parties
	actors, incumbent and primary opposer are most important
		labour - 1997, 2005
		tories/conservatives - current shadow party
		liberal democrats
		Wales - more autonomy
		Scotland - independence
		England - 
		N Ireland
			Unionist - protestant (generally)
			Republicans - catholic (generally)
			Sinn Fein
	discipline
	in power
		1979-1990 - leadership of margret thatcher (not from wealthy family)
			laissez-faire economy, neo-liberal
			critic of welfare system
			reduction of gov't where not effective
			compared to ronald reagan often
			wanted corporal punishment
			decrim homosexuality
		1990-1997 - John Major, also not from a wealthy background
			wanted to come up with a citizen's charter (guarantee of services)
			rejected good bit of european-wide standards
			in favor of working on race relations
		1997-2007 - Tony Blair, labour party, wealthy background
			credited with creating new labour party
			still liberal, but close to center, go with EU stuff for welfare whatnot
			supported Iraq war, this is undoing of Blair since no WMDs are found
		2007- - Gordon Brown, middle/upper class family, father minister, labour, low key
			democracy
			education
			law and order
	leaders
	crises - parties poorly defined
political culture - social classes
security

uses winner-take-all system (FPTP/pluralist), result is 2 primary parties with minor third parties (similar to the US system)
party whips keep the parties in line, so every tends to follow the party lines unless they just don't care about keeping their jobs