Discuss the view that the UK has a two party system (30) It has been argued strongly for quite some time that the UK has a two party system; this is predominantly illustrated through the successes of the Conservatives and Labour parties. However the 2010 election proved otherwise and suggests there is now a reason to class the UK as having a multi-party system- the success of the Liberal Democrats. Firstly there is some strong evidence that shows that the UK must have a two party system because the third most important party in politics, the Liberal Democrats, are unable to win on their own. Ever since they were founded in 1988 they have never managed to seize power by themselves. They are dependent on a coalition government because so far they have never had a majority in Parliament.
Although this happens infrequently there have been cases where Commons has voted against government. Good examples of this are with the Gurkhas row in 2008 and more prominently Blair’s plans to extend the The powers of the whip and party loyalty are diminishing during this coalition. Reports suggest that the voting behaviour of coalition MPs show that rebellion is at a postwar high. Similarly the last Labour government towards the end had major difficulties from backbenchers, with 112 Labour backbenchers going against the government at least once. Backbench rebellions have been more frequent than any since the second world war and for some MPs rebellion against the coalition is becoming a habit.
Summary of a Situation that Required U.S. Diplomatic Efforts during the President Reagan’s Time in Office “Doctrines were, by journalist definition, U.S. presidents articulated policies. They help us remember who stood for what. These doctrines are variations of the first one, The Truman Doctrine, sometimes called the “containment” policy, which was based on stopping communism.” (Roskin, 1999, p. 58). I will be talking about President Reagan’s Doctrine and some of what happened during his administration.
Do you agree with the view that Thatcherism was a radical break with the past which ended post-war consensus in Britain? Post war consensus was policies laid down by Attlee's government(1945-51) that were followed by successive successive Labour and Conservative governments for the next 35 years, until Thatcher began to challenge it. The Conservative and Labour government's policies were based on Keynesianism, the Beveridge Report, the principle of independence of former British colonies and the notion of creating equal opportunity for all. However Thatcher, a conviction politician, began to challenge this consensus after the Conservative election win in 1979 and her time in office became known as the 'Thatcher revolution', the second revolution since Attlee's government. Thatcherism did not end the 35 year long post war consensus in Britain, especially in foreign affairs.
This has received much criticism as unlike states these organisations operate without checks or balances and are difficult to control due to their flexible nature and cross-border activity. Marxists also point out that unlike nation-states government’s, companies are motivated by profits and self interest rather than a democratic government which is in place to serve the people regardless of self interest. However an argument in defence of the nation-state is that of nationalism most countries from the most
Labour promised to create a New Jerusalem, a prosperous country where all strive for the better. However, Source A states that “They had disastrously overestimated Britain’s ability to export”, Britain needed to create money for itself after America’s Lend Lease policy which left Britain in debt for over 50 years, Britain was unable to export a sufficient amount of goods to provide itself with enough money to stabilize the economy, the source follows up with “underestimated her need for dollars”. Britain’s way of dealing with debt was to create more debt for itself; John Maynard Keynes went over to the United States in order to ask America for a loan without interest, the loan which was bestowed upon Britain by the United States and Canada was $9.5 billion. One of the reasons Labour was unable to create a New Jerusalem was due to the fact that they were unable to shut down the debt which anchored Britain’s economy, Labour had little funds to initiate its promises and plans, leading to the failure of a New Jerusalem. Another reason that Labour failed to build a New Jerusalem was the fact that they were unable to upkeep their promise of housing.
Was the Labour 1945 election win a forgone conclusion. There are many different opinions as to why Labour won the nineteen fourteen five general election. A large amount of the opinion that the election was over even before it had begun however i do not think that this is true. In my opinion the main reason for Labour winning the 1945 election was not thorough the skill of the Labour and certainly not through the skill of their campaign of Atlee himself it was through the conservatives and in particular Winston Churchill shooting himself in the foot.The conservatives made many errors however the biggest of these was the comment than Winston Churchill made on the 4th of june 1945 in which he spoke about how no socialist government come survive without a Gestapo type presence, whether or not this is true this was not a quote which was thought through in anyway by the prime minister at the time or by any of his advisors the United Kingdom was just coming out of a long and hard war in which British propaganda had made the Gestapo out to be the ultimate enemy. For this reason the Gestapo was not something that the British people were very sympathetic towards and Winston Churchill by using this in is his speech made a large amount of the British people reconsider their views on him and it was around this time that the British people started to see Atlee as a serious option to lead the country.
Effectively the act benefited the middle classes, who were now given an electoral voice in parliament, while the working classes were largely ignored, causing widespread anger and resentment for the act, and all those it benefited. The huge number of working classes wanted to be represented, and the act was yet more salt in the wound. If you were to gather up dates for the most widespread Chartist appreciation in Britain and put this on a graph alongside the economies peaks and troughs, the results would no doubt roughly mirror each other. For Chartism excelled during times of economic disturbance, particularly the late 30’s. This ran alongside the blossoming industrialisation of Britain, areas such as Stockport and Cheshire undergoing radical change were often the strongest supports of Chartism.
This can be seen when looking at the two most powerful Prime Ministers in the post war era; Thatcher and Blair were in differing ways removed from their parties. Both Prime Ministers won three general elections and aspired to stay in office longer than they were able to. Thatcher faced a leadership challenge from within her party and while Heseltine got less votes than her, her cabinet made it clear to her that she had lost authority and that she should resign. She went on to describe this as ‘treachery with a smile upon its face’. Slightly less dramatically, Tony Blair faced a large rebellion in September 2006 led by ministers such as Tom Watson that forced him to promise to step down after a year had passed.
Capitalism affects everyone in a different way; it affects the quality of life one can have. Capitalism is morally deficient economic system in today’s society because it creates an unequal opportunity for citizens, causes a gap in the economic classes, has reversed the consumer- retailer relationship from a ‘push’ to a ‘pull’, leads to unfair free trading with other countries, and loses jobs for the hard working United States citizens. Capitalism creates an unequal opportunity for citizens to obtain an equal education, equal housing, and equal jobs opportunities in society. A symbolic analyst according to Robert B. Reich, in “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer” is in support of higher education. People with a higher education are not only able to help save their country, but they are able to help save the world.