Unit 2: Is the Lords currently too powerful?

There's some useful analysis on the extent to which the Lords has power in Parliament (great for the Unit 2 paper!) in this article from the BBC.

A few weeks ago, Ministers were arguing that the elected Commons was being undermined by the unelected Lords, and were planning legislation to prevent peers in the Lords from overturning government legislation - this came about following the government's defeat on cutting tax credits in the Lords in October.

However, critics of the proposed move said that this would tilt the balance of power too much in favour of the government, and reduce the ability of the Lords to act as an effective check on government power. Ultimately, the Constitution Committee recognised that a 6 week review into this highly politicised debate was not really a good enough basis for fundamentally changing the UK's constitution and balance of power.

This meant that when the Queen gave her speech to Parliament last week at the State Opening there was no mention of any legislation that might curb the powers of the Lords to veto legislation.

But is the Lords getting more militant? If we look simply at the numbers then it certainly appear to be the case. In the 2015-2016 parliamentary session there were 60 defeats inflicted by the Lords on the Commons. However, this isn't necessarily that uncommon. In Labour's 2005-2006 session, they lost on 62 occasions, and 88 occasions in 2002-2003. You can find the details of defeats here on the Parliament website.

I think we need to look beyond the numbers, though. Labour suffered so many defeats partly because at the time the Lords was still dominated by the Conservatives. Now, however, the Tories are in a minority in the Lords. There are many more Lib Dem peers in the Lords (chosen by Nick Clegg during his time as Deputy PM), and many of them are responsible for some of the defeats. There are 109 Lib Dem peers out of 807 Lords - this is around half the number of Labour peers - and it gives the Lib Dems much more power in the Lords than they have in the Commons with only 8 of the 650 MPs.

It's also worth looking more broadly at the nature of the Lords as it currently exists. It's not clear that tweaking the rules on what they can vote on is actually the answer here. Maybe something more fundamental - like an elected chamber, or at least partially-elected - would be more useful. Although based on the evidence of gridlock in the US system, maybe this would cause even less legislation to be passed.

AS Politics - You heard it here first!

Click here for interesting piece on betting sites Vs opinion polls

Unit 1: Model Essay on electoral system

Example UK Politics Essay: Discuss the view that the electoral system for Westminster should change to proportional representation?

In simple terms, a proportional representation system is one in which the proportion of seats allocated to a particular party is the same as the proportion of votes won by that party. Each vote, therefore, carries equal weight, and typically there is a need for a multi-member constituency. Elections for the House of Commons currently use the “winner take all” approach of First Past The Post, which has been criticised for failing to represent the views of significant minorities and preventing smaller parties from having much influence in Parliament, thus ensuring a continued two-party system. Proportional representation can take a number of forms (and is already used in some parts of the UK) e.g. Single Transferable Vote in the NI Assembly, Additional Member System in the Scottish Parliament, and the Closed Party List for elections to the European Parliament. It will be argued in this essay that whilst proportional representation may enhance some elements of representative democracy, it may actually lead to more fragmented and unstable government and is therefore not desirable in the UK’s Westminster elections.

One of the strongest arguments in favour of a move towards proportional representation is dissatisfaction with the current FPTP system. The FPTP system, because of single-member constituencies can result in the existence of so-called safe seats (estimated by the Electoral Reform Society to be 368 seats of the total 650 constituencies ahead of the 2015 General Election). Indeed, 225 constituencies have not changed hands since before 1950, despite big changes in cultural attitudes and the UK’s demography. In a safe seat, such as David Cameron’s Witney constituency which has been in Tory hands since 1910, any voters who identify with the non-majority party may feel that there is no chance of their view being represented, and this can in turn reduce voter turnout andpolitical participation (accentuated by voters who tend to identify with the dominant party in a particular safe seat and feel that there is no need to turn out at all because their chosen party will win regardless of their vote). However, there is actually scant evidence available to suggest that voter turnout is higher in proportional systems. In the UK, devolved elections typically have lower turnout despite using a range of proportional representation systems. The 2014 European elections only had a turnout of 35.6%, worse than the (still poor) turnout across Europe of 42.6%.

