Britain's government is led by the Labour Party - which is a member of the Socialist International (2nd International) - but it's centre-left. The country is not socialist, though it has had a long history of socialist mechanisms in action.

Don't say that too loudly over here.

Hmm..let me weigh in with my opinion.

Britain can be considered 'socialist' most during the government of that idiot Clement Atlee. I still don't know why Britain voted him in considering Churchill was the one who led them to victory during the war (which was still going on!!). I might have missed something there.

The only real achievement that I know of his government was setting up the NHS. Among his blunders: the Nationalisation of Britain's Railways, which stifled development by the individual compainies, cost the country millions to construct unnessecary new 'Standard' classes...and didn't improve service by much anyways.

Also, he could even be considered a traitor for giving the Soviet Union the Nene turbojet engine...which as most of you probably know, was copied by the USSR and used to power the Mig-15 which caused so much trouble in Korea. Small wonder they kicked him out in the next election.

ON a side note, It might be found interesting that Britain nearly went fascist at one stage during the 30's. You Britons might know of Baron Oswald Earnald Mosely (have I spelt that right?); he was a popular fascist leader and came pretty close to getting big posts in the Parliament. Fortunately there was a fall out of some sort, I think coming from his demands to make peace with Hitler or something similar.

Big anti-thatcher movement again?

Certain people in the UK don't like her. On the other hand other people do like her and its worth remembering that she wasn't voted out by the public, she was pushed out by the bureaucrats.

I don't have an opinion either way, I wasn't old enough to care when she was in office. :)

And no, it Britain would never become a communist state. The army planned to stage a coup, and ultimately forced him to resign in the 70's when the security services thought that the PM might be a soviet spy. This was based pretty much entirely that he was to lenient with the trade unions that had communist members and were starting to make trouble.

So, no. Never going to happen.

To say she wasn't voted out is correct, but to act as if she would not have been is wrong. She wasn't pushed out by 'the bureaucrats', she was challenged by the people in the Tory party who could see that she was going to lose them the next election, and was driving the party (and the country) into the ground.

And yes, WiseBobo, though not really 'again' - she's been hated by many since she took power, particularly in the North of England.

There are many rumours of a Wilson coup, my favourite being the one whose leaders visited Mountbatten (look him up) at his home in the middle of the night to ask him if he would be the leader of an interim state immediately after the coup - he is said to have told them on no uncertain terms to 'go away' (with more colourful language).