What party do our tea drinkers prefer?

I'd imagine by the general political airs of Europe most people from there probably support Obama.

The BBC held a world wide poll of who should be president and the results were something like 95% favoring Obama.

Are you talking US election, or British political parties?

If US election, then yep, Obama. Closer to home, I don't really have a preference out of the three main parties (but not the BNP, UKIP or the Greens, don't like them). If I had to vote right now I'd probably vote for Labour, because at the moment we probably need some stability (what with the recession and all that) instead of a new bunch of dunderheads replacing the current dunderheads.

So...

Labour=Liberal/Socialist and Dunderhead=Conservative?

And the BNP if I remember correctly is the British Nationalist Party (AKA British Nazi party )?

No...

Labour = right-wing party
Conservative = slightly more right-wing party
Liberal Democrats = slightly less right-wing party

Dunderhead = all three

(EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not calling them dunderheads because they're right-wing. I'm right-wing, some of the time. I call them dunderheads because they're politicians.)

I meant British politics, which I would be very happy to have explained to me more fully. Is there a popular left party?

Well, there's the Green Party and Respect that Galloway set up. Neither are very popular though.

Labour used to be left-wing, but since it became New Labour it really isn't anymore. The BNP is also technically left-wing. It's also authoritarian, which explains the policies on race, immigration etc. They're getting more popular, but only at local level IIRC.

Of course, compared to the US Democrats, all three of the main UK parties are left-wing.

That last line clears up a LOT...

mhmmm.

Are members of the house of lords there through inheriting the title?

I think some of them are hereditary peers, and some are appointed by the current government. There was a big 'cash for honours' scandal a while back - turned out that the Labour government had been offering peerages in return for sizeable donations.

By you think do you mean not even you guys fully understand how your government works? We're at sort of a loss over here, how long until there is an election for PM, because Brown was made it when Blair stepped down... right?

Well, I don't fully understand the specifics, but most people probably do.

As for elections, IIRC Brown can call a general election whenever he likes - he was planning to call one early on in his tenure when everything was going well for him, but after David Cameron went up in the polls he backed down. However, there is a maximum term length before he has to call an election, which I think is 5 years, but as you say, Blair appointed Brown PM, or rather there was a leadership contest in which he had no opponents, so it's probably less than that.

Anyway, it seems like a lot of Labour MPs want a leadership election (i.e. Labour would still be in power, but if Brown lost, then some other Labour MP would be PM) because of Brown's perceived inability to handle the economic situation. It probably wouldn't do much good, though.

... So every 5 years an election must be held, but it can be sooner if one so chooses. Does this mandatory election require an open election, or could it be a leadership election?

Really, Ironman, you should look at a website to double-check all this stuff I'm saying. A lot of it is off the top of my head (it might be 4, not 5, years).

I think it has to be an 'open election' (by which you mean a general election?) because we don't elect a person, like you do in the USA; we elect a party. (So, for example, you'd vote 'Conservative' not 'Cameron'.) What's more, there's a complicated First Past the Post system which means that the elected party isn't always the one with the most votes.

It's called the electoral college here mate.

So in electing this party, what spots do they take control of besides prime minister?

Well, the people of each constituency vote for a local MP, who represents a party. The party with the most MPs elected becomes the ruling party. Once elected, the party's leader (assuming that he is elected by his constituency, which I don't think is a certainty) can put other elected MPs (including those from other parties, I think) into various jobs, including the Cabinet, which is the collection of top jobs like Deputy PM, Home Secretary, Defense Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer etc.

The main opposition party also has a 'Shadow Cabinet' which basically exists to point out how wrong their counterparts in the Cabinet are.

So, every time there is a election everything is up for grabs? Or does the 5/4 year mandatory election make all venues open for election and they each have their own seperate time tables that get interupted by the major vote?

Yes, everything's 'up for grabs'. I think the only time constituencies can hold an election is when their local MP dies, or possibly resigns. Then you get these 'by-election' things that Labour seems to suck at, and the Scottish National Party just loves.

(Seriously, double-check this. I'm, like, the least-informed person in the world about politics. This is all basically stuff I overheard on the News and news-related panel shows, but they might have been talking about France or Ukraine for all I know. )

The problem is, that the UK has a very bizarre government system that no one seems to understand fully enough to comment on.