Query: Any reasonable person can recognize both positives and negatives among the policy proposals of both Tories and Labour.

Relevant passages:
2017 United Kingdom general election <=SEP=> The 2017 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 8 June 2017, two years after the previous general election in 2015. The governing Conservative Party remained the largest single party in the House of Commons but lost its small overall majority, resulting in the formation of a Conservative-led minority government with a confidence-and-supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.The Conservative Party, which had governed as a senior coalition partner from 2010 and as a single-party majority government from 2015, was defending a working majority of 17 seats against the Labour Party, the official opposition led by Jeremy Corbyn. Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 an election had not been due until May 2020, but a call by Prime Minister Theresa May for a snap election was ratified by the necessary two-thirds vote in the House of Commons on 19 April 2017. May said that she hoped to secure a larger majority to "strengthen [her] hand" in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations.Opinion polls had consistently shown strong leads for the Conservatives over Labour. From a 21-point lead, the Conservatives' lead began to diminish in the final weeks of the campaign. In a surprising result, the Conservative Party made a net loss of 13 seats despite winning 42.4% of the vote (its highest share of the vote since 1983), whereas Labour made a net gain of 30 seats with 40.0% (its highest vote share since 2001 and the first time the party had gained seats since 1997). This was the closest result between the two major parties since February 1974 and their highest combined vote share since 1970. The Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Liberal Democrats, the third- and fourth-largest parties, both lost vote share; media coverage characterised the result as a return to two-party politics. The SNP, which had won 56 of the 59 Scottish seats at the previous general election in 2015, lost 21. The Liberal Democrats made a net gain of four seats. UKIP, the third-largest party in 2015 by number of votes, saw its share of the vote reduced from 12.6% to 1.8% and lost its only seat. In Wales, Plaid Cymru gained one seat, giving it a total of four seats. The Green Party retained its sole seat, but saw its share of the vote reduced. In Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) won 10 seats, Sinn Féin won seven, and Independent Unionist Sylvia Hermon retained her seat. The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) lost all their seats. Negotiation positions following the UK's invocation of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union in March 2017 to leave the EU were expected to feature significantly in the campaign, but did not. The campaign was interrupted by two major terrorist attacks: Manchester and London Bridge; thus national security became a prominent issue in its final weeks.

2019 United Kingdom general election <=SEP=> The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 12 December 2019. The Conservative Party, having failed to obtain a majority in the 2017 general election, had faced prolonged parliamentary deadlock over Brexit while it governed in minority with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a situation which had forced the resignation of the previous Prime Minister, Theresa May. In July 2019, after May's resignation, Boris Johnson was elected as Conservative leader and appointed as Prime Minister. Johnson could not induce Parliament to approve a revised withdrawal agreement by the end of October, and chose to call for a snap election. The House of Commons supported the Early Parliamentary General Election Act 2019 by 438–20, setting the election date for 12 December. Opinion polls up to polling day showed a firm lead for the Conservatives against Labour throughout the campaign.The election resulted in the Conservative Party receiving a landslide majority of 80 seats. The Conservatives made a net gain of 48 seats and won 43.6% of the popular vote – the highest percentage by any party since 1979. Many Conservative gains were made in long-held Labour Leave-voting seats dubbed the 'red wall'.  The Labour Party won 202 seats, its lowest number and proportion of seats since 1935. The Scottish National Party (SNP) made a net gain of 13 seats and won 3.9% of the UK vote (translating to 45% of the popular vote in Scotland), resulting in 48 out of 59 seats won in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats improved their vote share to 11.6% but won only 11 seats, a net loss of one since the last election. The DUP won a plurality of seats in Northern Ireland. There, the SDLP and Alliance regained parliamentary representation as the DUP lost seats. The election result allowed Johnson a mandate to ensure the UK's departure from the European Union on 31 January 2020. Labour's defeat led to Jeremy Corbyn announcing his intention to resign, triggering a leadership election. For Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson, the loss of her constituency's seat compelled her to resign as well, also triggering a leadership election. For the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, her party's relative success led to renewed calls for a second independence referendum. In Northern Ireland, nationalist MPs outnumbered unionist ones for the first time in history, although the Unionist popular vote remained higher (43.1 per cent).