This situation may be worsened in a winner-take-all system as a result ofgerrymandering e.g. the controversy over the Boundary Commission’s recent review ofconstituency boundaries which seemed to protect Tory seats over Labour and Lib Dem seats. This said, previously safe Labour seats in Scotland were lost to the SNP in the 2015 General Election, showing that the FPTP system can lead to different outcomes if there is enough consensus amongst voters that a change is needed.

There are other valid reasons for moving away from FPTP and towards an alternative proportional system. Whilst safe seats are an issue at one end of the spectrum, at the other end is the concern that a “winner” can be produced with a tiny mandate e.g. the SDLP candidate for South Belfast winning with just 24.5% of the vote in 2015, and in total 8 MPs won seats having won less than 35% of the votes cast. Also, many parts of the country may become electoral deserts, in which some parties who feel that there is little chance of them winning decide against putting forward a candidate at all – thisreduces voter choice and undermines democracy. A proportional system would address these issues, and many politicians believe that some sort of reform to the electoral system is necessary.

As mentioned in the introduction, a range of proportional representation electoral systems are currently in use across the UK. The Closed Party List for elections of MEPs tothe European Parliament is arguably the most proportionally representative system of the methods used, and elects MEPs in 12 UK multi-party constituencies. In the 2014 European Election, UKIP won the popular vote in the UK with 26.6% of the vote (24 seats) – the first time that a party other than Labour or Conservatives have won a popular vote in the UK since 1906 (Labour won 24.4% and 20 seats, and the Conservatives 23.05% and 19 seats). This is evidence that, in multi-party large constituencies, smaller parties that represent the views of significant numbers of constituents can win a number of seats. One concern with the use of proportional representation as an electoral system is that it can allow more extremist parties to gain power, thus potentially destabilising the political system. However, in the 2014 European Parliament elections there were 20 parties that received some share of the vote but still not enough to award them seats – this included far-right parties such as the BNP and Britain First. It is true that this means some voters will not have their views represented, but when they are a tiny minority this is probably good in terms of preventing tyranny by the minority.

As mentioned earlier, turnout in this 2014 European election was low. One reason for this is that UK voters are used to the single-member constituencies used for Westminster, in which they have a named specific representative in the Commons who can address the interests of their constituents. PR systems weaken this link between constituents and their representative, arguably reducing the strength and quality of representative democracy in a particular area. For example, in multi-member constituencies, constituents may not know who to approach, and their representatives may not have good local knowledge if they are representing a much larger geographical area. The UK’s House of Commons has more representatives per person than in any other modern democracy, and a move to PR could weaken that important and unique link.

The inevitable result of using a more proportionally representative system for Westminster is the increased likelihood of coalition government. Coalition governments can sometimes take time to form e.g. it took around a week for Cameron and Clegg to form a government. In the meantime, there is effectively a power vacuum, and no Parliament – this reduces the quality of representation. Arguably a week is not a long time, but in some countries such as Germany and Greece, coalition governments take much longer to form. Furthermore, whilst coalition government can lead to greater compromise and conciliation between parties in relation to policy-making, it can also slow down the policy-making process if there are strong internal disagreements (e.g. in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition there were different views on electoral reform, university tuition fees, military intervention overseas and so on). This makes government less effective and reduces the desirability of proportional representation.

Coalition government also means that the governing group have no clear mandatebecause their combined policies, such as the Coalition Agreement, have not met with the direct approval of the electorate at the ballot box via a manifesto. Furthermore, the compromises reached between different parties may actually lead to voter anger if they feel that their views are even less likely to be represented e.g. the Lib Dem climbdown over the abolition of university tuition fees (a key manifesto pledge) leading to “punishment” of the Lib Dems at the 2015 General Election, effectively removing them almost completely from the Commons. This has resulted in instability in the political system at Westminster, with the Lib Dem’s position as 3rd most populous party being taken by the SNP, which only has Scottish interests at heart.

Overall, whilst the current FPTP system for Westminster elections certainly has its flaws, stable government and a close link between MPs and their constituents are key strengths that would be lost if the UK moved towards a more proportional system.

Unit 1: Pressure Groups - Model essay

Example Essay UK Politics - do pressure groups always undermine democracy?

