...To what extent does the PM dominate the UK political system? Some say that the Britain has entered an era of elective dictatorship; this is when a government that is elected but has won so many votes that it can do what It likes1. In the UK we have a first past the post voting system so theoretically speaking once elected government can do as they please as they have been given the power to do so by the majority of voters who voted them in. The Prime Minister is the head of government and as head of the executive he has powers that can portray him as a dictator not someone representing the ideas of the general population. For example the conservative government introduced ‘the bedroom tax’ if this was David Cameron’s idea he has the power to ensure that his party vote for this law even if they disagree. In this essay I will evaluate evidence on how much the PM dominates the political system in the UK and conclude by giving my opinion on to what extent he controls the political system. The PM is head of the executive and seen as the most important figure of UK politics, with this comes powers and responsibility’s that arguably makes him the most powerful man in the country. The ability to hand pick your cabinet is a key factor on how much the PM controls the political system of, being able to choose who does what job in the country means the PM holds the careers and more importantly the livelihoods of the ministers in his hand because he has the ability to hire and fire ministers...
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...government where a head of government is also head of state and leads an executive branch that is separate from the legislative branch. The United States, for instance, has a presidential system. Whereas, a prime ministerial system adopts a fused system, in which the three branches of government are fused together and the monarchy is head of state. The Uk, for instance has a prime ministerial government, where Queen Elizabeth is head of state and David Cameron is the Executive. One could argue that the Uk’s government has become marginally presidential, as the need for a cabinet has become less over time. However, the UK are still a fused government in which powers are shared within parliament, unlike a presidential system. The tendency of Prime Ministers to distance themselves from their party and government has increased, developing a personal ideological stance. Prime Ministers such as Blair and Thatcher are key examples. Both Prime Ministers have developed their own stances: “Blairism” and “Thatcherism’. Blair, for example, had really bad attendance at Parliament and his Cabinet Ministers have been quoted as saying that: “Cabinet meeting sometimes lasted only fifteen minutes.” also, Blair decided a lot of his policies within the Pm’s office, rather than discussing it with his cabinet. For example, the decision to go to war with Iraq was seen as sofa politics and a singular decision rather than a plural decision with the cabinet. This shows that Blair had a tendency to act like...
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...Government & Politics Unit 2 * Constitution * Codified Constitution ✓ * Advantages & Disadvantages * Features * Uncodified Constitution ✓ * Advantages & Disadvantages * Features * Is Parliament Sovereign? ✓ * Arguments For and Against * Strengths and Weaknesses of the UK’s constitution ✓ * Constitutional Reforms – Coalition and 1997-2010 ✓ * What are they? * Are they effective? * PM & Cabinet * Features & Functions of the PM ✓ * What must a politician be to becoming PM * What can a PM do? * Functions of Cabinet ✓ * Factors that affect promotion and resignation of a minister ✓ * Powers and Constraints of PM ✓ * Theories of Executive Power ✓ * PM V Cabinet ✓ * Parliament * Functions of Parliament ✓ * What are they? * How effective are they? * Powers of Parliament ✓ * What are they? * How effective are they? * Parliamentary Reform ✓ * What are they? * How effective are they? * Relationship between Parliament and Government ✓ * Factors that affect it * How the coalition affects it Constitution: 2 Types of Constitution * Codified & Uncodified Codified Constitution * Constitution where the rules are written down in a single document. Example could be the USA...
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...The UK government is constrained by the British Constitution Constitutions are fundamental rules that regulate how a state or any other type of organisation is supposed to be governed. A quote by the UCL Constitution Unit “Constitutions organise, distribute and regulate state power. They set out the structure of the state, the major state institutions, and the principles governing their relations with each other and with the state’s citizens”. The points I would like to raise that would support this statement are that the UK constitution is uncodified, Parliamentary Sovereignty, government control over parliament. However there are major points that would contradict with this statement; Rule of law, European court of human rights, referendums. The fact that the British Constitution is uncodified means that it can be flexible which means that I can be easily changed and adapted according to the circumstance, also it means that not every single thing is written down on one document it is spread out in many. This means that once there is a matter that the government needs to deal with they won’t be restricted by the constitution. For example the US constitution is codified which means that everything is on one document which would restrict them from doing anything that may be wrong now but believed to right in the past. Furthermore a law that is written by the US constitution that has mainly obstructed the way people want to live their lives is “people have the right to bare arms”...
