 Hello and welcome to a video summarizing everything you need to know about government and politics. My name is Barbara and in this video we will look at the difference between left-right wing views as well as centre-left and centre-right but also we will look at the different beliefs that the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats parties believe in. So if this is something that you're interested in do keep on watching. So let's get started. Now when it comes to the UK and specifically its political parties they tend to lean towards the left or the right. Now the one thing you need to remember is to do with political participation. Essentially all this means when you hear this term banded about is how we as voters take place in how our country is run by voting for a party. So of course this is what is called active participation and the varying degrees of active participation. We can vote but also we can be part of a political parties. There are over 300 political parties in the UK each which have a manifesto which is a document that sets out the beliefs. We can be members of these political parties but we can even take it a step further and really participate in the daily activities of these parties such as leafletting and supporting campaigns to raise awareness and raise funds for these parties. Now when it comes to the political parties and when we are choosing which parties we want to stand for there's usually the notion that political parties are either seen as left wing or right wing. Now what do these ideas really mean? What does left wing really mean and what does right wing really mean? Now left wing is a broad category. Now what this category encompasses what it includes is firstly the government should be far more involved in our lives. We should have more of a nanny state, a state that distributes wealth amongst us all, funds the privates or rather the public sector services such as providing us with free healthcare, free education and so on and another component of left wing beliefs and values is the idea of high taxation. So if the government is going to be more involved in our lives that therefore means if it's going to be funding lots of these different services it needs money to fund these services and how does it get money by taxing wealthy individuals especially extremely wealthy individuals and also of course taxing all of us but it's usually the vast amount of income that they can get is from taxing these wealthy individuals, their private businesses and so on. So broadly speaking left wing values favor the idea of higher taxation so that these taxes can fund these different public sector services. Also this contributes to the idea of equality so if we have a very high taxation system that therefore means there won't be a vast gap between some people who get amazing private school education because their parents can afford it versus some people who don't get great state education. We all get a similar level of education because lots of state schools are better funded we all can get access to healthcare and so on so really generally left wing people want to see less of a divide between the wealthy and the poor or even between the upper class, middle class and working classes. Now another aspect of left wing beliefs is this belief in minimum wage. There should be a minimum amount of payment that we all should be paid when it comes to our income and of course when we do get this amount in wages of course some of that is going to be taxed and the government will take care of that and of course left wing people do support the idea of a welfare state, a state that gives us all of these essential services and the final element is this idea of business, this idea that businesses especially large businesses can be quite bad in the sense that all they care about is profits not people so actually it would be better to nationalise these businesses put them under the control of the state so that the state can offer more public sector jobs and the state can look after us better. This is different to right wing values and beliefs. Now broadly speaking right wing people believe firstly that the state is important, it should have a role but really in providing things like ensuring the roads are paved, we have good infrastructure, our streets are clean, our police are funded enough so that people who are committing crime, they're put in prisons but really that's mainly the state's job. Beyond that such as providing for example free healthcare schools, choosing how much taxes with pay and increasing lots of taxes that's not the state's job that's our job. Also another aspect of right wing values is that not everybody is equal. In other words not everybody will make the same amount of money. Some people are simply hard working and therefore they deserve to make more money if they become quite successful in what they work hard at. Some people are just able to secure better paying jobs, they shouldn't be taxed highly just because they're able to pay better paying jobs. It's not up to the state to decide how these people's money is spent especially through imposing high taxes on them. Another element of right wing beliefs and values is that actually private business in the private sector is good. This is what keeps our country wealthy, this is also what brings in new innovations. A lot of the innovations happen if there's money as an incentive. This is how we witness new technology coming in, new ideas and if state takes over different types of businesses this can kill the incentive to bring in new innovations. So actually it's again not down to the state to nationalise different businesses. These