Elections and Politics

It's election year here in the UK, but things seem strangely calm and quite here about it compared to the US... There are the political commercials, public awareness ads to register to vote, and (for the first time ever in the UK) televised debates. But there are no yard signs, no banners, no buttons or stickers. It's kinda nice actually, if you lived under a rock you might not even notice that the elections were going on.
Now, I will be the first to admit that I know very little about politics, economics, or foreign policies for the US (though I would venture to say that I know a great deal more than Sarah Palin....); however when it comes to UK politics, I know next to nothing. Assuming the majority of my readers are American, I will venture to say that most of you don't know much about the upcoming elections here either. So here is a very brief overview of what is happening.
Like the US, the UK has a party system. There are 3 main parties; Labor, Conservative, and the Liberal Democrats. Each party has one leader, respectively; Gordon Brown (the current Prime Minister), David Cameron, and Nick Clegg. There are other parties involved, however they do not currently seem to have enough support or seats in the House of Commons to warrant much talk of them here in such a short overview. There are 650 MP (Members of Parliament) seats in the House of Commons, all of which are up for election on May 6th.
This is about where my knowledge of this issue ends (I told you it would be brief), though as election day draws closer I hope to learn about more about each party and what they represent.I will update you with the results on the 6th!