2015 United Kingdom general election <=SEP=> The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first general election at the end of a fixed-term Parliament. Local elections took place in most areas on the same day. Polls and commentators had predicted the outcome would be too close to call and would result in a second consecutive hung parliament that would be either similar or more complicated than the 2010 election. Opinion polls were eventually proven to have underestimated the Conservative vote as the party unexpectedly won an outright majority, which bore resemblance to its victory at the 1992 general election. Having governed in coalition with the Liberal Democrats since 2010, the Conservatives won 330 seats and 36.9% of the vote share, giving them a small overall majority of 12 seats and their first outright win for 23 years. The Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband, saw a small increase in its share of the vote to 30.4%, but incurred a net loss of seats to return 232 MPs. This was its lowest seat tally since the 1987 general election. Senior Labour Shadow Cabinet members, notably Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander, and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, were defeated. The Scottish National Party, enjoying a surge in support after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, recorded a number of swings of over 30% from Labour, as it won 56 of the 59 Scottish seats to become the third-largest party in the Commons. The Liberal Democrats, led by outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, had their worst result since their formation in 1988, holding just eight out of their previous 57 seats, with Cabinet ministers Vince Cable, Ed Davey and Danny Alexander losing their seats. UKIP came third in terms of votes with 12.6%, but won only one seat, with party leader Nigel Farage failing to win the seat of South Thanet. The Green Party won its highest-ever share of the vote with 3.8%, and retained its only seat. Labour's Miliband (as national leader) and Murphy (as Scottish leader) both resigned, as did Clegg. In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party returned to the Commons with two MPs after a five-year absence, while the Alliance Party lost its only seat despite an increase in total vote share.

Conservative Party (UK) <=SEP=> The Conservative Party , officially the Conservative and Unionist Party , is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom . It is currently the governing party , having won a majority of seats in the House of Commons at the 2015 general election . The party 's leader , Theresa May , is currently serving as Prime Minister . It is the largest party in local government with 9,237 councillors . The Conservative Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United Kingdom , the other being its modern rival , the Labour Party . The Conservative Party 's platform involves support for free market capitalism , free enterprise , fiscal conservatism , a strong national defence , deregulation , and restrictions on trade unions .   The Conservative Party was founded in 1834 from the Tory Party -- giving rise to the Conservatives ' colloquial name of Tories -- and was one of two dominant political parties in the nineteenth century , along with the Liberal Party . During the 1890s , it formed a coalition government with the Liberal Unionist Party , a break-away faction of the Liberal Party . In 1912 , the two parties merged to form the current Conservative and Unionist Party . In the 1920s , the Liberal vote greatly diminished and the Labour Party became the Conservatives ' main rivals . Conservative Prime Ministers led governments for 57 years of the twentieth century , including Winston Churchill ( 1940 -- 45 , 1951 -- 55 ) and Margaret Thatcher ( 1979 -- 90 ) . Thatcher 's tenure led to wide-ranging economic liberalisation . The Conservative Party 's domination of British politics throughout the twentieth century has led to them being referred to as one of the most successful political parties in the Western world .   The Conservatives are the joint-second largest British party in the European Parliament , with twenty MEPs , and sit with the European Conservatives and Reformists ( ECR ) parliamentary group . The party is a member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe ( ACRE ) Europarty and the International Democrat Union ( IDU ) .   The party is the second-largest in the Scottish Parliament and the second-largest in the Welsh Assembly . The Conservatives were formerly allied to the Ulster Unionist Party ( UUP ) in Northern Ireland but there is now a separate Northern Ireland Conservative party similar to the Welsh and Scottish Conservative parties . The party is also organised in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar .