It also means that generally we are governed by one party, which increases stability; for example, since 1900 there have only been three coalition governments in power. This also means we are represented by one set of policies rather than two different sets. However, the first-past-the-post system can be seen to distort the results, as the government in power will almost never have the majority of votes. For example, in the 2005 election Labour had 35.2% of the votes and they still won, because they had more seats than the other parties. Furthermore, the actual turnout was only 61.4%, so they were only representing around a third of the population.
For a party to form an executive (government), the party needs a majority of 1 seat over the other party’s in the legislature (parliament). The British electoral system has come under scrutiny because a majority of seats allows a party to form an executive not the overall majority of public votes. In 1945 Labour won a landslide victory in the elections and gained a 180 seat majority over the Conservative party, and a 148 seat majority overall. For each seat Labour won they had polled 30,522 votes. However in the 1951 elections Labour had polled 231,067 more votes from the general public than the Conservative party, however the Conservative party gained 26 more seats and squeezed into power.
For a country to be democratic there should be universal suffrage – all adults should have the right to vote. Britain was not very democratic in this respect in 1851, since only 1 in 7 men had the right to vote and no women could vote. However, a number of pieces of legislation were passed to extend the franchise. The 1867 Second Reform Act granted the vote to some working class men for the first time and meant that 1 in 3 men could vote. The 1884 Third Reform Act gave more respectable working class men the vote and meant that 2 out of every 3 were enfranchised.
The candidate that gets the most votes wins, as only a simple majority is needed. An absolute majority of MPs (326) is needed for a party to form a government on their own, and this system has only failed twice in the 19 elections since 1945, which shows this system is likely to form a strong
FPTP is an electoral system where the voters select a single candidate by marking an ‘X’ next to his/her name. In 2005, Blair made one of the weakest governments the UK has seen having only 355 seats and a 32% majority. FPTP provides a clear-cut choice for voters between the two main parties but unfortunately the third parties often wither away because FPTP excludes smaller parties from ‘fair’ representation. The current FPTP system questions whether the UK is a democracy or not. Within the UK’s society there are many things which make it democratic, having free and open elections is one, enabling the choice of who represents the citizens.
He claimed it was time for the electorate to decide who runs the country, the democratically elected government or the trade unions? Unfortunately for Heath, Labour won the most seats with 301. This was not enough to give them an overall majority and so for the first time since 1929 there was a hung
For example in the 2010 general election the Conservative party won with 307 seats, however only 36.1 per cent of people on the electoral register voted for them, which means that there were 67.9 per cent of the votes cast in the general election had no effect on the outcome and were wasted. This highlights the criticism of the legitimacy and the authority the current government has as well as the question of the legitimacy of their mandate as effectively 67.9 per cent of people voted against them. Another criticism of the FPTP system is that it favors only the larger parties and in the UK only three parties (Conservative, Labour and arguably the Liberal Democrats). This is seen as a bad thing as many parties don’t even stand any kind of chance during these elections, mostly because unlike the main 3 parties they do not have the money to send Representatives of their party to many different constituencies. This is seen as unfair as the main three parties have such an advantage but also reduces the
Compassionate reasons where one of the underlying reasons many historians argue upon the realise of the report on poverty from booth and rowntree in their study of the English town York , a town not normally associated with extreme poverty they found 29% of the population were well below the poverty line. Another reason was the very real fear workers were discouraged by the poor conditions and governments and may later turn against the government and form mass strikes or in serious cases rebellion or join the communist groups within Britain. Political self interest was high on the liberal’s agenda many historians argue. The franchise was being extended to the average man slowly and the liberals realised the average man did not benefit much from the government’s approach to peoples life’s and with the rise of the labour party and other parties many historians argue that it was out of desire to be re-elected that the liberals slowly brought about this change in reform. They didn’t get a majority government in 1910 like they did in 1906 which led them to think that social reform was the way to gain votes.
The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society 1) According to Kozol, how does illiteracy undermine democracy in the United States? Do you agree with him? Illiteracy undermines democracy in the US because most illiterates don’t vote. I agree because Kozol claims 60 million people in the US are illiterate which is about one third of the population. If one third of the population isn’t voting it cant be a true democracy since the needs of one third of our population aren’t getting met and their voices are unheard.
But backtrack four years ago during the 2004 election when President George W. Bush received only 35 more electoral votes than Senator John Kerry, at 286. If the apportionment had been based solely on only U.S. citizens, President Bush would have gained five more electoral votes. It is absolutely illogical that illegal foreigners should be permissible in the selection of the President of the United States of America; they didn’t gain citizenship to our country nor did they earn the right to occupy our country and contribute to a victory between two