Rishi announcing the election, in the rain:
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As an American I’ve gotta say it always feels crazy to me that y’all seem to have elections just whenever the people in charge decide and with like a month’s notice rather than at any sort of regular time
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You say that… but as a Brit, I can’t even begin to understand how your system works?!
People who like owning guns get the most say, that’s right yes?
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Generally speaking, the groups that bought the politicians have the most say, and tend to have bought all the politicians. Some of those groups like owning guns…
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Didn’t you fight some sort of civil war you keep going on about so people couldn’t buy other people? Or do politicians fall under a different category? 
(just a dumb joke, not making light of slavery)
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No that’s a common misconception, we actually just bring out a Bald Eagle who chooses the candidate for us, the voting thing doesn’t matter.
But for real, it’s just congressional elections every 2 years and presidential elections every 4. Much simpler than y’all’s inconsistent nonsense. Though the actual way presidential votes are distributed is very outdated…
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It could be more consistent, because we have maximum terms of 5 years so in theory we could have elections at the same time every 5 years.
But we’ve had such crazy politics lately, including a PM who only lasted 49 days, that Rishi is calling it at a time when he thinks will be most beneficial for him.
Not that it will help, mind.
Don’t you think he looks tired?
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I vote for Brenda!
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I’m not particularly politically motivated but always exercise my right to vote and this time might even vote tactically just to get the bloody Tories out.
I’m well aware that whoever takes over will probably be just as bad but a change is a good as a rest and one day, yes one day, we might get some people in power who aren’t self-serving narcissists who would shame my 8 and 9 year olds with their ability to lie and never answer a straight question.
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As a Finn, I agree. We hold presidential elections every six years (we just held our latest one this January), parliamentary and municipal elections every four years (unless the opposition manages to bring down the government, which very rarely happens), and European elections every five years (coming up in just a couple of weeks). Knowing exactly when the elections take place helps to maintain a natural flow within our politics (although it can be exhausting to have two or three elections take place very close to each other, which happens at regular intervals).
In my opinion, the American electoral system is very dated. We employed a comparable electoral system for our presidential elections until the mid-1990s, following which we restructured it to enhance its modernity and fairness. Why not vote directly for your favourite candidate?
The two-chamber parliament that you and the Brits have feels very strange to me, but it’s all a matter of familiarity. Every system has its strengths and weaknesses. But then again, there are only 5.5 million of us, so it’s not too much of a hassle to maintain and reform our political processes.
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Except First Past the Post. There are no strengths there. It’s ridiculous we still use it!!
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Denmark is somewhere in between.
There is a General election when the PM decides, though the term is a maximum of 4 years.
We have a single chamber system and an ungodly amount of political parties ( I think there are 9 represented in our Folketing), and two representatives from both Greenland and the Faeroe Islands.
Whichever Candidate can make a coalition of at least 90 members of Folketinget regardless of parties becomes the PM and appoints the rest of the Government from that coalition.
Regional elections and Communal elections are held together every four years.
And the European election coming up now as in Finland, every five years.
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Oh yes, I completely forgot about this system. It’s pretty abysmal, yes.
We also have nine parties in our parliament (Eduskunta/Riksdag). There are four major parties, two mid-sized parties, and three small parties. After every parliamentary election, we elect 200 MPs, one of whom is the representative from the Åland Islands. The leader of the largest party can attempt to form a government with any parties they are willing to collaborate with and who can agree on the central political objectives. These are usually pretty broad majority governments with more than 100 MPs, but that’s not a requirement. Our current government is unusually right-wing conservative, consisting of two major parties and two minor parties.
I forgot that we have regional elections as well, but that’s because it’s a very new thing. We have them every four years as well, and we’ve only held them once so far!
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The system for choosing the government sounds kind of similar, is the leader of that majority then the President?
There are a total of 179 MPs elected here.
Our last general election was about two years ago and gave a rather unusual Government consisting of the two parties who the power have shifted between since like the 60s, one left-wing one right, and a new party started by a former PM (though I think countries like the US would consider even our furthest right-wing party left-wing - i.e. until recently the leader of our conservative party was a middle-aged divorced gay man who used to be married to an immigrant man of colour)
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No, the leader of the largest party is elected our Prime Minister. We elect our President separately. The PM holds the highest political power in Finland, as they lead our Government and are responsible for all the major policies, while the President is mostly a figurehead for the nation, and is the leader of our international relations and foreign policies. We could think of the President as a King or a Queen, but elected by the people and with real political influence (albeit very limited).
The most watched TV programme in Finland every single year (without exception!) is our Independence Day Ball on December 6th. It’s hosted by the President and their spouse in the Presidential Palace and all that happens is that we watch the President shake hands with hundreds of celebrity guests after which everyone dances and mingles for a couple of hours.
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Love how the free for all chat turned into political chat.
It’s so interesting reading about politics in other counties.
It also highlights how bad the UK’s politics are.
At this point we are going to have to be glad to take a Labour government even though they have moved so far to the centre that they are basically what the Tories used to be 15 years ago.
I vote Green 
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Well, when people are literally talking about anything, politics will eventually turn up.
And don’t worry, as a country that started from the UK, with large batches of religious extremists for an initial population, the US’s politics are pretty messed up, too.
We’re effectively a two party system. You will hear about other political parties, but the Democrats and Republicans are the important ones. One factor here is that the us has 50 states, and to get on the ballot to be elected president, you have to go through the processes for all 50 states. Most anyone not in the main two doesn’t manage to get on all the states ballots, and often don’t get on enough to actually win.
And we’ve got the electoral college. Each state gets a certain number of representatives based on population, with non-free people being considered 3/5’s of a person, and while the population votes, the representatives votes are what actually matters. They are supposed to vote the same way as the people they represent, and usually do. In some places, it’s illegal not to.
Trouble is that the states with smaller population end up having disproportionately more votes then the ones with large population. There’ve been several times where the person who won the election didn’t win the popular vote, like that time Hillary Clinton got around 2.9 million more votes then Donald Trump.
And yes, party-wise, I’m guessing our Republicans are close to your Tories. Extreme far right party, anti-LGBTQIA+, anti-abortion, etc. The leadership of the Democrats is center-right, not far from where the Republicans once were. And there are occasional progressive Democrats, since they are theoretically the left party…
Voting-wise, terms vary, so we vote every two years, and for president, every four.
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The shift in American politics has gone so far right that even Bush 41 would probably be considered a conservative Democrat, hell the same for McCain.
And really the Republicans have been split into 3, Traditional Republican (small c conservative), Religious Fundamentalist Republicans, and MAGA.
The electoral college is a joke. And don’t get me starting gerrymandering.
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Yeah, and if you even look back at Hillary’s college days, she was active in politics… as a Republican.
Definitely plenty of other political issues I could’ve gotten into in the US…
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Same here, but its too frustrating to think about.
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