The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party. It is the current governing party, having won the 2019 general election. It has been the primary governing party in Britain since 2010. The party is on the centre-right of the political spectrum, and encompasses various ideological factions including one-nation conservatives, Thatcherites, and traditionalist conservatives. The party currently has 357 Members of Parliament, 251 members of the House of Lords, 9 members of the London Assembly, 31 members of the Scottish Parliament, 16 members of the Welsh Parliament, 4 directly elected mayors, 30 police and crime commissioners, and around 7,500 local councillors. It holds the annual Conservative Party Conference.
The Ceann Comhairle is the chairperson of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas (parliament) of Ireland. The person who holds the position is elected by members of the Dáil from among their number in the first session after each general election. The Ceann Comhairle since 10 March 2016 has been Seán Ó Fearghaíl, Fianna Fáil TD. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle since 23 July 2020 has been Catherine Connolly, Independent TD.
The secretary of state for Northern Ireland, also referred to as the Northern Ireland secretary or SoSNI, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the Northern Ireland Office. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom, 17th in the ministerial ranking.
The first minister of Scotland is the leader of the Scottish Government and keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland. The first minister chairs the Scottish Cabinet and is primarily responsible for the formulation, development and presentation of Scottish Government policy. Additional functions of the first minister include promoting and representing Scotland in an official capacity, at home and abroad.
The Northern Ireland Assembly, often referred to by the metonym Stormont, is the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland. It has power to legislate in a wide range of areas that are not explicitly reserved to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and to appoint the Northern Ireland Executive. It sits at Parliament Buildings at Stormont in Belfast.
The 1929 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 30 May 1929 and resulted in a hung parliament. It stands as the fourth of six instances under the secret ballot, and the first of three under universal suffrage, in which a party has lost on the popular vote but won the highest number of seats versus all other parties. In 1929, Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Party won the most seats in the House of Commons for the first time. The Liberal Party led again by former Prime Minister David Lloyd George regained some ground lost in the 1924 general election and held the balance of power. Parliament was dissolved on 10 May.
Gareth Richard Thomas is a British Labour and Co-operative politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Harrow West since 1997. Thomas held the position of Minister of State at the Department for International Development and, following the 2010 election, joined the shadow frontbench team. Gareth Thomas is currently Shadow Minister of International Trade, under the leadership of Keir Starmer.
James Garfield "Jimmy" Gardiner was a Canadian farmer, educator, and politician. He served as the fourth premier of Saskatchewan, and as a minister in the Canadian Cabinet.
Parliamentary by-elections in the United Kingdom occur when a Member of Parliament (MP) vacates a House of Commons seat during the course of a parliament.
Elections to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly were held on Saturday, 16 October 2004. The incumbent Labor Party, led by Jon Stanhope, was challenged by the Liberal Party, led by Brendan Smyth. Candidates were elected to fill three multi-member electorates using a single transferable vote method, known as the Hare-Clark system. The result was a clear majority of nine seats in the 17-member unicameral Assembly for Labor. It marked the first and so far only time in the history of ACT self-government that one party was able to win a majority in its own right. Stanhope was elected Chief Minister at the first sitting of the sixth Assembly on 4 November 2004. The election was conducted by the ACT Electoral Commission and was the second time in Australia's history that an electronic voting and counting system was used for some, but not all, polling places, expanding on the initial trial of the system at the 2001 ACT election.
Christchurch East, originally called Christchurch City East, is a current New Zealand parliamentary electorate. It was first created for the 1871 election and was abolished for two period, from 1875–1905 and again from 1946–1996. It was last created for the introduction of the MMP voting system for the 1996 election. The current MP is Poto Williams, a member of the New Zealand Labour Party who was first elected in the 2013 Christchurch East by-election.
Elections to the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly were held on Saturday, 18 October 2008. The incumbent Labor Party, led by Jon Stanhope, was challenged by the Liberal Party, led by Zed Seselja. Candidates were elected to fill three multi-member electorates using a single transferable vote method, known as the Hare-Clark system. The result was another hung parliament with Labor winning seven seats, the Liberals six seats and the Greens finishing with four seats, giving the Greens the balance of power in the 17-member unicameral Assembly. On 31 October 2008, after almost two weeks of deliberations, the Greens chose to support a Labor minority government. Consequently, Labor was re-elected to a third consecutive term of government in the ACT. Stanhope was elected Chief Minister at the first sitting of the seventh Assembly on 5 November 2008. The election was conducted by the ACT Electoral Commission.
The Leader of the Labour Party is the head of the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. The current leader is Sir Keir Starmer, who was elected in April 2020 to succeed Jeremy Corbyn, having previously spent 9 months as Shadow Minister of Immigration and 3 years, 5 months as Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union in Corbyn's shadow cabinet.
The 2021 Scottish Parliament election took place on 6 May 2021, under the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998. All 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament were elected in the sixth election since the parliament was re-established in 1999. The election was held alongside the Senedd election, English local elections, London Assembly and mayoral election and the Hartlepool by-election.
The 2016 National Assembly for Wales election was held on Thursday 5 May 2016, to elect members (AMs) of the National Assembly for Wales, now known as the Senedd. It was the fifth election for the National Assembly, the third election taken under the rules of the Government of Wales Act 2006 and the first since the Wales Act 2014.
Elections of police and crime commissioners in England and Wales were held on 5 May 2016.
Elections of police and crime commissioners in England and Wales were held on 6 May 2021, on the same day as the Senedd election in Wales and the local elections in England. This was the third time police and crime commissioner elections have been held. The elections were originally due to take place in May 2020 but were postponed by 12 months in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. Turnout was an average of 33.2% across the elections, with Wales having much higher turnout.
