Understanding Political Parties in Different Countries!

[Faith 2019]

No...I'm definitely not American. I'm British. I think the confusion arises because Boris and Trump both have equally bad hair.


Not to worry, I think the plan in the UK is to go back to the 50s - quite possibly the 1850s or some other time before the sun set on the Empire. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s instructed his staff to use only imperial measurements and give non-titled males the suffix Esq. 🙄

As testimony that the country's going to hell in a handcart, on the day Boris vowed to make Britain great again, the English cricket team were beaten at Lords by Ireland who dismissed them for 85 in just under four hours. 🤭 Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? Proof, if proof is needed, that God's an ironist. 😒

@TriBel

Well, with Trump having the least American ideology, and more a British ideology of the 19th century -- it is a irony that the last world leader having a positive viewpoint of the foreign policies carried out under King George III -- is a American president. True, during his 4th of July speech, he talk about the American Revolution about General Washington needing to secure the airports. Plus, the burning of Washington (the capital), and the battle of Baltimore was a revolutionary war battle, not in its true War of 1812 battles. Do not worry, since Captain James Cook was killed in Hawaii in 1779, Trump's history of the world will show the death of Captain Cook was another American Revolutionary battle done in the state of Hawaii. There is a new marketing idea, having native Hawaiians dressed up in revolutionary war outfits cooking up fried chicken livers and onions. It will be called "Captain Cooks liver" with the motto being, the best Englishman is the one you can eat.

 

[Hunga Munga]

As testimony that the country's going to hell in a handcart, on the day Boris vowed to make Britain great again, the English cricket team were beaten at Lords by Ireland who dismissed them for 85 in just under four hours. 🤭 Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? Proof, if proof is needed, that God's an ironist. 😒

To be fair to the England cricket team , they ended up winning that Test match against Ireland . 😉 Also , the other week they did win the ODI Cricket World cup ...which is easily the biggest prize in World Cricket .

The England team are in a much better state than our nation 🙂

 

[TriBel]

To be fair to the England cricket team , they ended up winning that Test match against Ireland . 😉 Also , the other week they did win the ODI Cricket World cup ...which is easily the biggest prize in World Cricket .

The England team are in a much better state than our nation 🙂

True - on all accounts - but nowhere near as funny. 😊 TBH, I'd throw Man United under a bus for the sake of making a negative remark about Boris and JR-M. They could donate a body part and I'd refuse it (and if I accepted, I wouldn't say "thank you"). I've stopped being rational or fair about them - it's very liberating. 😊

 

[AlphaFoxtrot]

This is as an American, for other Americans.

Re: Assorted British Stuff: the UK is complicated, but basically, The House of Commons is supreme, and the Leader of the Majority Party is always named Prime Minister by the Queen. The Queen does not exercise power, the House of Lords does not exercise power. To put it in an American context, it would be as if the House Speaker always became acting President, and the Senate didn't matter. It's not a bad system, in many ways, it's the best, but it has a lot of ad hoc qualities to it, and no meaningful separation of powers, and really can't be replicated, as much as I love the State Opening of the Australian Parlement, setting Blackrod in what appears to be a community college mock trial room just doesn't have the same effect.

Liberal v. Labour: The short answer, the Liberal Party was the enlightenment 19th Century Upper class left-wing party, Labour was the 20th century socialist Working Class Left-wing party, class being really important in the UK, and the working class not really being able to vote in any force until the 1860s. The Liberal-Democrats are a merger of the this old Liberal Party, and the Social Democrats, and occasionally enjoy some influence. Influential Liberal parties still exist in some corners of the Old Dominions, notably in Australia and British Columbia.

 

[ILLYRIAN]

Well done AlphaFoxtrot, are you really an American who wants other Americans to be as intelligent as you? Where did you get such a fantastic knowledge of other countries political parties from?

 

[thrasherpix]

For those curious in the history of how our parties came to be (and how different they used to be) you might find this of interest:

He's a political moderate who tries to be educational. He almost always keeps a cool head, but I found it amusing that even he got frustrated with the so-called Prager U (I've seen many of his vids and I think that's the only time he had to take a moment to calm down). As a bonus, he also goes into the Southern Strategy (yep, it's a thing) which I know got mentioned recently on these boards. It also mentions the time when many politicians actually switched parties because of the shift as well as the general partisan upheaval of the 60s and 70s, and addition to other aspects (Republican Nixon created the EPA, Republicans after him have generally tried to stymie or abolish it).

 

[caitaintdead]

I don't really talk politics with friends much, but on the receiving end, lol I just had a conversation with Faith yesterday that went something like this:

Faith: Woke up this morning and Boris Johnson is pm
Me: Did you have an election or is he just the interim?
Faith: The Tories are in power so they picked him
Me: So the party just gets to choose who they want?
Faith: They vote among themselves.
Me: That's weird.

lol

It's an ongoing joke in Australia that our prime mininster constantly changes overnight in leadership spills. At this point we have had more prime ministers NOT voted in than voted in democratically since I have been able to vote. Truly bizarre.

Also, there are some aces memes out there about Aus leadership spills but can never figure out how to share photos on here but google them for a good giggle.

Also...
Labor: Centre Left
Liberal: Right
Nationals: Right, with a focus on rural/farm voters. In Coalition with Libs.
Greens: Far left
One Nation: Far right
United Australia Party: Far right

They're the major ones I can think of.