FPTP ensures a strong and stable government in the UK; however, FPTP can sometimes fail to do so. First Past the Post ensures there is a strong a stable Government by, guaranteeing a party will receive the majority of seats in an election more than 90% of the time. For example; in the history of election outcomes in the UK, there has only been two occasions when a party failed to gain more than 50% of seats. This situation occurred in 2010 when the Tories gained 306 seats, and formed a coalition with the Lib Dems. In 1979 Labour Party under the Leadership of Wilson gained 301 seats and ended up forming a coalition with the Liberals in 1976.
It can be argued that FPTP has created a clear two party system. This can be illustrated because post-war only Labour and Conservatives have been in power. Labour or Conservatives have been the government every election because they have a lot of support throughout the UK, and therefore come first in many constituencies. To form a government, a party must have the majority of seats throughout the UK, which Labour or Conservatives always do. In 2005, the Liberal Democrats had 22% of the overall vote in the UK, sharing, but because of the FPTP system they only won 62 seats out of the 646 constituencies in the UK, this shows this system as clearly an unfair.
They feel the Democrats take their votes for granted and the Republicans are against them particularly as the majority are poor. Voter turnout for Whites was 66%, 65% of Blacks turned out to vote while Hispanic and Asian turnout rates were much lower and similar at about 49%. In relation to the 2004 President Election the voting rates for Blacks, Hispanics and Asians increased by about 4% points while the White voting rate decreased by 1%. Of the 5 million additional voters in 2008, approximately 2 million were Black, 2 million Hispanic and 600,000 Asian. These statistics show that ethnic minorities have made up the majority of additional voters, presenting the importance of ethnic minorities in the US political system.
In an attempt to gain more support, Von Papen held an election, only to be bested by the Nazis, who won by a landslide of 230 seats and as result, became the largest party of the Reichstag. Because of the Nazis success at the Reichstag, Hitler demanded position of Chancellor, only to be refused by Hindenburg, who disliked Hitler and asked Von papen to remain in office. The new reichstag weren't advocates of Von Papen, with only 32 supporting him and 513 against him. He was dependant on the presidential decree and support of Hindenburg for yet another time. Von papen arranged another election hoping to win more support from the reichstag, however, he fell short once more to the Nazis, obtaining an even fewer amount of seats.
In the 1960s, 60% of voters claimed to have had an alignment with an individual party, however, as of 2000 this numbers has fallen down to a mere 10%. The reason of which is due to party de-alignment. Party de-alignment has increased in recent years because of the adoption of ‘catch all parties’. Catch all parties are parties than align themselves on the political compass to the majority views in the country. Therefore it can be said that the UK is a two party democracy.
Therefore, if a party could attract women voters by having female candidates they would have attracted a larger percentage of voters than parties focussing on attracting professional men, who would be too busy to vote. Whilst Labour were undoubtedly trying to monopolise on this phenomenon, they did double the amount of female MP’s in Parliament. Since 2005, the number of female MPs has risen 3% to total 22% post 2010. In 2012 there are 144 female MPs within the House of Commons. Within the ‘Lords there are 181 female peers.
What evidence is there to suggest that the new Coalition government is more representative than before? In 2010 a new coalition government was elected into power, it was the first time since 1977 when Labour joined the Lib Dems. The outcome of the 2010 election left no clear majority to any one party in government so it was agreed that David Cameron would be the Prime Minister, with his conservatives, and Nick Clegg would become Deputy to Cameron, with the Liberal Democrats. But many people question as to whether this coalition is a more representative government. 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.
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.
As a result of this the voice of a pressure group can be very loud as even if half of its members turn out to a protest or march they would have more than the total of political parties. Also there are many more pressure groups than political parties, as in 2010 there were only 398 registered parties but a much larger 7,000 organizations that could be classed as a pressure group. The figure of 398 political parties does include parties which have no influence at all due to be unable to win any seats in commons so losing a chance at a voice in parliament. Also funding is much higher for pressure groups as the trade union ‘unison’ has yearly subscriptions of 160m a year compared to 30-40m a year for cons and labs this means that pressure groups have a capability to buy more resources with which to gain their aims. On the other hand some pressure groups, in particular those classed as outsider, even with high levels of membership will struggle to get their view across as the government in power will simply not give into their pressure as it will look bad on them, especially if the group
It is not only in America that the young do not exercise their democratic rights. In 2010 just 44% of people aged 18 to 24 voted in Britain’s general election, compared with 65% of people of all ages. In not a single European country do the young turn out more than older people. Historically, youth turnout has never been particularly high anywhere, but over the past few decades things have got worse. One explanation favoured by older people is that the young are simply lazy.