businesses should be in private hands so that they can optimise their profits and bring in more innovations. This also is tied to the idea that actually the public sector from the right wing's perspective is actually really inefficient, it's quite slow and it's not ideal, the private sector is better and imposing extremely high taxes on rich people is really bad, it kills innovation, it pits people off hard work and whilst minimum wage is okay, people should still work hard for what they earn and finally a really important component of right wing beliefs is that private property must be protected at all costs. It's not up to the state to nationalise things like what businesses own but also most importantly it's not up to the state to own the property of individuals and then distribute it evenly. That is not acceptable. Now with that in mind of course when we look at the political landscape of the UK in particular as I've mentioned before there are over 300 political parties but we're going to look at just a few of them and especially the three major ones which are the Conservative party, Labour Party and Liberal Democrats. Now the general idea of the left wing versus right wing, these are two very extreme views and the major parties actually sit somewhere in the centre so when it comes to if you see in the green section Labour, Lib Dems and Green Party they are centre right so they don't only have very hardcore left-wing beliefs this is if you see the other logo this is the British Communist Party they have very very strong left-wing beliefs right so they are extremely left however the parties which are very popular they're the ones which are somewhat centre and of course towards the right so centre right is the Conservative party so they incorporate some left-wing values they make room for things like such as the NHS which is a publicly funded healthcare system and service however of course they don't only believe in right-wing values and hardcore right-wing values now a group that really sticks very closely to these right-wing values and is far more to the right is the UK Independence Party. Now let's have a look at just the beliefs of the three main UK political parties starting with the Conservatives. Now the Conservative party believes in firstly a greater emphasis on the private sector which is business run over the public sector which they see as more inefficient secondly they favour lower taxation on people and on businesses less state investment in the country and less is to build infrastructure and just essential services bin collection and things like that. The third element of Conservative beliefs is the importance of preserving traditions such as the UK monarchy. The fourth element especially when it comes to the EU is the notion of leaving the EU and the UK having a greater say over its own domestic affairs. The fifth element of Conservative party beliefs is when it comes to immigration limiting immigration into the UK to mainly only skilled immigrants people who come from other countries that's fine as long as they're bringing lots of skills not necessarily less skilled people and the final element of Conservative beliefs is the poor should still be helped by the state but people who can work cannot just live off benefits and they can't just live off the welfare state they should be encouraged to go back to work. Now when it comes to labour which is the main opposition party in contrast to the Conservatives the Labour party believes firstly that the state should actually provide for those less fortunate in the society so that's why their centre left. Secondly there should be more public sector jobs. Thirdly high earning people should pay higher taxes. Fourthly public services like the NHS and state schools should get more funding and of course this funding is going to be gotten from charging high earning people higher taxes. The fifth element of Labour beliefs is that immigration is actually quite good it adds more skills especially with highly skilled immigrants but also if the immigrant is not very highly skilled but they come from a dangerous country they're a refugee they should see the UK as a safe place to come to and finally Labour believes that Brexit in other words the UK leaving the European Union that is a mistake. The final major political party is the Liberal Democrats which we colloquially refer to as the Lib Dems. Now the Liberal Democrat party believes firstly the state should provide for those less fortunate in society similarly to the Labour party however in contrast to the Labour party they lean more towards the state also looking after business the private sector is also equally important so even if they're on the left they're closer to the right and closer to Conservatives in that sense than the Labour party. Also the Lib Dems believe that lowering taxes isn't actually good the government does need money to invest into things like infrastructure to make us all more efficient but however the fourth element is extremely high taxes on the other side is also bad because it's going to discourage businesses from innovating. Fifthly when it comes to immigration they believe similarly to Labour that it's good it adds more skills and also people who live in dangerous countries should see the UK as a safe place to come in and similarly again to Labour the sixth element when it comes to Brexit is to see it as a mistake. So that's all hopefully you found this video useful and if you need any more information do make sure you visit our website www.firstreadtutors.com there you will find lots of useful revision materials to help you in your studies. Thank you so much for listening.