Political parties

IIn 1997, Tony Blair moved "New Labour" to the right in order to wrest power from the Conservatives.  Recently, the Conservatives have moved left to try and regain power.  As a result, they are both so far into the middle of the road that I'm having a very hard time telling them apart.  Last November, BBC News put together a chart on the policy issues:

	Labour	Conservative	How I read it
SPENDING CUTS	Immediate cuts to "low-priority" government programmes. Major decisions on further spending cuts to be made after the election, although more details promised in December's pre-Budget report. No cuts to "frontline" services in health, education and police.	Immediate cuts likely across the board, with exception of health and international development. End Child Trust Funds for all but the poorest. End MPs' subsidised alcohol and food and reduce ministerial salaries. Slash spending on quangos.	Both parties pledge to cut spending.
AFGHANISTAN	Will not 'walk away' from mission to build up Afghan forces but wants district-by-district handover to start next year. Urge other Nato countries to send more troops. Warns President Karzai he must end corruption to ensure continued support. Says troops have all the equipment they need.	More tightly-defined campaign mission. Focus on securing military success to keep public backing for war. Government role for ex-army chief Sir Richard Dannett, who has called for more helicopters and equipment.	Both parties support the deeply-unpopular war in Afghanistan.
TAX	50p tax rate for earnings over £150,000. Tax relief on pensions to be reduced for people on more than £150,000 a year from April 2011.	Keep Labour's 50p tax rate for now. Restore pensions and earnings link. No tax credits for families earning over £50,000. Threat to tax bank bonuses. Aim to reverse Gordon's Brown's 1997 "pensions tax raid". Increase tax on alcopops and high strength ciders and beers.	Both parties plan to increase taxes.
EUROPE	Back Lisbon Treaty; rejects referendum.	Ruled out Lisbon Treaty referendum but pledged to repatriate some powers from Brussels, introduce Sovereignty Act to assure primacy of UK law and change law to guarantee referendums on all future treaties or transfers of power to Brussels.	Both parties support the EU.
IMMIGRATION	E-borders, which tracks all movements in and out of UK, fully operational by 2014. Clear asylum backlog by 2011. Tighten entry restrictions for skilled workers from outside EU.	Keep Labour's points-based migration system but place an annual limit on numbers admitted to UK. Attract "brightest and best" migrants from around the world to UK. New border force.	Both parties intend to reduce immigration.
JOBS	All under-25s out of work for a year to be offered a job or training place. More funding for job centres and sixth form education. Create more than 250,000 new green jobs, 10,000 skilled internships for young people, 10,000 job placements in green industries.	Scrap Regional Development Agencies and New Deal for the unemployed. Instead give firms created in first two years of Tory government tax breaks on first 10 staff hired and 20,000 new apprenticeship places for 14-16 year olds. Move 500,000 people off incapacity benefit. Sir James Dyson to head hi-tech export taskforce.	Both parties promise to create jobs.
BANKS	Break up taxpayer-owned banks and sell them off. Government forced by law to cut budget deficit every year. Bank bonus legislation pledged. Proposed international transactions tax to create a fund for bank bailouts. Strip "reckless" bankers of future bonuses.	Ban High Street banks from paying out "significant" cash bonuses. FSA's regulatory powers transferred back to the Bank of England. Sell off state-owned banks.	Both parties intend to sell off state-owned banks and restrict bonuses.
HEALTH/NHS	End to real-terms increases in funding. Find £15bn to £20bn efficiency savings over next four years. More personalised NHS, targets scrapped, personal health budgets. Abolish GP practice boundaries. Publish data about performance of doctors. New National Care Service for elderly. Phase out of hospital car parking charges for in-patients.	Sticking with Labour's spending plan for 2010/2011 and have pledged to "increase spending" in following years. Scrap targets, reduce bureaucracy and hand more control to doctors and nurses. Performance tables on every medic. Personal health budgets. Residential care costs for the over-65s in England to be paid in return for a one-off £8,000 fee. Cut cost of NHS quangos and management by a third in England. Reform dentistry, starting with the re-introduction of school check-ups.	Both parties promise to increase efficiency and reduce bureaucracy.