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...The Creative Industries and Scottish Film. With its exquisite landscapes, monumental architecture, and breath-taking coastlines, it is no wonder Scotland has always been such a powerful draw to film makers and producers alike. The Scottish film industry has grown from strength to strength in recent years. Arguably putting itself on the map in the nineties with films such as Braveheart (1995) and Trainspotting (1996), Scotland now lends its locations to multimillion-pound productions such as Skyfall (2012), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Sunshine on Leith (2013) and The Railway Man (2014) as well as TV productions including Game of Thrones (2011) and Outlander (2014). To what extent have Scottish films such as Braveheart and Trainspotting impacted on the tourism industry and given their contrasting portrayals of the Scots, does one hinder tourism more than the other? Can we say whether or not there is a distinct notion of ‘Scottish national identity’ and if such a concept exists to what level is it illustrated in Scottish film? Has the Scottish film industry had an impact on the political landscape in Scotland since it was devolved in 1998? Finally given the effects of Scottish film in Scotland, what has the government put in place in order to develop the industry further? Scotland has produced many world renowned films over the last two decades and has had a large impact on the creative industries in Scotland. It has long retained a certain romance which frequently appeals...
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...How effective are backbench MP’s? How effective are backbench MP’s? Backbench MP’s are members of Parliament that are not in either the cabinet or the shadow cabinet. Backbench MP’s may be seen to be effective in some ways in the British Political system because they can do things such as scrutinise the government and hold them into account through numerous ways. Their role in Parliament in Westminster ensures that there may be democratic legitimacy of UK government and gives them a right and authority to exercise political power and may possibly increase the representation, overall, through Parliament. However, there is a growing fear that there is now ‘executive dictatorship’ in the UK and because of this, backbench MP’s have little power in calling the government into account due to the party system, which ensures that MP’s are dictated by the whips system, reducing the effectiveness that MP’s can then call people into account. Therefore, there are both reasons for and against that would suggest MP’s are or are not effective as seen. Firstly, backbench MP’s are key in calling the government of today to account, making them answerable for their actions and policies. This is achieved through questions to the Prime Minister and questions to other ministers as well as other forms of scrutiny such as debates and all of these methods are effective because they raise public awareness for issues and may possibly increase the media pressure on the government, causing them to act...
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...Cameron.ffirs 10/11/05 1:46 PM Page iii Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture Based on the Competing Values Framework REVISED EDITION The Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series Cameron.ffirs 10/11/05 1:46 PM Page i Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture Cameron.ffirs 10/11/05 1:46 PM Page ii Kim S. Cameron Robert E. Quinn Cameron.ffirs 10/11/05 1:46 PM Page iii Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture Based on the Competing Values Framework REVISED EDITION The Jossey-Bass Business & Management Series Cameron.ffirs 10/11/05 1:46 PM Page iv Copyright © 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Imprint 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 www.josseybass.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department...
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...this country have been made in the wrong place. They are not made around the Cabinet table where they should be, but they are taken on the sofa in Tony Blair’s office. No notes are kept and no one takes the blame when things go wrong. That arrogant style of government must come to an end. I will restore the proper process of government. I want to be Prime Minister of this country not a President (Source: David Cameron, The Times, 5th October 2006) “The Cabinet is the committee at the centre of the British political system. Every Thursday during Parliament, Secretaries of State from all departments as well as other ministers meet in the Cabinet Room in Downing Street to discuss the big issues of the day. The Prime Minister chairs the meeting, selects its members and also recommends their appointment as ministers to the monarch. The present Cabinet has 23 members (21 MPs and two peers). The secretary of the Cabinet is responsible for preparing records of its discussions and decisions”. (Source: From a modern textbook) (a) What criticism is David Cameron making of Tony Blair’s style of decision making in source 1? [5] (b) Explain the main functions of the cabinet [10] (c) To what extent have UK Prime Ministers become “presidential”? [25] Or 2 QUESTION TWO THE JUDICIARY A powerful coalition of judges, senior lawyers and politicians has warned that the Government is undermining the civil liberties citizens...
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...The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search "The Innocent Man" redirects here. For a South Korean television series, see The Innocent Man (TV series). The Innocent Man | | Author(s) | John Grisham | Country | United States | Publisher | Doubleday | Publication date | October 10, 2006 | Pages | 368 | ISBN | 978-0-385-51723-2 | OCLC Number | 70251230 | The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006) is a nonfiction book written by John Grisham, and his first outside the legal fiction genre. The book tells the story of Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma, a former minor league baseball player who was wrongly convicted in 1988 for the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada and was sentenced to death. After serving 11 years on death row, he was exonerated by DNA evidence and other material introduced by the Innocence Project and was released in 1999. Contents * 1 Synopsis * 2 Book edition * 3 References * 4 External links | Synopsis Ron Williamson has returned to his hometown of Ada, Oklahoma after multiple failed attempts to play for various minor league baseball teams, including the Fort Lauderdale Yankees and two farm teams owned by the Oakland A's. An elbow injury inhibited his chances to progress. His big dreams were not enough to overcome the odds (less than 10 percent) of making it to a big league game. His failures lead to, or aggravate...
