Throughout the past year, during which I have been an exchange student here in Cheshire, England, I’ve tried to look at the British political system as closely as possible, from a foreigner’s perspective. In this essay, I will be presenting what I have noticed about this issue, using the newspaper advertisements I received at the start of my course as a starting point.

Politics in Britain is, in contrary to Norway, dominated by two big parties: The Conservative Party and the Labour Party. I have kept two advertisements since I started this course, taken from the Daily Mail, July 7, 1996, one from each of these two parties. Labour’s three-page advert is dominated by Labour’s goals for the next period, as an answer to the question "What will happen if Labour wins the election?". On the next page, the Party lists its five "early pledges". In short, they want to cut school class sizes, introduce faster punishment for young lawbreakers, cut NHS waiting lists, get more unemployed youths into work, and finally, "set tough rules for government spending and borrowing and ensure low inflation". This last pledge seems to me as if it was "stolen" from the Conservatives’ plan for government, traditionally at least, because the Conservatives want to lower government expenses and to have low taxes. This is probably a way of telling people that there’s a New Labour Party now. The basic message in this advert is, in my opinion, that you can achieve all of the four other goals listed, without having to increase government spending drastically – therefore: vote for Labour. By saying that, Labour might attract people whose main worry is higher inflation, and therefore traditionally voting conservative. On the last page of the Labour advertisement, we see a statement written by Tony Blair, emphasizing the New Labour.

The Conservative Party, on the other hand, doesn’t list its goals for the next period, but rather portrays New Labour as a dangerous animal, ready to give up control, "drive up unemployment", introduce new taxes and "break up the United Kingdom". They try to warn the British people against this new potential danger, by using the term "New Labour – New Danger".

Apart from the fact that we do not see much political advertising in Norway, the difference between British and Norwegian politics isn’t that big, if one was to judge from these two advertisements. But there are other aspects of British politics that seem a little unfamiliar or strange to me. First of all, Britain still has the system of an Upper and a Lower House in Parliament, and only the members of the Lower House are elected by the people. Although the real power rests within the Lower House, to me it still seems a bit undemocratic to have a part of Parliament consisting of "the nobility" of the United Kingdom. Also, the reason why the two big parties are not really threatened by other parties is because of the British election system, which differs greatly from the Norwegian system. In Britain, the winner in each constituency takes it all (i.e. a seat in Parliament), and the runner-up has no reason to feel satisfied, given that his or her goal was to become an MP. In Norway on the other hand, several candidates from each constituency become members of the Norwegian Parliament, which gives smaller parties a chance to influence Norwegian society too. As a result of the British "first past the post" system, I think rivalry, as seen in the Conservative Party’s advertisement, is more typical of political life in Britain than in Norway. (We do see rivalry in Norwegian politics too, but I think it’s more dominating in Britain.)

In Britain, the sitting government is quite powerful compared to the opposition, because the government usually needs an absolute majority in parliament to function. In Norway, the government usually doesn’t have an absolute majority, which makes the political situation a lot more difficult, at least for the governing party or parties. This makes it easier for the government in Britain to introduce new reforms, new tax schemes, and to carry out other plans, and that might be another reason why one party would warn the people against voting for the other party.

Once a political candidate in Britain has achieved his first goal, i.e. to become an MP, he has earned the right to participate in debates, voting and more in the House of Commons. There is nothing strange about this very fact, but when taking a closer look at things like the seating arrangements and the debates inside Parliament, a foreigner easily starts smiling. The old traditions that are still left in the British political system do seem a little "out of date" to me. Besides the fact that the distance between the two sides in the House of Commons is actually two sword lengths, I personally think it’s strange that the MPs are allowed to yell at each other and call each other names during an important debate. But then again – perhaps this makes politics more "entertaining" and therefore interesting to the general public?

In many ways, political life in Britain is like political life in Norway. But as I have learned throughout the past year, there are also aspects of politics that differ greatly from one country to the other. It is for instance difficult to say which election system is the most democratic one, but I think that while the British system can make a certain "undemocratic" impression on foreigners sometimes, it is probably a more stable system that makes the country "easier" to run. In my opinion, making a political career in Britain is tough, but once you get into Parliament, things suddenly start getting more fun…