid Cymru (pron. Plied Come-ree), which is a moderate Welsh nationalist party, which is prepared to work in the UK parliamentary system, but favours Welsh independence.
Scotland has the Scottish National Party (SNP), with similar, if slightly more hardline and left-wing, goals to Plaid Cymru.
Northern Ireland… blimey, it’s complex. This is all off the top of my head, and I don’t live there, just take an interest in the news, so no doubt I’ll be corrected along the way…
While some parties do fall under left/right banners, most voting is decided by community loyalty.
On the Unionist/Loyalist side (wants to remain part of the UK) the main players are:
UUP (Ulster Unionist Party) - “moderate” vaguely conservative, supports the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), vaguely prepared to work with Sinn Féin, though has to bluster in order not to alienate its core electorate - which it did recently, losing out to the more hardline:
DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) - Run by firebrand lunatic Ian Paisley. Hardline Unionist, despises the GFA, refuses to negotiate with anyone (“No!”), though now is the majority party in NI and for the first time yesterday, Paisley visited Dublin, so probably softening its stance a bit.
PUP (Progressive Unionist Party) - affiliated with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) terrorist group (now on ceasefire), but now claims to be committed to democracy. Supports the GFA.
On the Nationalist/Republican side (wants to join the Republic of Ireland) the main players are:
SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party) - committed to democratic means, desires a united Ireland, but is prepared to compromise.
Sinn Féin - affiliated with the IRA (now on ceasefire), hardline Republicans with Marxist roots. Now claims to be committed to democracy, supports the GFA, prepared to work with opposing sides in Stormont Assembly. Refuses to utilize seats in UK Parliament due to loyalty oath to the Queen. Now the majority party on the Nationalist side.
Attempting to span the divide:
The Alliance Party - I’m not really very informed of their opinions. They aim for integration and have members from both sides of the community. Not very popular.
And some other socialist, religious, fascist and communist nutjobs.
*Leading to complaints that regional MPs get to decide English policy, but English MPs don’t get to determine regional policy. Known as the “East Lothian Question”.
A minor correction, it’s the West Lothian Question, I believe:
"The West Lothian question is a question posed by Tam Dalyell, MP for the Scottish constituency of West Lothian during the debate over Scottish devolution in the 1970s, and which is still relevant after the 1999 establishment of the Scottish Parliament. The name was coined in 1977 by Enoch Powell.
The question is, if power over Scottish affairs is devolved to a Scottish Parliament, how can it be right that MPs representing Scottish constituencies in the Parliament of the United Kingdom still have the power to vote on equivalent issues affecting England and other parts of the UK?"
from here:
http://www.fact-index.com/w/we/west_lothian_question.html
By that I presume you mean the National Front itself. There is also the BNP which is widely depicted as being a mob of racist thugs. Its main policies are to keep Britain British-withdraw Britain from Europe, return industry and manufacturing here and the main thrust of their policy is to reduce the influence that asylum seekers have and reclaim facilities for British people. As a result, many middle class people in areas with high amounts of immigrants have swung to the BNP who have promised that they will get rid of immigrants getting priority on various public services (as an example, in Derby a health centre was totally refit using lottery money and done up as a centre restricted to asylum seekers. Patients already attending were told they would no longer be seen and had to find alternative arrangements. A lottery application previously had been rejected)
:smack: I stand corrected.
It is a mob of racist thugs - are you implying the depiction is inaccurate?