In 1974 the Labour government had been divided but after the referendum was passed and the public elected to stay in the EEC it united the Labour government, thus, making the executive a strong one. They believe that all these prose prove that referendums are useful in the UK and should be used more widely in Great Britain However, there are many people who disagree with referendums, saying they shouldn’t be used more widely throughout the UK. Some would argue that the
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.
Due to these factors it makes the parliamentary democracy within Germany appear as though they were just trying to please the people which I will now explore. One example of Germany being a parliamentary democracy is the Reichstag as it was elected on a system of universal male suffrage (over 25’s). The Reichstag also had some control over the defence budget, the annual budget and also had a say on legislation. However, it is debatable as to how much parliamentary democracy the Reichstag actually had as its powers were very limited and could be dissolved by the Kaiser if he chose to do so. Also, despite the Reichstag having some control over the defence budget, the military was not actually accountable to the Reichstag and did not have full control over the budgets.
Proportional Representation (PR) is the principle behind a number of electoral systems, all of which attempt to ensure that the outcome of the election reflects the proportion of support gained by each competing group. PR contrasts to the Majoritarian principle, where whichever party or candidate obtains a plurality of votes within any given constituency wins that contest outright. Majoritarianism is the principle that underpins the First-Past-The-Post system that is used for elections to the House of Commons, along with other systems including alternative vote, bloc vote and various single member constituency systems. Similarly, there are a number of different systems based on PR. A simple party-list PR system is used in the UK for the European Parliament.
Scott martin – extended essay - liberal reforms Question – how successfully did the Liberal government (1906-14). Tackle the problem of poverty? Many historians argue the liberals effectively tackled the problem of poverty once elected in 1906 in their landslide victory. Once the party was elected however it was still very much in favour of its laissez-faire policy and social reform was not high in its parties priorities, it took significant time and pressure also some very notable individuals such as Lloyd George or Winston Churchill to change the course of Britain’s welfare system and unwittingly perhaps set up the foundations of the welfare state in the future. This essay will show how the liberals aimed to tackle the problem of
the Conservatives. However the relevance of this tradition right and left battle between Labour and the Conservatives has declined in recent years for many reason raising question about the similarity of the two parties and seeing as they are the biggest two parties in UK politics it reduces the choice of major parties to vote for, for the electorate. Traditionally, the left and right divide has been portrayed as a battle between Socialism and Conservatism. Socialism has been traditionally been viewed as the ideology of the Labour party and Conservatism has traditionally been seen as the ideology of the Conservative. These two parties have developed policies on the basis of a vision of how they believed society should be organised.
However it could be argued that Wilhelm II’s aims to crush socialism in response to Caprivi’s tolerance for Socialism in his years as chancellor disagree with this view as it suggests he is aiming for more of an autocratic state where he holds state control. Another notable factor which suggests Germany was a parliamentary democracy is Wilhelm II could ignore the views of the centre party; failed attempts to previously dismiss them such as the Kulturkampf were a failure because the party’s strong political views are extremely influential, and they have always had a substantial amount of seats in the party. This in turn meant the government was influenced by the parliament. However, there were many events which demonstrate the Kaiser
In 2010 backbenchers were threatening to rebel over tuition fees. This was enough to force concessions to be made so the rebellion wasn’t as large as expected. It could be said that they failed because the bill wasn’t defeated but in a way it was a success as changes were made. This shows that the image of being lobby fodder is being shaken off by the more outspoken MPs. It is difficult for a Backbench MP to influence government policy if a government has a large majority in Parliament.
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.
Proponents of the UK and US voting methods also often cite the lack of a credible alternative as a reason for the retention of the current systems. In the UK, national elections are held when the incumbent government chooses to call an election. This differs significantly from the USA where political office is held on a fixed term basis. When a general election is called each constituency holds an election to decide their Member of Parliament (MP) using the first past the post system. If a party gains a majority it will be offered the chance to form government by the Queen.