The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom, and one of the two main British political parties along with the Conservative Party. The Labour Party was founded in 1900 and overtook the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929–1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after which it formed a majority government under Clement Attlee. Labour was also in government from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson and from 1974 to 1979, first under Wilson and then James Callaghan.

The Labour Party was last in national government between 1997 and 2010 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, beginning with a majority of 179, reduced to 167 in 2001 and 66 in 2005. Having won 258 seats in the 2010 general election, Labour is the Official Opposition. Labour has a minority government in the Welsh Assembly, is the main opposition party in the Scottish Parliament and has 13 MEPs in the European Parliament, sitting in the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group. The Labour Party is a member of the Socialist International and Party of European Socialists. The Party's current leader is Ed Miliband MP.

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until 2005. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 because of his strident public opposition to the Iraq War. He subsequently became a founding member of the left-wing Respect Party, and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. In 2010, Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse, and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament, before being elected as an MP in the Bradford West by-election, 2012.

Galloway is well known for his campaigns in support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In the late-1980s Hansard records him delivering a ferocious assault on the Ba'ath regime, and Galloway opposed Saddam's regime until the United States-led Gulf War in 1991. Galloway is known for a visit to Iraq where he met Saddam Hussein, and delivered a speech, which ended in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech. Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Programme.

Peter Jonathan Hitchens (born 28 October 1951) is an award-winning British columnist and author, noted for his traditionalist conservative stance. He has published five books, including The Abolition of Britain, A Brief History of Crime, The Broken Compass and most recently The Rage Against God. Hitchens writes for Britain's The Mail on Sunday newspaper. A former resident correspondent in Moscow and Washington, Hitchens continues to work as an occasional foreign reporter, and appears frequently in the British broadcast media. He is the younger brother of the late US-based writer Christopher Hitchens.

In 2010 Hitchens was described by Edward Lucas in The Economist as "a forceful, tenacious, eloquent and brave journalist. Readers with long memories may remember his extraordinary coverage of the revolution in Romania in 1989, or more recently his intrepid travels to places such as North Korea. He lambasts woolly thinking and crooked behaviour at home and abroad".

Peter Hitchens was born in 1951 in Malta, where his father, who had been a commander during World War 2, was stationed with the Royal Navy. He was educated at The Leys School and the Oxford College of Further Education before doing a BA in Politics at the University of York, where he is said to have replied "I was too busy starting a revolution" when asked why he was late for a lecture. He married Eve Ross, the daughter of left-wing journalist David Ross, in 1983.^{[citation needed]} Hitchens originally hoped to become a naval officer, but an eye defect prevented him from doing so.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He resigned from all of these positions in June 2007.

Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under his leadership, the party used the phrases "New Labour" and "New Socialism" to define its policy, and moved away from its support of state socialism since the 1960s and created a new version of the ethical socialism that was last pursued by Clement Attlee. Critics of Blair claim that "New Labour" did not adhere to socialism as claimed, and that it effectively advocated capitalism. Blair subsequently led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. At 43 years old, he became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government implemented a number of 1997 manifesto pledges, introducing the minimum wage, Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information Act, and carrying out devolution, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

John Alan Redwood (born 15 June 1951) is a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament for Wokingham. He was formerly Secretary of State for Wales in Prime Minister John Major's Cabinet and was an unsuccessful challenger for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1995. He is currently Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party's Policy Review Group on Economic Competitiveness, and a leading Tory thinker. He is notably employed by NM Rothschild and Sons.

Redwood was born in Dover, Kent. He was the only child to William Charles and his wife, Amy Emma Redwood (nee Champion.) His parents lived in a council house in Canterbury until Redwood was four years old. Redwood was educated locally, attending Kent College, Canterbury on a scholarship before going up to Magdalen College, Oxford where he obtained the degree of BA in Modern History in 1971. He later studied at St Antony's College, Oxford, taking the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1975.

From 1974 to 1977, he was an investment analyst at Robert Fleming & Co. From 1977 to 1978, he was a Bank Clerk at N M Rothschild & Sons, becoming a Manager in 1978, Assistant Director in 1979 and a Director of the Overseas Division from 1980 to 1983. From 1986 to 1987, he was Overseas Corporate Finance Director and Head of International (non-UK) Privatisation.