Election 2010

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been to Her Majesty the Queen, and asked for the dissolution of Parliament, and has called a general election for 6 May.

The governing party, the Labour Party, are behind in opinion polls but are slowly making progress against the official opposition party, the Conservative Party. In third place is the Liberal Democrats Party, who may make an influential decision if there happens to be a 'hung' parliament. A Hung Parliament is when neither side has a majority of seats to form a ruling party government, and alliances have to be made in order to maintain a majority in parliament. The last time we had a hung parliament was over 30 years ago in 1974.

Parliament itself will be dissolved on Monday and will reconvene on the 18 May. During the period of campaigning until the election day, the government can no longer make any decisions on policy. If there is a national emergency, then Gordon Brown, as Prime Minister, will still be in charge, but day-to-day government is run by the civil service until the election is over and parliament is reconvened.

Not just England, but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland also vote in a general election, despite them having their own local parliaments.

So for the next 30 days we can expect nothing less than politics for all 24-hours of each day. Each party will be wanting to get their own point of view across and score points against opposition parties.

Here in my constituency of Ashfield, our Member of Parliament, Geoff Hoon, is standing down, so the Labour Party have brought a woman in to stand for the seat, with a majority of over 10,000 to maintain. The candidate is not local, and neither was Geoff Hoon, so we are expected to vote for someone who doesn't know the area at all. Even Mr Hoon wasn't local, living in Derby and just popping over to Ashfield every now and again for photo opportunities and surgeries for his constituency.