Elections

• What is a general election? When will the next one be?

General election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are up for election. In the United Kingdom general elections is for the House of Commons.

The next one will be election to the 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom, under the terms of the coalition agreement between the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats, the two parties which make up the current government, the election will be held on 7 May 2015.

• What is a constituency?

A constituency refers to in politics to either the people from an individual or organization that hopes to attract support, or geographical area that a particular elected official represents.

In the United Kingdom there are 650 constituencies, and each of the Member of Parliament (MP) is being elected.

• What is the First-Past-The-Post, or Winner-Take-All system?

The First-Past-The-Post or Winner-Take-All system is a system of voting in an election, where the winner is the one with highest amount of votes.

• Explain why this system has been criticised for being unfair for smaller parties.

The system has been criticised for being unfair for smaller parties because the biggest parties may get a majority in the Parliament even though they don't get the majority of the votes.

• What are the chances that there will be a change in this system in the immediate future?
  

Chances of change in the system in the immediate future is very little, even though change occurs all the time in the British system. The country is very conservative, and the change will happen over a longer amount of time so not in the immediate future.