Formal Arrangements

In practice, it is the government which decides when to hold an election. The law says that an election has to take place at least every five years. However, the interval between elections is usually a bit shorter than this. A party in power does not normally wait until the last possible moment. For example, the Labour government called the 2001 election after only four years. When a party has a very small majority in the House of Commons, or no majority at all, the interval can be much shorter.

After the date of an election has been fixed, people who want to be candidates in a constituency have to deposit £500 with the Returning Officer (the person responsible for the conduct of the election in each constituency). They get this money back if they get 5% of the votes or more. The local associations of the major parties will have already chosen their candidates (see chapter 6) and will pay the deposits for them. However, it is not necessary to belong to a party to be a candidate. It is a curious feature of the system that, legally speaking, parties do not exist. That is to say, there is no written law which tries to define them or regulate them. The law allows candidates, if they wish, to include a short 'political description' of themselves on the ballot paper. In practice, of course, most of these descriptions simply state 'Conservative', 'Labour' or 'Liberal Demo­crat'. But they can actually say anything that a candidate wants them to say (d> Crazy candidates).

To be eligible to vote, a person must be at least eighteen years old and be on the electoral register. This is compiled every year for each constituency separately. People who have moved house and have not had time to get their names on the electoral register of their new constituency can arrange to vote by post. Nobody, however, is obliged to vote.

The campaign

British elections are comparatively quiet affairs. There is no tradition of large rallies or parades as there is in the USA. However, because of the intense coverage by the media, it would be very difficult to be in Britain at the time of a campaign and not realize that an election was about to take place.

The campaign reflects the contrast between the formal arrange­ments and the political reality. Formally, a different campaign takes place in each constituency. Local newspapers give coverage to the candidates; the candidates themselves hold meetings; party supporters stick up posters in their windows; local party workers spend their time canvassing (> Canvassing). The amount of money that candidates are allowed to spend on their campaigns is strictly limited. They have to submit detailed accounts of their expenses for inspection. Any attempt to influence voters improperly is outlawed.

But the reality is that all these activities and regulations do not usually make much difference. Nearly everybody votes for a candid­ate on the basis of the party which he or she represents, not because of his or her individual qualities or political opinions. Few people attend candidates' meetings; most people do not read local newspa­pers. In any case, the size of constituencies means that candidates cannot meet most voters, however energetically they go from door to door.

It is at a national level that the real campaign takes place. The parties spend millions of pounds advertising on hoardings and in newspapers. By agreement, they do not buy time on television as they do in the USA. Instead, they are each given a number of strictly timed 'party election broadcasts'. Each party also holds a daily televised news conference. All of this puts the emphasis on the national party personalities rather than on local candidates. Only in the 'marginals' - constituencies where only a small shift in voting behaviour from last time would change the result - might the qualities of an individual candidate, possibly, affect the outcome.