During that time social class played a big influence in the way people would vote. People were seen being either middle or working class, depending on the jobs that they had and also the amount of education they had, which proved to make a difference between the social classes and the preferred party of people in those classes. Most people would go for their party that seemed to have their best interests. Same of the working class would vote for the Labour party and the majority of middle class would vote for the Conservatives. An average of 90 per cent of voters supported these two major parties.
With the rise in the professional politician many prefer to remain loyal in order to gain power and move up in the hierarchy as opposed to become a rebel who remains in the back benchers. This can be seen after the vote on tuition fees and the liberal democrats. Despite the fact that they had campaigned for this cause endlessly only 26 (including a few Conservatives) chose to vote against the bill. Whips play an important part in removing efficiency from Parliament. By having whips who ensure that MPs behave in accordance to the decisions of the executive both Parliaments ability to scrutinise and hold the executive to account is diminished, but also their role as representatives of their individual constituency is also compromised.
The middle class believed that because they were the ones working and earning the country’s wealth, they were deserving of the vote. Indeed, there was growing respect for the so-called urban artisans and the skilled working class whose voices were only now beginning to be heard. As the population moved away from rural areas into towns and cities, the landowning aristocrats of those rural areas started to lose their power. With people living and working closer together and improved communication, ideas like democracy and liberalism increased dramatically in popularity. However despite all of these changes in attitudes Britain was still primarily ruled and governed by the upper and upper-middle-class aristocracy.
A voter could switch from voting for the Conservatives to vote for the Labour Party at the next election because they decide according to single issues. In general the public today is not really aligned to parties anymore. I would say that party allegiance is something which is nearly vanished in Britain’s voting behavior. There are still groups which are strongly related to one or the other party but that is not as common as was in the 50s and 60s. The important things today are which party has at the moment the right promises for the single voter and which party is better in delivering policy goals.
Critics say that pressure groups benefit the well organised but they disadvantage the weakly organised, subsequently working against the public interest. This is because the pressure groups run on donations for their funding. As a result, a pressure group with as little as two or three wealthy advocates may end up becoming influential and having its cause heard by the government. However, its members may not represent as much of the population as is suggested by the pressure group’s standing, thus creating inequality. This is amplified by the fact that the larger pressure groups can leave many smaller ones in their shadow.
Main influences on voting in the UK By Marlon Fraser Social class, historically, has been the defining factor in influencing the pattern of the public vote. Nowadays however other influences ,such as the media, have had a remarkable influence. Has the media taken the forefront over social class as the prime influence over the public vote? Social class was the main factor in deciding which party one voted for and still is for most parts of the older generation. A social class essentially is a group of people who share similar social characteristics with each other.
3. Traditionally, the Conservative party was the party of the higher classes, the gentry and the business owners, whereas the Labour party represented the working class, socialism and the redistribution of wealth. Despite the parties working together to rebuild the country after the war, they have been opposed to each other ideologically. However, as social classes have become less distinct and the decline of the growth of the manufacturing and service industries, it has become increasingly difficult to classify people, meaning that it has become less obvious who which party is representing. Nowadays both Labour and Conservative claim to represent people from the whole of society and moved further to the centre and policies have gradually become more similar.
One way a country can show it has a good economy is by considering the country’s GDP (PPP) per capita. Seeing as USA is the only current superpower in the world, taking their GDP (PPP) of $54,800, considerably more than certain other countries such as China ($12,900) and Russia ($24,800). However, it must be considered that GDP (PPP) per capita is not entirely accurate in measuring the strength of a country's economy as it hides the gaps in wealth in the population. Consequently, A country with a few billionaires and the rest living in poverty would probably have a pretty good average. This would not be considered a superpower due to all the people living in poverty.
Over the course of the last few decades globalization has turned the world into an integrated economy instead of what it has been for most of its history, a series of relatively isolated economies. The more trading that takes place, the more wealth is created, and global trade across international frontiers has created more wealth than ever before in human history, and had helped lift more people out of poverty than ever before. Because of globalization, democracy has become an international norm. With the ‘international norm’, democracy brings values that are very important for the welfare of the people and the economy. In poorer countries, globalization brings the chance to sell their relatively low cost labor onto world markets.
Globalization is also the cause of inequality in the worlds economy, considering the fact that globalization has benefited the rich much more than the poor. While poverty rates have fallen as a result of our world becoming globalized, the workers are still getting an incredibly low income, which might cause social instability and conflict. Globalization has had a positive impact. One of the main advantages is that based on per capita GDP