Quote Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior View Post
Your system of government is quite different from ours. In my case, though I don't follow the ins & outs of British politics religiously, I do admire the fact that people in the UK are not slaves to a defined, locked, two party system. Yes, you also have your two major parties. But a significant enough portion of the UK voting public will cast votes for lesser known parties. And in my opinion, that is something to be proud of. I wish that more of our citizens were less sheepish in that way.
The Westminster System which exists in the UK is not that much different to the Congress. The biggest differences are that the Executive of a Westminster style parliament is made up of members of the parliament. The Queen does hold some reserve powers that the President of the USA does in that she's the one who signs off on legislation and she's also ultimately head of the armed forces. The Prime Minister, who is head of the Cabinet, appoints ministers in the same way that the President of the US does.

There was a French political scientist called Maurice Duverger who observed that for single member constituencies there is a tendency towards two-party politics but in multi-member constituencies there is a tendency towards multi-party politics. Duverger's Law is named

Australia which also uses a Westminster System elects members to the House of Representatives in the same way that the UK elects members to the House of Commons and this also tends towards two-party politics but the Australian Senate which appoints 12 Senators per state has a far greater number of minor parties.

Quote Originally Posted by Jag_Warrior View Post
I wish that more of our citizens were less sheepish in that way.
I think it's perfectly rational.

The United States mainly uses First-Past-The-Post voting for Single Member Constituencies. I think that it's a worst of all possible cases scenario because it encourages voters to vote for the two majors rather than wasting a vote on a losing candidate.
The thing is though, is that it's in the major parties best interests to keep the system as is. Hence the reason why both Labour and the Tories supported the "No to Alternative Vote" campaign when that went to a referendum in the UK.