Labour are bound inescapably to a single powerful interest group by ties of history, political dogma and financial 10 dependence. Labour have demonstrated they cannot speak and dare not act for the nation as a whole. They have governed Britain badly. SOURCE 3 (From Jim Callaghan's memoirs, Time and Change, published 1988) f 15 Our vote in the election of 1979 was, in fact, higher than it had been nearly five years earlier. This demonstrated how much steady understanding and support existed for what we had tried to do.
Using these four passages and your own knowledge, assess the view that Thatcher’s electoral success was a result of the weakness of the Labour Party In 1979 Margaret Thatcher was elected as the Prime Minister of Britain for the Conservative Party, winning with the majority of 44 seats. Thatcher continued to win two more elections in 1983 and 1987 and then resigned in 1990, after dominating the House of Commons for 11 years, due to the Conservative Party demands. Both interpretations A and C strongly support the view that the weakness of the Labour Party was the reason to Thatcher’s electoral success across the elections, due to their poor leadership, policies and therefore divisions. In contrast, the Falklands War of 1982 is suggested by interpretation C as to the reason behind the three electoral wins of Thatcher. Finally Thatcher’s socio-economic policies are portrayed by all four interpretations as to the reason behind the three electoral victories, although this view can be seen as controversial as her policies did not always have positive effects.
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
After the Labour party’s strong victory in the 1997 general election, winning 179 seats, they have made moves and provisions towards constitutional reform. Indeed, the two prime ministers; Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have done much for reform over the years, as illustrated by devolution and the human rights act. Indeed, they made provision for reform in 4 key areas, modernisation, and greater protection of rights, democratisation and decentralisation. However, it can be argued that their reform has been limited, and much more can be done for constitutional reform. Firstly, it is clear that the modernisation aspects of the reform have been severely limited.
Therefore, despite the argue amount of agreement regarding the ends they would like the country to reach, the means with which they want to do this remains controversial. Before this though, mainly during the 1970s and 1980s, after World War II and the One Nation conservatism that followed however, UK politics was adversarial, the strongly Right winged ideology of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives against the strongly Left winged views of Labour - both parties fiercely disagreed upon policy and how best to govern Britain. It was only when Tony Blair became Labour Prime Minister in 1997 that Britain's politics became consensual once more after the Thatcher era, with Blair moving of Labour more to the centre ground leading to a large degree of overlap with the Conservative viewpoint and also the Liberal Democrats after becoming an influential party again. Something all 3 main parties disagree on is cutting benefits. The conservatives and Liberal Democrats want to cut family tax credit and other such benefits after a family’s 2nd child to stop people having 7 or 8 children that they cannot support themselves.
Why did Thatcher fall from power? There is no doubt that Margaret Thatcher was one of the most controversial post-war politicians who governed Britain. Since 1979, Thatcher was the Prime Minister of Britain, but by being in power for so long, it ultimately led to her downfall. In the South, Thatcher was admired and much-loved, yet she was loathed by working-class men in much of the North. One of the reasons for her downfall was because of her relationship with her cabinet.
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. Many politicians who came from modest backgrounds also wanted to “wage war” on poverty as they saw it as the scourge of modern day Britain and it was the governments job to fix
Discuss how democratic Britain became during the period 1830-1918 Britain underwent significant social and political changes from 1850-1918 and these changes resulted in the government and country becoming more democratic. The years before the first world war saw a huge change in Britain. The country became much more modernized and urbanized and this change in Britain put a strain on old aristocratic constitution. It was a time when citizens were becoming increasingly aware of the lack of democracy within the country. This essay plans to analyse and explain the extension of the franchise from 1830 and to asses whether Britain was fully democratic by 1918.
To what extent is it fair to say that Attlee's government had failed to transform Britain by 1951? By 1945, the Second World War was over and the Labour government was voted in to government. The Conservatives had dominated the wartime coalition government, causing a great shock when Labour won with a majority of 146 seats over all parties in the 1945 election. During Clement Attlee's role as Prime Minister between the years 1945-1951 he made some great changes to Britain, such as the welfare state and the NHS. However, it is usually debated how much Clement Attlee actually transformed Britain.
Sir Patrick Hastings, the Attorney General, initially advised Ramsay MacDonald, the Prime Minister, to prosecute Campbell under the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797. The case was handled dreadfully and Ramsay MacDonald faced a motion of no confidence in the House of Commons over the way he had dealt with the case. The opposition parties accused the minority Labour government of being under the influence of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In the debate that took place on 8th October, MacDonald gave an uninspiring account of events and when he lost the motion by 304 to 191 votes, he decided to resign and a general election was announced for Wednesday, 29th October,