A pressure group is a group that tries to influence public policy in the interest of a particular cause. There are many pressure groups around the world, from well-known organisations such as Amnesty International, to lesser-known pressure groups such as the Zip Fastener Manufacturers’ Administration. However, no matter the size, they all have something in common; that they want their voices to be heard. Pressure groups undermine democracy because, although they improve participation, they are said to do this in an unequal way. Critics say that pressure groups benefit the well organised but they disadvantage the weakly organised, subsequently working against the public interest.
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.
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.
Part of the system is the introduction of proportional representation that meant parties in the Riechtag would gain seats depending upon the number of votes they got in the most recent election. The consequence of this was that it brought a number of parties together with the help of another key feature of the constitution, the “Bill of Rights”. This meant that parties could express their views, as the “Bill of Rights” was a law that gave people the freedom of speech. This union made representation of many opposing parties very open, which effectively made the Weimar constitution more democratic. However P.R made it difficult for a lot of parties to gain a majority of seats in the Reichstag, which made it harder for one major party to take control of the country.
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. This suggests that the government is more representative of the public as more people expressed their opinions and had a say as to who would run the country. Another reason why it can be seen as more representative is that with two parties in power, two groups of people are having their view, opinions and issues put forward and debated with a higher chance of success. This is opposed to one party having a majority, with one part of the population having their opinions getting across. Arguably, it is the majority
In the UK, we use a variety of different electoral systems to elect different MPs for different jobs. For example; to select the Prime Minister we use First Past the Post; for the mayoral elections we use the SV system; and to select the Scottish National Parliament, Welsh Assembly and the Greater London Assembly we used the AMS system. In the First Past the Post system which we use to select our Prime Ministers, the outcome is always that the ‘winner takes it all’, meaning that there are many wasted votes within the voting process. First Past the Post can produce positive outcomes due to the winner taking all, because this usually produces a single majority government, which means that the government is stronger, more stable and more able to fulfill their manifesto. However, this does not always happen, which can be seen in the current government.
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.
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.
Democratic Republicans all in all wanted things to remain the same in the U.S government because they felt that giving more power to the national government by way of national bank or tax would slowly get rid of the people’s voice in politics creating a rerun of the previous outcome with Great Britain. Both party’s with opposite beliefs going back and forth has followed the U.S since this time in history it is safe to say that the First Party System left behind a legacy of feuding in government politics. When it comes to decision
Composition of Parliament Introduction In the UK government, the legislative branch, parliament, is split up into two main chambers: The House of Lords and The House of Commons. The House of Commons is the lower chamber of parliament and has been seen as the dominant one for over a century. The main roles of the House of Commons are to: Propose and pass new laws, debate major political issues, and to scrutinise the work of the government. The House of Commons has 650 members and is composed of elected representatives from single member constituencies. The House of Lords is seen of the upper chamber in parliament and is made up of around 825 members.