Due to the increasing presidential style of recent prime ministers and the party loyalty of the executive one can consider Parliament’s control of executive power minimal. However, due to the development of independent bodies surrounding Select Committees and the delaying of legislation by the House of Lords it can still be argued to be effective. The government usually has an overall majority. This is due to our voting system of FPTP which gives preference to the two main parties, normally giving them majorities (and increasingly large ones) as opposed to coalitions and minority governments which are produced through other voting systems such as AV in Scotland and Wales. Although we are currently in a coalition the government still has a majority through the combination of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
However, this does not always happen, which can be seen in the current government. Since the election in 2010, the UK have been under a coalition government with the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, with David Cameron as the Prime Minister and Nick Clegg as his deputy. First Past the Post is also a simple process, where each electorate has only one vote, meaning that the time taken to count the votes is very short, making it a quick and efficient process. The First Past the Post system also keeps extremist parties, such as the BNP party, away from power, so they cannot carry out their manifestos. For example, in their 2010 manifesto, the BNP party stated that if they were voted in as the leading party they would “The BNP will ban the burka, ritual slaughter and the building of further mosques in Britain” and that they would “reintroduce capital punishment for drug dealers, child murderers, multiple murderers, murderers of policemen on duty and terrorists where guilt is proven beyond all doubt”.
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
What evidence is there to suggest that the new Coalition government is more representative than before? In 2010 a new coalition government was elected into power, it was the first time since 1977 when Labour joined the Lib Dems. The outcome of the 2010 election left no clear majority to any one party in government so it was agreed that David Cameron would be the Prime Minister, with his conservatives, and Nick Clegg would become Deputy to Cameron, with the Liberal Democrats. But many people question as to whether this coalition is a more representative government. The turnout for the 2010 election was 65.1% of the population, compared to the 2005 turnout of only 60%, meaning an increase of 2 million voters.
Since 1997, the government was conservative for 18 years and wanted to reform the House of Lords. This was successfully achieved by the removal of heredity peers from their voting rights. However, Devolution for Scotland has been the most successful constitutional reform overall since 1997 because it has been able to achieve much more than expected e.g. gain more power. Scotland felt it needed more power and
Party's can rely on their loyal MPs to vote in favour of their bills, for example; from 1997-2005 Blair's government didn't lose a single vote in the House of Commons because he had such a high majority. The efficiency of this majority also means the government is able to act quickly and decisively in an emergency, where as if there was no single party with popular support, legislation could be chaotic and it would be difficult to come to a decision. For example, the Terrorism Act of 1999 was passed in just 48
2. Election of 1800 • Democratic Republican Thomas Jefferson and Aaron VS. Federalist President John Adams and Charles Pinckney • No separate ballots for President and Vice President a) All candidates ran for presidency; second highest vote would be VP • Thomas Jefferson won the state of New York because of Aaron Burr’s influence a) Burr and Jefferson received the same amount of votes(73 electoral votes) b) Under the constitution, the tie could only be broken by the House of Representatives, which was filled with Federalists at the time(preferred Burr over Jefferson) c) After a long deadlock, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams persuaded a few House members to change their votes, thus helped secure the presidency for Jefferson • Also known as the revolution of 1800 a) Transfer of power from one party to another through elections and all the parties has to accept. Jeffersonian Democracy 1. What is it? • An ideal form of government by Thomas
It is a very poorly worded question, as it directs us down one particular route either a Yes, or a No. Politics isn’t as simple as that as there is more to it than No it isn’t. So the better question I’ll be discussing is to what extent is Britain a Two Party system? One argument to say that it is a Two Party system is that Westminster politics has been dominated by Conservatives and Labour since the 1920s with one party either being the major party of Government whilst the other holds the position of the “official opposition” (in peacetime) with both the parties combined gaining 75% of the vote holding over 90% of the seats at Westminster at the 1992 election typical of many recent elections. Although there has been the rise and fall the third party the now Liberal Democrats in their many forms it has always failed to win the amount of seats required to challenge either of the two parties.
If a party gains a majority it will be offered the chance to form government by the Queen. The MP is then responsible for representing all constituents, even those who didn’t elect the member. For example in 2005 George Galloway received only 18.4% of his constituents but was still elected MP for Bethnal Green and Bow. [1] This high proportion of constituents who didn’t vote for Galloway is not a unique anomaly, during the 2005 election only three MPs secured more than 40% of their constituents votes. It may be argued that voter apathy has a large influence on this
than as being motivated by principles of direct democracy. At the time the labour party was very divided on the issue, causing the prime minister the problem of a divided cabinet, a problem contained through the use of a referendum as members of the cabinet would agree to the outcome of a referendum. In 1975 electorate voted roughly 2 to 1 ‘Yes’ in favour of remaining in the E.C. on a turnout of just under 65%. This was the first ever nationwide referendum.