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Political Parties

  1. Political Parties

As a result of the electoral system two parties have usually been predominant in Britain, at different times Tories and Whigs, Conservatives and Liberals, and since the 1930s Conservatives and Labour, with one party normally obtaining a majority of seats in the House of Commons and the other having its role limited to criticising Government policy.

The Conservative Party was formed by Robert Peel from what was left of the old Tory party in 1830s.

Peel and his successor Benjamin Disraeli (the first Conservative Prime Minister) together shaped modern Conservatism. Originally the party of church, aristocracy and landed gentry, it has increasingly been supported by large business interests. The Labour Party was formed by James Keir Hardie in 1892 to represent the workers and was more or less the parliamentary wing of the Trade Unions, with whom the party continues to be closely associated. James Ramsay MacDonald became the first socialist Prime Minister in 1924.

In 1981 a new party was formed to try to break the dominance of Conservatives and Labour. Some Conservatives and Labour MPs left their own parties to join the new Social Democrats. The new party then agreed to fight elections in alliance with the small but long-established Liberals, forming the Alliance. Their problem, under the "first past the post" system, was to turn their popular votes into parliamentary seats. In 1987 the two parties of the Alliance agreed to merge to form a new party, the Liberal Democrats, although some Social Democrats preferred to remain independent.

 



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