Whilst pressure groups may undermine the normal method of political participation in the UK’s representative democracy, their existence may strengthen pluralist democracy. This is achieved by pressure groups encouraging the general public to participate in politics and improving the government’s policy-making through better information and scrutiny.

However whilst some pressure groups certainly do lead to a more democratic outcome in the UK, others may do little to improve democracy because of elitism and an overly-narrow focus resulting in “tyranny by the minority”. It will be argued in this essay that, overall, pressure groups do not generally undermine democracy.

The most well-known pressure groups are usually those that have engaged in direct action, often using controversial “civil disobedience” stunts which hit the news headlines e.g. the UK Cannabis Campaign’s Hyde Park “smoke out” in 2013, or Plane Stupid’s campaign to prevent a 3rd runway at Heathrow in which 13 campaigners shackled themselves together on the north runway in July 2015, or New Fathers 4 Justice members climbing respected buildings dressed as superheroes.

These single-issue causal pressure groups arguably undermined democracy by breaking the law – law which has been passed by elected representatives in the House of Commons – and causing significant disruption to other law-abiding citizens in prime examples of tyranny by the minority. More recently, critics of groups that use disruptive direct action by narrow-interest low-membership groups argue that such activity hinders and may prevent joined-up government, since the UK government has to balance a number of demands.

However, the campaigners involved were trying to ensure that their views were heard; cannabis smokers, for example, may feel that they are under-represented in the Commons (where it would be fairly scandalous for an MP to admit that they smoked cannabis) and certainly under-represented in the “interest areas” represented by peers in the House of Lords. Representative democracy, as it works in the UK, does not necessarily allow all people to have their views and opinions represented, and so direct action by pressure groups perhaps enhances pluralist democracy (a system in which there are numerous centres of political power).

 Many pressure groups or lobbying organisations ensure that issues important to the general public actually make it onto the desks of MPs and into the debating chambers of the Commons and Lords, potentially changing the law. There are countless historical examples of this in the UK, for example the Suffragette movement which ultimately led to universal suffrage (which clearly enhanced rather than undermined democracy!). Another example would be the All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federation which led to the abolition of the deeply unpopular poll tax in 1990, thus changing the law in line with the will of the majority of Britons and, according to many people, reducing the impact of Thatcher’s so-called elective dictatorship and restoring effective representative democracy. The action of the pressure group in this particular case helped to hold the government to account in the lengthy period between elections, ensuring that the elected representatives continued to act according to their mandate and not beyond, in accordance with the delegate model of representation rather than the trustee model.

However, the ability of a pressure group to actually influence government policy depends not only on the wide support of the general public but also on the availability of so-called access points to politicians. For example, the Countryside Alliance had more sympathy within the Tory-Lib Dem coalition than they had under the 1997-2010 Labour government. This said, MPs are technically not allowed to accept money from a lobbying organisation to ask parliamentary questions, table motions or introduce bills – this was reaffirmed by the 2014 Patrick Mercer Panorama Fiji cash-for-access scandal.

Another way in which pressure groups enhance rather than undermine democracy is through their wide and extensive membership. The classic example is that there are now more members of the RSPB than there are paid members of political parties. Even if people feel that that there is no party that particularly represents their interests (something that seems to be increasingly the case given the UK’s class de-alignment in relation to political parties in the UK) they can usually identify with a pressure group and may participate in politics through pressure groups rather than through more traditional routes.

Another upshot of this high membership of pressure groups is that it can give a weighting to the different items on the government’s mandate following an election, because different groups can express interest in particular areas e.g. UK Uncut’s pressure on the government to reduce the extremity of austerity cuts.

However, many of the best-known pressure groups are the large groups with a strong corporate identify e.g. the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has a very recognisable panda logo, and Oxfam also has a strong high street presence. These groups attract a significant amount of money and therefore can be really influential, perhaps overly so in some cases. For example, back in 2010 the WWF was criticised for claiming that 40% of the Amazon rainforest was at threat from global warming and that certain chunks needed rapid protection, resulting in the WWF attempting to claim $60bn in “carbon credits” for protecting an area of rainforest that actually wasn’t at threat. Furthermore, many pressure groups are not considered internally democratic, and this may limit participation by the public. For example, the leaders of the National Farmers Union are chosen indirectly by county delegates rather than by the overall membership.

