British spectrum.

[MillennialModerate]

I've began to get a better understanding of the British system and the history behind it but there are two questions I still can't really find a legitimate answer too.

The first is... The House of Lords, what purpose does it serve AT ALL? Even when I get the answer to this I'm sure I'll have follow ups.

But my biggest question is ... where do their parties line up on the political spectrum (Left Right) and how do they compare to our Republicans and Democrats? It's obvious Labour is Left and Conservatives are right but is Labour FAR-Left or Center-Left, is Conservative FAR-Right or Center-right? AND THE MOST CONFUSION I have is with the Liberal Democrats.. are they Center-Left or Left or Center? Are they more left than Labour or more right than Labour?

Oh and if they passed a fixed elections act how come they were able to call a Snap election?

[SoLongAtlas]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

[Zinneke]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

Liam Fox and his backing in the Conservative party have strong links to the GOP.
I think you are confusing Cameron's conservative party with the rest of it.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The modern House of Lords, like many institutions in Britain, are a legacy of kicking the can down the road and sort of ending up with a bunch of weirdo compromises. At least two of the great crises in British constitutional history has been from disputes between the two Houses, and normally the Lords lost out in the end normally by PM's threatening some kind of nuclear option by installing a huge swathe of their own peers.

In practice it has a few "accidental" purposes - a way to put a PM's favourite technocrats into the cabinet if they don't want to actually run for election, a useful check on power against majority governments (in fact, the only check on power) etc. but nobody really likes how the current Lords work. But it's far too much effort to change it, and an attempt to abolish would look like a power grab.

[Santander]

There's more than a few people here who are on the spectrum.

[SNJ1985]

AND THE MOST CONFUSION I have is with the Liberal Democrats.. are they Center-Left or Left or Center? Are they more left than Labour or more right than Labour?

The Liberal Democrats are either a centrist or center-left party, and they're certainly to the right of the Labour Party.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Labour Party not only includes both Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair, it has had both as leaders. Trying to slap one single ideological label on the entire party is quite foolish.

[Mr. Morden]

Are they more left than Labour or more right than Labour?

One of them is more fiscally liberal, the other more socially liberal.

[IceAgeComing]

The Labour party is a very diverse party split into factions based on perceived ideological differences which have some quite big differences - from Jeremy Corbyn who's pretty far to the left, to people like Blair who... aren't.  However; these differences don't necessarily prevent the party from being united - indeed, the last Labour manifesto seemed to unite the whole party behind a broadly left wing manifesto, although not a hard left one. 

The Tories are a right wing party that seem to be split into two factions (which call each other, and I'm not kidding, the f***ers and the w**kers) although no one can actually tell you the differences between these two groups, including every Conservative MP.  Under Cameron they stood on a right wing economic platform (privatisations, huge cuts to welfare spending, tax cuts to the rich, your standard liberal economic platform) balanced by what you might consider socially liberal policies in some areas (the government pursued marriage equality, for example).  However, under Teresa May the rhetoric of the government seems to position themselves somewhat to the left of that economically (although with little practical differences at this point, other than possibly sinking Free Schools) with a lurch to the right on some matters - when May was Home Secretary she pushed for more government control over communications, plus did lots of lovely things like sending vans around London telling people to GO HOME.

The Liberal Democrats are an irrelevant party that only have 14 seats in parliament - in terms of parliamentary arithmetic, the SNP are still a more important party despite their terrible election result.  I suppose that you could say that there's a divide between social liberals and market liberals; but its hard to say really considering how many of their MPs have lost their seats in the last 7 years.  Definitely not to the left of a Corbyn-led Labour party though by far - although they are the most pro-EU party kicking around but that didn't really work for them in the election.

The Fixed Term Parliaments Act (which may well be repealed now since it only requires a 50%+1 majority to do so; but there's no guarantee of that and there are still a lot of Lib Dem Lords kicking around) allowed two possible methods to have an early election; either that two-thirds of the House vote in favour of a motion for early elections; or if a no confidence motion is passed by a majority of the House of Commons and no alternative government is formed that can gain the confidence of the House within two weeks.  The first is the provision that May used to get the early election (because most Labour MPs voted with the government) - she also could have gone for the second route; have her MPs vote against the government and wait around for two weeks knowing that no alternative government was possible.

[Phony Moderate]

My very rough and inarticulate guide to current Labour Party factions:

Traditional Hard Left - Economically leftist, mostly liberal on social issues (with one or two exceptions) and divided on the EU. Prominent examples include Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Dennis Skinner.

