It is difficult for a Backbench MP to influence government policy if a government has a large majority in Parliament. The power of individual backbench MPs is reduced making it harder to challenge the government. Also, the PM has powers of patronage which demand loyalty; few MPs want to cause a general election by defeating the government. Thus accepting their fate as lobby
Another example is when Britain joined a referendum by becoming a part of the E.U. This was very controversial because the UK is a democracy and without the consultation of the people, the UK no longer seems democratic. Elective dictatorship ties in with another reason which is time lag. Time lag plays an important role in the UK as it takes 5 years before another general election is held. This is criticised because the current political party in power have the ability to make their own decisions for the UK before listening to what the people want.
An example of this is how Giolitti was in office 5 separate times between 1892 - 1921. This shows how even with a very limited electorate no real leaders could take control. The politicians at the time were also corrupt as there were often allegations of buying votes or fixing the results of elections. Some proof of this is when Giolitti says “Laws are applied to enemies, but only interpreted as regards friends”. This corruption also added to the instability of government and its mandate to rule Italy.
With the rise in the professional politician many prefer to remain loyal in order to gain power and move up in the hierarchy as opposed to become a rebel who remains in the back benchers. This can be seen after the vote on tuition fees and the liberal democrats. Despite the fact that they had campaigned for this cause endlessly only 26 (including a few Conservatives) chose to vote against the bill. Whips play an important part in removing efficiency from Parliament. By having whips who ensure that MPs behave in accordance to the decisions of the executive both Parliaments ability to scrutinise and hold the executive to account is diminished, but also their role as representatives of their individual constituency is also compromised.
Nkolo Nyada Chapter 12 Paper Should the Electoral College Be Abolished? Richard J. Durbin argues that the Electoral College should be abolished. He believes that a president should be elected through the majority vote. He does not like the idea that if the difference between states votes are 5%, that all the electoral votes should be given to the winner. A “winner take all” sort of thing.
Contention 3: Wealth Cannot Buy Election Victories or Political Dominance_______________________________________________________ There is a common misconception that democracy and influence are truly for sale in the United States. However, the Journal of Political Economy notes that “Campaign spending has an extremely small impact on election outcomes regardless of incumbency status. According to my estimates, an extra $100,000 in campaign spending garners less than 0.33 percent of the vote.” Thus, although Citizens United has increased the amount of money flowing into the political system, we are not seeing victories for those supported by Super PACs at the rate some critics of the decision predicted. This is also due to the fact that corporations naturally compete with each other and unions have been freed to contribute (thereby acting as a counterbalance to corporate spending). According to the Melone, “A corporate political advertisement supporting or opposing a particular position or candidate will most definitely generate an immediate response by corporations with competing
Examples include the large fuel tax protests of winter 2000, the Make Poverty History campaign, the march against the Iraq war in 2003 – which drew 2 million people - and the widespread social movements of 2011, such as the now-famous ‘Occupy London’. The decline in electoral turnout could merely reflect a preference for different forms of participation, especially single-issue campaigning – which increased with the emergence of new issues, such as feminism, environmentalism or globalisation. This may be caused by the decline in party identification (as mentioned above) and the trend towards class dealignment, which further decreased indentification with a party system traditionally based around class. Changes in the governmental structure, such as the introduction of ‘e-petitions’ – where a petition getting 100,000 signatures triggers a debate in parliament – reflect this. This strongly suggests that political participation cannot simply be measured in terms of electoral turnout, as other forms of participation are becoming more popular.
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.
For example in the 2010 general election the Conservative party won with 307 seats, however only 36.1 per cent of people on the electoral register voted for them, which means that there were 67.9 per cent of the votes cast in the general election had no effect on the outcome and were wasted. This highlights the criticism of the legitimacy and the authority the current government has as well as the question of the legitimacy of their mandate as effectively 67.9 per cent of people voted against them. Another criticism of the FPTP system is that it favors only the larger parties and in the UK only three parties (Conservative, Labour and arguably the Liberal Democrats). This is seen as a bad thing as many parties don’t even stand any kind of chance during these elections, mostly because unlike the main 3 parties they do not have the money to send Representatives of their party to many different constituencies. This is seen as unfair as the main three parties have such an advantage but also reduces the
The problems with the way in which the electoral system worked, meant that the majority people wanted change and therefore pushed for electoral reform. Many constituencies were left underrepresented; As Thomas Paine explains in his book “Right of Man”, cities with thousands were receiving the same representation in parliament as small villages “The town of Old Sarum, which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which contains upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things?” The new industrial towns were also facing troubles with the services in the areas, as there was not enough to of it to cover the rising population the fact that they couldn’t not then bring this issue up due to lack of representation also led to the need for reform. The lack of representation was not the only injustice people felt with the electoral system, suffrage was also corrupt, in many cases powerful landlords in control of small constituencies knows as pocket or nomination boroughs would manipulate inhabitants with such tactics as bribery, force or even their wealth, as usually they were part of nobility, to vote for who they wanted in power. Examples of this can be seen when the Earl of Lonsdale brought 14,000 miners and made then freemen outside their