This said, though, many groups operate efficiently and this allows them to achieve their other aims of improving information and holding the government to account. Despite some incidences of pressure groups providing incorrect information, many pressure groups help to educate and inform the public and the government on important issues. The Confederation of Business Industries (CBI) has a Public Services team which advises the government on modern business techniques for achieving better efficiency (which reduces the need for drastic austerity measures).

Whilst the CBI has been criticised by the Vote Leave campaign for the upcoming EU Referendum for being too political in strongly supporting the case to stay in the EU, the CBI has carried out significant research on this important issue. This should ensure that British citizens will be able to participate more effectively in the direct democracy of this referendum. Whilst there are some cases in which pressure groups have disrupted effective democracy in the UK, for the most part pressure groups can enhance rather than undermine democracy.

Unit 2: Constitution & Constitutional Reform

Here's a quick multi-choice quiz on the Constitution and its reform for your AS students. It takes the form of one of our favourite activities here at tutor2u - the Confidence Based Dance Off! The concept is aimed at getting students to think a little more carefully before calling out their answers. Before declaring their answer to each question the student must also decide how confident they are with their response (either high, medium or low). They are awarded points (or deducted points!) based upon whether they are correct or incorrect and the level of confidence they expressed.

You can get your students to complete this quiz on their own or in small teams. There are 6 questions in this resource. Perfect as a quick classroom starter for your next revision session.

Revision quiz on constitutional reform from mattbentley34

Unit 1: Essay - Discuss the extent to which the UK’s version of representative democracy could be improved

This is an essay from another syllabus, hence why it is so long. However, the salient points remain the same.

Representative democracy, or indirect democracy, refers to the election of officials/lawmakers to represent the views of the electorate in parliament. In the UK, we elect our MPs, our MEPs, our local councillors, and in some parts of the country a Mayor (e.g. London). Whilst there are clear benefits to having a system of representative democracy in the UK, there are two key problems. Firstly, the UK’s electoral system doesn’t always ensure that everyone is properly represented. Secondly, once in power, there is no guarantee that our elected representatives will actually make policies or legislate in a way that is satisfactory to most of the electorate. Both of these issues will be discussed below.

Representative democracy is effectively the opposite of direct democracy (a system in which each individual has the right to initiate policy themselves). Representative democracy is usually regarded as an essential feature of a large society because it allowslegislating and executive decision-making to be carried out more efficiently by a small number of people, many of whom are experts in that job. This means that policy can be formulated really quickly if necessary (e.g. terror legislation post 7/7), and it also allows the electorate to “get on with everyday life” rather than everyone spending swathes of time on political matters. Furthermore, representative democracy in the UK allows the electorate to have easy access to their MP (e.g. through the regular constituency clinics usually held on Fridays across the UK).

The first argument against the effectiveness of the UK’s system of representative democracy is that the system does not necessarily allow everyone to be properly represented. There are a number of reasons for this.

Firstly, the First Past the Post electoral system for MPs means that smaller parties often gain little traction and cannot win enough votes to gain a seat in Parliament. For example, in 2015, the candidate standing for the SDLP in South Belfast won the seat with only 24.5% of the vote – this means that 75.5% of those who turned out to vote in South Belfast are not represented by the person or party to which they were most closely aligned. Therefore many of the votes cast in these types of constituency are effectively wasted votes. We can see this is not a new problem by examining both the share of votes won and the share of Commons seats won by the Tories throughout the 1980s and 90s. In 1979 the Conservatives won 43.9% of the votes and 53.4% of the seats, compared with the 1983 result of 42.4% of the votes and a huge 61.1% of the seats, and then in 1992 winning 42.3% of the votes (i.e. hardly any different to 1983) but a huge change in the proportion of seats at 51.6%.

