Politics

[flossie1999]

How many members of Parliament are there in the House of Commons?

Flossie 

[banjo]

I think its 659.

[luckyboy]

Too bloody many.!

[zmudge]

Yes, 659 with the main parties as follows:

Labour                                                412
Conservative                                        166
Liberal Democrat                                   52

[zmudge]

Bless me, what an Answerbank mess !!!! But I expect you can see the numbers.

[bernardo]

zmudge's figures are out of date.  The numbers at the moment are:

Labour 409
Conservative 164
Liberal Democrat 55
Scottish National Party 5
Plaid Cymru 4
Kidderminster Hospital and Health Concern 1
Respect - The Unity Coalition 1
Speaker 1
Democratic Unionist Party 7
Ulster Unionist Party 5
Sinn Fein 4
Social Democratic and Labour Party 3

[THECORBYLOON]

The Speaker is a Labour MP so they have 410 members. The four Sinn Fein/IRA MPs refuse to pledge allegiance to the Crown and cannot take their sets.

[bernardo]

No, the Speaker is not a Labour MP.  The Speaker immediately renounces any party political allegiance as soon as he/she becomes Speaker.  He was a Labour MP before becoming Speaker.

[THECORBYLOON]

On the Labour Party's website, Michael Martin is still shown in a list of their MPs, but checking Parliament's website, it turns out the Speaker has to resign from his or her party. 

[bernardo]

In that case, whoever wrote the Labour Party's website is a nincompoop.