The current First Past the Post system leads to an unfair system of representation. For example, in the 2010 general elections, although the Conservative party gained 36% of the vote they ended up receiving 47% of the seats in the House of Commons. For this reason, smaller parties such as the Liberal Democrats do the worse out of this system. In the same elections, although they gained 23% of the vote they only got 9% of the seats. This is one reason that the Westminster electoral system is in need of reform- proportional systems deliver a much more representable result which is more democratic and means that all votes have the same value.
They also are ineffective at representing their constitution because out of 650 MPs, only 147 of them are female, and even fewer are ethnic minorities which means they are not effectively representing the population. Secondly, MPs are effective because they scrutinise and hold the government to account with questions. They can scrutinise the opposition, or if they are rebels for example, Nadine Dorries, they can scrutinise their own party. Recently, MPs have become even more under the Speaker John Berkow who has allowed increasing amounts of urgent questions, 25 in his first year. There is also the 10 minute question time, and ballot box at the end of Question Time.
How has coalition government affected party politics in the UK? A coalition government is a government in which two or more political parties are in power, reducing the dominance of any one party within that coalition. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve enough votes to gain power. The UK currently has a First Past the Post electoral system which is not designed to create a coalition government and so the now coalition government is the first we have experienced in the UK. The arrival of a coalition government formed between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party in 2010 has affected UK party politics in various ways.
However on the other hand it is argued that the UK could not possibly be a two party system because the Conservatives wouldn’t have been able to come into power without the Liberal Democrats. During the 2010 election the Conservatives failed to gain an overall majority, in fact they only gained 36% of the votes meaning they were not going to be able to rule by themselves. This resulted in a hung parliament. This disagrees with the view that the UK has a two party system because no
Assess the extent to which the 2010 election illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of the First Past the Post system? In this essay the relative advantages and disadvantages of the first past the post electoral system will be assessed with reference to the 2010 election. It would be argued that generally the 2010 election illustrated the vast disadvantages of the system while failing to represent most advantages of the system. The first past the post electoral system has been used for many years. In 2011 the government held a referendum offering the public the chance to change the voting system from FPTP to AV but the public voted against changing it.
Many people say the ‘Commons are male-dominated since in 2005 only 19% of MP’s were women. However, in the early nineties the Labour Party had a massive female MP recruitment policy introduced for their party, whereby half of all Labour representatives standing for constituencies across the UK had to be women. While this was rejected in a court ruling as being unfair, it did show Labour tackling perceived sexism within Parliament. Since (statically speaking) women look after children and homes, they are more likely to be free to vote. Therefore, if a party could attract women voters by having female candidates they would have attracted a larger percentage of voters than parties focussing on attracting professional men, who would be too busy to vote.
One arguments showing that public participation advances democracy is that it allows a wider range of candidates to run for presidency that are not part of the Washington establishment. This enhances democracy because the public have a wide variety of candidates to choose from and can pick the candidate that they believe will represent and support their political ideology. The process is therefore opened up to outsiders who do not initially have a national reputation such as Bill Clinton in 1992, Barack Obama in 2008 and Hillary Clinton in 2008 also. For example Hillary Clinton was considered an outsider because she was a female candidate and only male candidates have yet made it to presidency. The fact that the process is open to unlikely candidates and the public have the right to choose such candidates means that democracy is advanced because the decision lies with the public.
Conviction politicians truly speak out their minds regardless of what the consequences would be. One example of a conviction politician would be George Galloway who used be a member of Labour party. In the parliament you would see that there are more Party Delegates than Conviction Politicians. There are many reasons for why there are more party delegates than conviction politicians in the Parliament some of the reasons might be: Fear of being sacked and losing their job, money, fame, ego and status and many more. Some MPS choose to be party delegates rather than conviction politicians because they fear of being sacked and losing their job, by not listening to the leader and following orders, instead speaking up against the leader’s views which could put them in a position where they could lose their job.
Changes in society has also meant that women have much more freedom to vote for the candidates they believe would be the most powerful, instead of just turning out to vote for who their male partners are voting for which was the case before the 1980s. The age of voters is important, with individuals becoming more conservative as they grow older. This is partly due to the liberal nature of younger people, as they have not been through any significant historical events such as civil rights movements, as well as placing a lot of importance on how the presidential candidate acts that his policies. For this reason Obama was more successful in appealing to the
A reason for a person deciding not to vote may be due to the fact that they haven’t gone that far though education. Statistically, high school drop outs are a lot less likely to vote than those with a post graduate qualification. This may be because when you go through the different stages of education you build a foundation of politics and are more likely to care about what goes on. It can be said that people that do get their post graduate qualifications go into jobs that are more affected by who is in power at that current time. In the Obama vs. McCain election of 2012, Obama’s victory was strengthened by the fact that there was a much higher turnout of the young voters and voters that are parts of minority groups.