Political parties in BritainBefore the mid-19th century politics in the United Kingdom was dominated by the Whigs and the Tories. These were not political parties in the modern sense but somewhat loose alliances of interests and individuals. The Whigs included many of the leading aristocratic dynasties committed to the Protestant succession, and later drew support from elements of the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants, while the Tories were associated with the landed gentry, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland.By the mid 19th century the Tories had evolved into the Conservative Party, and the Whigs had evolved into the Liberal Party. In the late 19th century the Liberal Party began to pursue more left wing policies, and many of the heirs of the Whig tradition became Liberal Unionists and moved closer to the Conservatives on many of the key issues of the time.Conservative Party (in 1833)Labor Party (in 1900)Social and Liberal Democrats (since 1988)Conservative PartyThe Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, isa centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. It is the majority party in the House of Commons, after winning 330 seats in the 2015 general elections. Before the dissolution of the previous parliament, it was the largest single party with 303 Members of Parliament, and governed under a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. At the time of the May 2015 election, it was the largest party in local government with 8,296 councillors and the largest party in the House of Commons with 330 seats of the possible 650.The Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party—giving rise to the Conservatives' colloquial name of Tories—and was one of two dominant parties in the 19th century, along with the Liberal Party. In the 1920s, the Liberal vote greatly diminished and the Labour Party became the Conservatives' main rivals. Conservative Prime Ministers led governments for 57 years of the 20th century, including Winston Churchill (1940–45, 1951–55) and Margaret Thatcher (1979–90). Thatcher's tenure led to wide-ranging economic liberalisation and saw the Conservatives become the most eurosceptic of the three major parties. The party was returned to government in coalition in 2010 under the more liberal leadership of David Cameron. The Conservative Party was then re-elected at the 2015 general election with a parliamentary majority for the first time since 1992.As of 2015, the Conservatives are the joint-second largest British party in the European Parliament, with 20MEPs, who sit with the soft eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) parliamentary group. The party is a member of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR) Europarty andthe International Democrat Union (IDU).The party is the third-largest in the Scottish Parliament and second-largest in the Welsh Assembly. They had been formally allied to the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) as part of the Ulster Conservatives and Unionists arrangement; this electoral pact formally ended with the Northern Ireland Party's relaunch as the NI Conservatives in June 2012,allowing for autonomy on devolved matters, similar to the Welsh Conservatives and the Scottish Conservatives.Economic policyThe party's reputation for economic stewardship was dealt a blow by Black Wednesday in 1992, in which billions of pounds were spent in an effort to keep the pound within the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) system at an overvalued rate. Combined with the recession of the early 1990s 'Black Wednesday' allowed Tony Blair and then-Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to promise greater economic competence.One concrete economic policy of recent years has been opposition tothe European single currency. Anticipating the growing Euroscepticism within his party, John Major negotiated a British opt-out from the single currency in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, although several members of Major's cabinet, suchas Kenneth Clarke, were personally supportive of EMU participation. Following Major's resignation after the 1997 defeat, each of the four subsequent Conservativeleaders, including David Cameron, have positioned the party firmly against the adoption of the euro. This policy is broadly popular with the British electorate. Following Labor's victory in the 1997 general election, the Conservative Party opposed Labor's decision to grant the Bank of England independent control of interest rates—on the grounds that it would be a prelude to the abolition ofthe pound sterling and acceptance of the European single currency, and also expressed concern over the removal of monetary policy from democratic control. However, Bank independence was popular amongst the financial community as it helped to keep inflation low. The Conservatives accepted Labor's policy in early 2000.The Conservative Party under David Cameron has redirected its stance on taxation, still committed to the general principle of reducing direct taxation whilst arguing that the country needs a "dynamic and competitive economy", with the proceeds of any growth shared between both "tax reduction and extra public investment".In the wake of the Great Recession of 2008–9, the Conservatives had not ruled out raising taxes, and have said it will be difficult to scrap the 50% top rateof income tax. Since coming to power, they have said that the 50% top rate will be dropped to 45% in 2013 and 40% in 2014. They have said how they would prefer to cut a recent rise in national insurance. Furthermore, they have statedthat government spending will need to be reduced, and have ringfenced only international aid and the NHS.Social policyIn recent years, 'modernisers' in the party have claimed that the association between social conservatism and the Conservatives (manifest in policies such as tax incentives for married couples, the removal of the link between pensions and earnings, and criticism of public financial support for those who do not work) have played a role in the electoral decline of the party in the 1990s and early 2000s (decade). Since 1997, a debate has continued within the party between 'modernisers' such as Alan Duncan, who believe that the Conservatives should modify their public stances on social issues, and 'traditionalists' such as Liam Fox and Owen Paterson, who believe that the party should remain faithful to its traditional conservative platform. This may have resulted in William Hague's and Michael Howard's pre-election swings to the right in 2001 and 2005,] as well as the election of the stop-Kenneth Clarke candidate Iain Duncan Smith in 2001. Iain Duncan Smith, however, remains influential. It has been argued by analysts[ that his Centre for Social Justice has forced Cameron to the right on many issues, particularly crime and social welfare.The party has strongly criticised Labor's "state multiculturalism". Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said in 2008 that multiculturalism had created a "terrible" legacy, a cultural vacuum that has been exploited by "extremists". However conservative critics such as Peter Hitchens assert that Cameron's is an equally multicultural outlook and accuse the Conservative Party of promoting what theysee as "Islamic extremists."Labor PartyThe Labor Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom. It grew out of the trade union movement and socialist political parties of the nineteenth century and has been described as a broad church; the party contains a diversity of ideological trends from strongly socialist, to more moderately social democratic. Founded in 1900, the Labor Party overtook the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s and formed minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929–31. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after which it formed a majority government under Clement Attlee. Labor was also in government from 1964 to 1970under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan.The Labor Party was last in national governmentbetween 1997 and 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a landslide majority of 179, reduced to 167 in 2001 and 66 in 2005. Having won 258 seats in the 2010 general electionand 232 seats in 2015, the party currently forms the Official Opposition in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.Labor has a minority government in the Welsh Assembly, is the main opposition party in the Scottish Parliament and has 20 MEPs in the European Parliament, sitting in the Socialists and Democrats group. The Labor Party is a full member ofthe Party of European Socialists and Progressive Alliance, and continues to hold observer status in the Socialist International. The acting leader of the partyis Harriet Harman following the resignation of the elected leader Ed Miliband on 8 May 2015.The Labor Party is considered to be left of centre. It was initially formed as a means for the trade union movement to establish political representation for itself at Westminster. It only gained a 'socialist' commitment with the original party constitution of 1918. That 'socialist' element, the original Clause IV, was seen by its strongest advocates as a straightforward commitment to the "common ownership", or nationalisation, of the "means of production, distribution and exchange". Although about a third of British industry was taken into public ownership after the Second World War, and remained so until the 1980s, the right of the party were questioning the validity of expanding on this objective by the late 1950s. Influenced by Anthony Crosland's book, The Future of Socialism (1956), the circle around party leader Hugh Gaitskell felt that the commitment was no longer necessary. While an attempt to remove Clause IV from the party constitution in 1959 failed, Tony Blair, and the 'modernisers' saw the issue as putting off potential voters, and were successful thirty-five years later,[11] with only limited opposition from senior figures in the party.Party electoral manifestos have not contained the term socialism since 1992. The new version of Clause IV, although still affirming a commitment to democratic socialism, no longer mentions the public ownership of industry: in its place it advocates "the enterprise of the market and the rigor of competition" with "high quality public services" not necessarily themselves in the public sector. Historically, influenced by Keynesian economics, the party favored government intervention in the economy, and the redistribution of wealth. Taxation was seen as a means to achieve a "major redistribution of wealth and income" in the October 1974 election manifesto. The party also desired increased rights for workers, and a welfare state including publicly funded healthcare.From the late-1980s onwards, the party adopted free market policies, leading many observers to describe the Labor Party as social democraticor the Third Way, rather than democratic socialist. Other commentators go further and argue that traditional social democratic parties across Europe, including the British Labor Party, have been so deeply transformed in recent years that it is no longer possible to describe them ideologically as 'social democratic', and claim that this ideological shift has put new strains on the party's traditional relationship with the trade unions.Liberal DemocratsThe Liberal Democrats were formed on 3 March 1988 by a merger between the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, which had formed a pact nearly seven years earlier as the SDP–Liberal Alliance. The Liberal Party, founded in 1859, were descended from the Whigs, Radicals and Peelites, while the SDP were a party created in 1982 by former Labour members, MPs and cabinet ministers, but also gained defections from Conservatives.SchoolsPupil premium of £2.5bn given to head teachers, aimed at disadvantaged children, which could allow average primary school to cut class size to 20 pupils. —£488 per child on free school meals, is given to schools on top of their main funding. Total pupil premium funding for 2011–12 is £625m and is due to rise to £2.5bn a year by 2014–15.Introduce shared parental leave from work, extended to 18 months over time, and right for fathers to attend ante-natal appointments. Right for grandparents to request flexible working. — From April 2011 fathers will be able to take any unused maternity leave themselves if their partners go back to work early. Plans also announced to consult on further reforms to the current system of parental leave. Workplace scheme for 800,000 pupils to give them the opportunity to gain skills and experience. —£1bn of new funding will provide opportunities including job subsidies, apprenticeships and work experience placements for 500,000 unemployed people. The government will subsidise 160,000 work places byproviding £2,275 to any private sector business willing to hire an unemployed person aged 18 to 24 years old.HealthCut size of the Department of Health by half, abolishing or cutting budgets of quangos, scrapping Strategic Health Authorities and seeking to limit pay of top NHS managers to below level of prime minister. Three quarters of health quangos have already been axed, and plans have been announced to scrap Strategic Health Authorities.Scrap Labor's personal care at home and divert cash to give one week's respite for one million cares. —Over £400million available in additional funding over coalition period to the hundreds of thousands of cares who work over 50 hours a week.。