EDUCATION	Save £2bn by axing thousands of senior staff and having "discipline" over teachers' pay. Protect teaching and teaching assistant jobs. Improve school discipline drive. More Trust schools and academies. More sixth form places and apprenticeships.	Allow parents, charities and private firms to set up publicly-funded schools. "Pupil premium" for poorer children. Failing schools to be taken over by academy providers and re-launched. New technical schools in England's 12 largest cities; 10,000 new university places, boost to apprenticeship schemes.	Both parties promise to increase school opportunities.
ENVIRONMENT	Cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. Cash for low-carbon industries, offshore wind projects, energy efficiency schemes for homes, firms and public buildings and "green jobs". Build new nuclear plants, raise "billions" to invest in clean coal technology. 'Cycle Hubs' at 10 major rail stations. Invest in electric car technology.	Cut carbon emissions by 60% from 1990 levels by 2050. Scrap Heathrow third runway. Speed up new nuclear plants. Immediately authorise 5 GW of clean coal capacity; build marine energy parks; communities that choose to host onshore wind farms to keep all business rates they generate for six years, replace electricity and gas meters with smart meters; more transparency in energy prices.	Both parties pledge to reduce carbon emissions, build nuclear plants, and support alternative energy.
PUBLIC SECTOR PAY	Pay freeze on 40,000 senior public servants in 2010/11. Further 700,000 public sector workers to get rises of between 0 and 1%. Possible £200,000 cap on top public servant salaries.	One year pay freeze on all public sector workers earning more than £18,000 in 2011, except frontline military. No newly appointed public servant to be paid more than the prime minister without Treasury approval. Proposed £50,000 annual cap on newly accrued public sector pensions.	Both parties plan to freeze public sector pay.
RETIREMENT AGE	State pension age for men to rise from 65 to 68 between 2024 to 2046. For women it will gradually rise from 60 to 65 over ten years from 2010.	Raise state pension age for men from 65 to 66 from 2016. Pension age for women to rise to 66 by 2022.	Both parties plan to increase the retirement age.
DEFENCE SPENDING	Replace Britain's Trident nuclear weapons system, but scale number of submarines back from four to three.	Cut 25% from MoD running costs without reducing frontline troops. Launch immediate strategic defence review, including possible scrapping of £20bn Eurofighter/Typhoon project, £4bn project to build two aircraft carriers and the £2.7bn order for 25 A400 transport aircraft. Would replace Trident.	Both parties plan to reduce military spending.
POLITICAL REFORM	Referendum on whether to replace first-past-the-post for Westminster elections with Alternative Vote system. Voters given power to recall bad MPs. Complete process of Lords reform. Bill of Rights and possible written constitution.	Cut the number of MPs by 10%. Public to have a say on proposed bills and to nominate unpopular regulations to be axed. Boost MPs' scrutiny of legislation. Twelve more English cities to be offered referendums on having elected mayors. Hand power back to local authorities. "Sunset clause" to all regulators and regulatory quangos; Publish detailed data on national and local government spending online.	Both parties promise political reform.
International development	Meet UN target of 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid	Meet UN target of 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid	Uh…

Now, granted, in the States I usually voted for a third party, but here the major third party is the Liberal Democrats, formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, and their plan appears to be an unworkable hodge-podge of lofty sentiment: Respecting individual rights while creating a welfare state; support multilateral foreign policy while opposing the War in Iraq, etc.. They want to cut spending by £6.7 billion by abolishing child trust funds, scrapping plans to raise compulsory education to 18, and abandoning the target of 50% in higher education. They want to cut road building while increasing road taxes. They want tax breaks for living healthy lifestyles, 100% carbon-free, non-nuclear electricity by 2050, and zero-carbon emission for all new cars by 2040.

But here's the interesting thing: If there is a hung parliament, the Lib Dems become the kingmakers -- both parties will need their support in order to form a government -- and the one thing the Lib Dems want more than anything else is proportional representation.

Just like the US, elections here are winner-takes-all: Each constituency can only elect one person, and the person with the highest number of votes wins. So even if Lib Dems get 20% of the vote across the country, they may end up with 0 seats in Parliament if they don't win any specific constituencies. Proportional representation -- which is used in Israel and most of Europe -- means that if a party gets 20% of the vote, they get 20% of the seats.

So we'll see how this turns out. I can't vote, of course, but it still promises to be an election to remember.