CentrismCentrism is a political outlook or position involving acceptance or support of a balance of social equality and a degree of social hierarchy while opposing political changes that would result in a significant shift of society strongly to the left or the right. Both centre-left and centre-right politics involve a general association with centrism that is combined with leaning somewhat to their respective sides of the left–right political spectrum.
John McDonnellJohn Martin McDonnell (born 8 September 1951) is a British politician who served as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2015 to 2020. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hayes and Harlington since 1997. McDonnell served as chair of the Socialist Campaign Group in Parliament and Labour Representation Committee; he also chaired the Public Services Not Private Profit Group. He is also parliamentary convenor of the Trade Union Co-ordinating Group of eight left-wing trade unions representing over half a million workers.
Ed MilibandEdward Samuel Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliband was Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition between 2010 and 2015. Alongside his brother, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, he served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Third WayThe Third Way is a centrist political position that attempts to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of centre-right economic policies with centre-left social policies. The Third Way was born from a re-evaluation of political policies within various centre to centre-left progressive movements in the 1980s in response to doubt regarding the economic viability of the state and the perceived overuse of economic interventionist policies that had previously been popularised by Keynesianism, but which at that time contrasted with the rise of popularity for neoliberalism and the New Right starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s.
Labour Party (UK)The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists, and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the centre-left of the political spectrum. In all general elections since 1922, Labour has been either the governing party or the Official Opposition. There have been six Labour prime ministers and thirteen Labour ministries. Since the 2010 general election, it has been the second-largest UK political party by the number of votes cast, behind the Conservative Party and ahead of the Liberal Democrats.
Gordon BrownJames Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a Scottish politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Dunfermline East from 1983 to 2005 and, following boundary changes, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from 2005 to 2015. Brown is the most recent Labour Party politician as well as the most recent Scottish politician to hold the office of prime minister.
Iraq and weapons of mass destructionIraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons during the 1980s campaign against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during and after the Iran–Iraq War.