Using Material from Item a and Elsewhere Assess the Strengths and Limitations of Questionnaires for the Study of Parental Attitudes to Education

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Discuss the view that political parties no longer serve any useful purpose (28) Political parties are groups of like – minded individuals who seek to realise collectively held goals by fielding candidates at general elections and therefore securing election to public office. Political parties fulfil at least six functions or roles within their party these functions consist of ; forming government, choice, accountability and scrutiny , representation , participation and aggregating opinions and forming policies. One of the six functions is called accountability and scrutiny this function is exercised out by the opposition within parliament if they don’t get the majority of votes, challenging the government by using methods of scrutiny such as prime ministers questions and debates as well as select committees etc. It has been argued that media and the public fulfil this particular role more effectively than the opposition examples of this is when the media had publicised negative articles regarding the inappropriate ‘pasty tax’ eventually causing the government to remove this tax that was held for approximately a month. A way of which the public had held the government to account was by holding up protests and looting shops due to the increase of tuition fees. Another, function that political fulfil is the participation of candidates. Parties encourage participation in a political process known as ‘fielding candidates’ for the electorate to vote for, allowing the mp’s to have the mandate to do so. In addition to that, participation is encouraged via membership; some who do become memberships upgrade their membership by standing for candidates within the political parties. During the years of 1950, political parties had high membership of about 23/24 million, however in the first decade of the 21st century pressure groups have more participation/membership than all
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