Reddit mentions of Political Psychology: Key Readings (Key Readings in Social Psychology)

I would recommend reading about political psychology - it's far more informative in understanding politics than reading the different ideological arguments.

There's a great introduction by John Jost which is worth the effort. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Political-Psychology-Key-Readings-Social/dp/1841690708

Edit: Shalom Schwartz's work on cultural values is also a must read. His work on cultural zones/European social survey is also good.

Edit 2: http://usdkexpats.org/theory/schwartzs-culture-model see here for a rough overview of the cultural theory. UKIP/traditional Conservatives generally would fall under hierarchy/embeddedness, Cameron's Conservatives under hierarchy/mastery, liberals under the two autonomy values, the left under egalitarian/harmony, etc, etc

But it also helps explain the liberal vs conservative right/left. Marxist-Leninist lefties are more toward embeddedness/harmony while liberal/libertarian left more toward egalitarianism and intellectual autonomy, etc

A circular model explains ideology far better than a traditional libertarian/authoritarian vs left/right orthogonal model, IMHO.