New Left - The up and coming bunch who are supportive of Corbyn but weren't around during the battles of the 80s (unlike the examples above). Richard Burgon, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Angela Rayner all fit here.

Soft Left - The faction that was 'created' by those on the party's left who didn't support Tony Benn's deputy leadership challenge to Denis Healey in 1981. More pro-European than any other part of the left and the part of the left that managed to get a reasonable number of cabient positions during the New Labour era. Neil Kinnock is, as it were, its Godfather, with others including Clare Short, John Prescott and Robin Cook. Current soft left MPs are the likes of Owen Smith (Corbyn's leadership challenger in 2016) and London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Brownites - Basically the centre-to-centre-right of the party. A tad more economically leftist than the Blairites, a tad less socially liberal and a fair bit less pro-European. Deputy leader Tom Watson and 2015 leadership contender Yvette Cooper fall under this banner.

Traditional Right - The bit of the right that wasn't fanatically loyal to Blair or Brown. This is quite possibly the single biggest faction in the PLP. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is here.

Blairites - As the name suggests, those who view Blair and his modernization as the best things eva. Very pro-European, economically centrist and fairly socially liberal. Liz Kendall is the most recent Blairite leadership contender but a lot of the more prominent ones have left the scene.

Mavericks - Those who may or may not have once fitted into a faction in the party but no longer do so. Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Jon Cruddas, John Mann etc.

[TheSaint250]

Lib Dems' political standing never made much sense to me, and that's why I don't usually support them.  They seem center-left generally, am I right on that?

I remember once I asked and someone said they are whatever fits them at the time to get votes.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

There's more than a few people here who are on the spectrum.

I've always been confused by this phraseology. If it's a spectrum, wouldn't we all be on it, just at varying points? That's what I say to my friends who call me autistic.

[parochial boy]

The Tories are a right wing party that seem to be split into two factions (which call each other, and I'm not kidding, the f***ers and the w**kers) although no one can actually tell you the differences between these two groups, including every Conservative MP.  Under Cameron they stood on a right wing economic platform (privatisations, huge cuts to welfare spending, tax cuts to the rich, your standard liberal economic platform) balanced by what you might consider socially liberal policies in some areas (the government pursued marriage equality, for example).  However, under Teresa May the rhetoric of the government seems to position themselves somewhat to the left of that economically (although with little practical differences at this point, other than possibly sinking Free Schools) with a lurch to the right on some matters - when May was Home Secretary she pushed for more government control over communications, plus did lots of lovely things like sending vans around London telling people to GO HOME.

Yeah, but the Tories have made a "play for the centre" at just about every party conference since Tony Blair stood down.

The whole Cameron-Osborne era was pretty much defined by the media wetting themselves of the Tories "moving to the left" and "taking Labour's turf" - and, like with the May era, this has not translated the slightest bit into actual policy.

[Kingpoleon]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

[Celebi]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

Well, just favoring single payer health care puts them on the fringe left in American political spectrum.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

Well, just favoring single payer health care puts them on the fringe left in American political spectrum.

Most Americans support single payer even if hardly any of the politicians do.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

Well, just favoring single payer health care puts them on the fringe left in American political spectrum.

It's hard to really make a valid comparison in that respect. The NHS is fairly unique in that the existing set-up (a completely nationalised system with doctors acting as public employees) is to the economic left of most other countries, and no British politician would dare to change this set up, while very few outside of Britain would directly advocate for the nationalisation of all healthcare. So if you try and make comparisons with other countries, you end up with absurdities like Cameron and May being to the left of Alexis Tsipras and Evo Morales. The important way to make comparisons between countries is to take into account the trajectory politicians are taking policy in, if that makes sense.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

Well, just favoring single payer health care puts them on the fringe left in American political spectrum.

Cory Booker is "fringe left"?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

Well, just favoring single payer health care puts them on the fringe left in American political spectrum.

It's hard to really make a valid comparison in that respect. The NHS is fairly unique in that the existing set-up (a completely nationalised system with doctors acting as public employees) is to the economic left of most other countries, and no British politician would dare to change this set up, while very few outside of Britain would directly advocate for the nationalisation of all healthcare. So if you try and make comparisons with other countries, you end up with absurdities like Cameron and May being to the left of Alexis Tsipras and Evo Morales. The important way to make comparisons between countries is to take into account the trajectory politicians are taking policy in, if that makes sense.

I'm kind of surprised we've never seen anyone argue that per their gubernatorial records, that Mitt Romney is to the left of Tim Kaine.

[Phony Moderate]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

Well, just favoring single payer health care puts them on the fringe left in American political spectrum.

It's hard to really make a valid comparison in that respect. The NHS is fairly unique in that the existing set-up (a completely nationalised system with doctors acting as public employees) is to the economic left of most other countries, and no British politician would dare to change this set up, while very few outside of Britain would directly advocate for the nationalisation of all healthcare. So if you try and make comparisons with other countries, you end up with absurdities like Cameron and May being to the left of Alexis Tsipras and Evo Morales. The important way to make comparisons between countries is to take into account the trajectory politicians are taking policy in, if that makes sense.

I'm kind of surprised we've never seen anyone argue that per their gubernatorial records, that Mitt Romney is to the left of Tim Kaine.

The Mitt Romney who ran against Kennedy in 1994 would probably be a fairly mainstream Democrat today tbf (a la Lincoln Chafee from the same part of the country).

[SoLongAtlas]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

Yes, because most of the GOP would label them RINOs, traitors, etc. They would be centrist Dems here with center-right leaning economics. Their support of NHS would be tantamount to them putting on a Soviet uniform in the US and they would be labelled by the Christian GOP base as devils, etc., due to abortion.

[IceAgeComing]

i shouldn't need to say this since its incredibly obvious - but if Tory politicians were actually US Republicans they wouldn't be arguing for an NHS-type thing in America - indeed, if US Democrats were in Labour then they'd probably be more to the right on migration.  People develop policies based on the political culture (and realities) of their countries; and this can lead to two very similar people coming to very difference political solutions to similar problems.  Teresa bloody May would not be a "Democrat", not in any way and its silly to argue that.

Yeah, but the Tories have made a "play for the centre" at just about every party conference since Tony Blair stood down.

The whole Cameron-Osborne era was pretty much defined by the media wetting themselves of the Tories "moving to the left" and "taking Labour's turf" - and, like with the May era, this has not translated the slightest bit into actual policy.

I think there are subtle policy differences - at least in terms of the way that they focus on certain policies.  Lots of the legislation that they passed in the last parliament (the Surveillance Act is a good example) was stuff that was Tory policy in the coalition and which got stuck in the Lords; and a May-led Tory party was a lot more willing to basically cajole the Lords into passing the thing.  Also there have been slight moves away from some of the Cameron/Osborne reforms - the government redirected a fair amount of money from free schools (Gove's big idea) to standard state schools; plus they've already not done some of the spending cuts that were planned before the referendum.  Not a big shift but certainly a clear move away from the more liberal Cameron government.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There is no way that Theresa May would be a Democrat. You could make a case that David Cameron would be one, but if so he'd be one along the lines of Andrew Cuomo.

[Kingpoleon]

There is no way that Theresa May would be a Democrat. You could make a case that David Cameron would be one, but if so he'd be one along the lines of Andrew Cuomo.

Only if Cuomo stopped pretending to be progressive...

I mean, I could almost as easily argue that Tony Blair would be a Republican considering his support for welfare reform and the Iraq War.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Left to Right

Labour Liberal Democrats Conservative

Conservatives in the UK would be like moderate Dems here in the US. The only party that would be more like the GOP would be UKIP even UKIP is pro-choice. Pretty much no more UKIP due to Brexit passing.

... You really think that Boris Johnson, Theresa May, and Liam Fox would be Democrats??

Well, just favoring single payer health care puts them on the fringe left in American political spectrum.

It's hard to really make a valid comparison in that respect. The NHS is fairly unique in that the existing set-up (a completely nationalised system with doctors acting as public employees) is to the economic left of most other countries, and no British politician would dare to change this set up, while very few outside of Britain would directly advocate for the nationalisation of all healthcare. So if you try and make comparisons with other countries, you end up with absurdities like Cameron and May being to the left of Alexis Tsipras and Evo Morales. The important way to make comparisons between countries is to take into account the trajectory politicians are taking policy in, if that makes sense.

Britain is a unitary state, The US is a Federal State
Britain has very few checks and balances, the US has them for days
Britain has nothing similar to the politics of the Western US, and the love for rugged individualism it inspires.
Britain does not have a religious right, nor a sunbelt right (combining opposition to environmental regulation, with support for low taxes, free trade, higher immigration levels and a hawkish foreign policy).
The last one leads to another big difference, less influence from corporate special interests.

The combination of factors, different political systems, diverse interests and regionally motivated priorities, has placed the political spectrum of the US in a much different place from where Britain is.