Polite Paradise

*wades in, rolls up sleeves*

Hi. We sadly do not have anything near as fun as School House Rocks for this one so you'll have to settle for me (and anyone else from the UK who wants to chime in!)

Dealing with the vote of no confidence thing first (because that's the easiest one): members of a political party can decide that they have no confidence in their current leader for whatever reason. If enough of them have no confidence in their leader (and the exact threshold for that will vary party to party) they can force a vote to see if everyone* else in the party agrees with the no confidence thing and, if it turns out not enough people have no confidence, you then get a leadership contest to see who should now lead the party. Clear?  It becomes a bit more of a complication if the party concerned happens to be in power at the time (because the leader is the Prime Minister of Her Majesty's Government) but if you want to see how THAT plays out look up the end of Margaret Thatcher's time in office. (Or, y'know, keep an eye on a suitable British news source and watch current events unfold!)

*Note: with Votes of No Confidence I'm not sure if it's purely the parliamentary members who get a say or if it gets thrown open to the national membership - I suspect it's another thing that actually varies by party.

Okay. General Elections. The first thing to remember is that a UK General Election campaign lasts three weeks and then we vote. That's it. That's all you get. So a snap election is not a problem from that regard.

Also: we do *NOT* vote for the Prime Minister. No, I don't care WHAT the press say, we really, REALLY don't. The only people who vote for the Prime Minister are the people whom he or she represents as MP. So in the case of our current Prime Minister, the people of Maidenhead are the ones who vote for Theresa May. Before her it was the people in Whitney in Oxfordshire. Or Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. Or Sedgefield. Or Huntingdon. Or Finchley. Or...well feel free to Google the Prime Ministers prior to Margaret Thatcher! It's a very, VERY different concept to the American model where you vote for your president direct (sort of, ignoring that whole electoral college thing which just perplexes the heck out of everyone!).

General Election timing: this used to be something that was variable. The maximum term length for a parliament was (I think) five years, but it could be much less. So there was an election in 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997...and then the law was changed during Tony Blair's time in office so that it was set to be a regular cycle (like the American system) of a General Election every five years so that everyone knew where they stood. (In theory.) Given the snap election last year, there's clearly some provision for holding an election sooner than five years still, but exactly how the law works in that regard I'm not sure.

And yes, it can mean very little gets done but, on that score, I would point out that we've not actually had our entire government shut down because no-one could agree a budget as happened not that long ago in the US, so no system's perfect!

Oh, and you have to get the Queen's permission to hold an election. But that's mainly a formality. You also have to ask her permission to form a government once the election's been held and all the votes have been counted. Again, though: mainly a formality.

There are no term limits on how long you can be an MP (and by extension, how long you can be Prime Minister). RH Kenneth Clarke MP is the current Father of the House - he's been a serving MP since 1970 (although I think he may be stepping down at the next general election).

The way the UK government maps to the US is as follows (very roughly at least!)

US President = The sitting monarch (currently Queen Elizabeth II)
US Senate = UK House of Lords
US House of Representatives = UK House of Commons

Nancy Pelosi and whoever the House of Representatives Republican Leader is are in the equivalent positions to Jeremy Corbin and Theresa May. (Though I rather think that being Majority Leader of the House Of Representatives has less power attached to the role than being Majority Leader in the House of Commons!)

The Queen has no constitutional powers so can't overrule parliament (even when I'm sure she'd really, REALLY like to) - unlike the US President who, I believe, CAN overrule the Senate/House if needed.

Our upper house (House of Lords) is unelected (unlike the Senate) although gone are the days when it was entirely populated by the landed gentry. Most of the current serving Lords are former MPs and Business People who've been nominated by their respective political parties.

Finally, we also have elections at more local level. These happen every three years, in May. Quite often a general election will be timed to fit in with that cycle - but not always.

PHEW. Hopefully that answers a few questions at least!