However, it is difficult to see how the electoral system could easily be changed. FPTP is the most common electoral system globally for legislatures chosen in a representative democracy. The British public rejected the proposal for an AV system in a 2011referendum. Furthermore, alternative systems of more proportional representation (e.g. Germany’s) may result in uneasy coalitions which generate little meaningful policy thereby making representative democracy less effective and efficient. An alternative is for political parties to manipulate the shortlists for election candidates. The Labour Party has, in the recent past, used all-women shortlists to help increase the number of women in parliament. However, this technique is actually quite unpopular with voters – a 2014YouGov poll showed that 56% of the British public are opposed to the AWS system.

Secondly, voter turnout in the UK can be very low. The turnout for General Elections is usually reasonably high compared with other elections, but this rate remains stubbornly below the level prior to 1997 i.e. 66.1% at the 2015 General Election, compared with 77.7% in 1992 and 76% in 1979. There are a number of possible explanations for low turnout, but with regards to this question in particular, perhaps many voters feel that they are not adequately represented by their MP (different ethnicity, different educational/family background etc). Young people may feel that their MP is “out of touch”, and may be more likely to participate in democracy through e-voting (which currently doesn’t exist in the UK) or through protests/pressure groups. However, turnout varies hugely depending on the type of election. For example, national turnout was just 31% in the 2012 local elections (although this hides large disparities between council wards), and 34.2% in the 2014 European elections for MEPs.

One way of improving turnout could be to make voting compulsory (as in Australia), but the downside is that some members of the electorate do not actually want to vote or would be happy to vote if only there was a candidate that they found appealing. Another method could be to change the voting day from Thursday or extending the voting period to being longer than one day in order to improve convenience of voting – but this is difficult in practical terms due to polling stations often being in buildings that are needed for other purposes such as nurseries. The government could also invest into making it easier to vote electronically rather than physically attending a polling station or posting a postal vote. Finally, making it easier to register as a voter could also help – the change from household to individual registration has been blamed for poor turnout amongst young people who were previously often registered by their parents but can no longer rely on this. Movements such as Operation Black Vote (OBV) may also help encourage turnout amongst black and ethnic minority voters – OBV has been credited this Spring with helping Sadiq Khan to victory in the London mayoral election.

The second broad way in which representative democracy could be improved would be to improve the accountability of represented officials and ensure that they actually represent the interests of the people who voted them into power. There are various reasons why representatives may not actually do what we expect them to. One reason is a lack of effective scrutiny, due to, perhaps, weak Opposition (i.e. discord and disagreement in the Labour party following Corbyn’s election as party leader), or overly theatrical Question Times that are about cheap shots and not true scrutiny of the government (although politicians are increasingly held in check by social media responses to their performance). However, the increasing professionalization of Select Committees (e.g. paying the Chair an amount equivalent to that of a Minister) has gone some way to improving scrutiny, as has the use of the FOI Act by the media (e.g. the Telegraph’s investigation into the MP expenses scandal)

Another reason is that it can be quite difficult to actually remove a representative such as an MP from office until the next election. However, the Recall of MPs Act 2015 goes some way to redressing this issue, although the introduction of this new legislation was not without its controversies – Labour MP Geraint Davies said that there was a risk of the process being misused by groups with a vested interest and this could actually undermine representative democracy. Nonetheless the Bill became an Act.

However, maybe we should take note of the words of theorist Edmund Burke on representative democracy – he argued that we should trust the expert opinions of our representatives even if we happen to disagree with them. He wrote “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”.

Clearly, the UK’s version of representative democracy is not perfect. However, it seems difficult to come up with ways in which it could be easily improved – efforts to enhance representative democracy are often unpopular with the electorate, or unnecessarily expensive / time-consuming. Maybe the increasing use of social media may help.

Unit 3: EU for beginners!

Click here to access a simple and easy to follow piece on all things EU.

Useful for your studies, but also for the upcoming Brexit vote!

Unit 1 & 2: Revision Videos

Many thanks Mr Dale for posting these short but informative videos....excellent for revision....

Unit 1 & 2: Democratic deficit & electoral turnout.

More recent data from the Electoral Reform Society (a pressure group in themselves) showing a disturbing trend in terms of voting turnout. Click here for the article.

Obviously this is useful for any question on electoral systems, democratic deficit, representation, legitimacy etc.

Question to think about: Why do some areas of the UK (Hull for example), experience a lower turnout than others?