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...An Introduction to Sociolinguistics AITA01 1 5/9/05, 4:36 PM Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics The books included in this series provide comprehensive accounts of some of the most central and most rapidly developing areas of research in linguistics. Intended primarily for introductory and post-introductory students, they include exercises, discussion points, and suggestions for further reading. 1. Liliane Haegeman 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Andrew Spencer Helen Goodluck Ronald Wardhaugh Martin Atkinson Diane Blakemore Michael Kenstowicz Deborah Schiffrin John Clark and Colin Yallop 10. 11. 12. 13. Natsuko Tsujimura Robert D. Borsley Nigel Fabb Irene Heim and Angelika Kratzer 14. Liliane Haegeman and Jacqueline Guéron 15. Stephen Crain and Diane Lillo-Martin 16. Joan Bresnan 17. Barbara A. Fennell 18. Henry Rogers 19. Benjamin W. Fortson IV 20. AITA01 Liliane Haegeman 2 Introduction to Government and Binding Theory (Second Edition) Morphological Theory Language Acquisition Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Fifth Edition) Children’s Syntax Understanding Utterances Phonology in Generative Grammar Approaches to Discourse An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology (Second Edition) An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics Modern Phrase Structure Grammar Linguistics and Literature Semantics in Generative Grammar English Grammar: A Generative Perspective An Introduction to Linguistic Theory and Language...
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...Transport policy in 2011: a new direction? RESEARCH PAPER 11/22 2 March 2011 This paper outlines the changes made to transport policy by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government and looks at some of the long term transport challenges the government is likely to face over the course of this Parliament. It complements and updates House of Commons research paper 10/28, Transport policy in 2010: a rough guide. Louise Butcher Matthew Keep Recent Research Papers 11/05 Social Indicators 18.01.11 11/06 Scotland Bill [Bill 115 of 2010-11] 19.01.11 11/07 Estates of Deceased Persons (Forfeiture Rule and Law of 19.01.11 Succession) Bill [Bill 8 of 2010-11] 11/08 Unemployment by Constituency, January 2011 19.01.11 11/09 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill: Commons Stages 21.01.11 11/10 UK Defence and Security Policy: A New Approach? 21.01.11 11/11 Health and Social Care Bill [Bill 132 of 2010-11] 27.01.11 11/12 Economic Indicators, February 2011 01.02.11 11/13 Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill [Bill 9 of 2010-11] 02.02.11 11/14 Education Bill [Bill 137 of 2010-11] 03.02.11 11/15 Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill [HL] 08.02.11 [Bill 143 of 2010-11] 11/16 The Local Government Finance Settlement 2011-13 08.02.11 11/17 Legislation (Territorial Extent) Bill [Bill 10 of 2010-11] 08.02.11 11/18 Wash-up 2010 11.02.11 11/19 Unemployment...
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...SACHS.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 8/1/2011 2:07 PM RESCUING THE STRONG PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE FROM ITS CRITICS Noah M. Sachs* The Strong Precautionary Principle, an approach to risk regulation that shifts the burden of proof on safety, can provide a valuable framework for preventing harm to human health and the environment. Cass Sunstein and other scholars, however, have consistently criticized the Principle, rejecting it as paralyzing, inflexible, and extreme. In this reassessment of the Strong Precautionary Principle, I highlight the significant benefits of the Principle for risk decision making, with the aim of rescuing the Principle from its dismissive critics. The Principle sends a clear message that firms must research the health and environmental risks of their products, before harm occurs. It does not call for the elimination of all risk, nor does it ignore tradeoffs, as Sunstein has alleged. Rather, through burden shifting, the Principle legitimately requires risk creators to research and justify the risks they impose on society. By exploring where the Principle already operates successfully in U.S. law—examples often overlooked by the critics—I highlight the Principle’s flexibility and utility in regulatory law. This Article uses chemical regulation as a case study in how the Principle can guide Congress in an ongoing controversy. Congress is considering a major overhaul of the flawed Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA), and this change could be one of the most significant...
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...Page i 2/10/11 2:28 PM user-f494 /203/MHBR222/Lut12575_disk1of1/0078112575/Lut12575_pagefiles International Management Culture, Strategy, and Behavior Eighth Edition Fred Luthans University of Nebraska–Lincoln Jonathan P. Doh Villanova University Lut12575_fm_i-xxvi.indd Page ii 2/11/11 2:35 PM user-f494 /203/MHBR222/Lut12575_disk1of1/0078112575/Lut12575_pagefiles INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT: CULTURE, STRATEGY, AND BEHAVIOR, EIGHTH EDITION Published by McGraw-Hill, a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Previous editions © 2009, 2006, and 2003. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the United States. This book is printed on recycled, acid-free paper containing 10% postconsumer waste. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 QDB/QDB 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN 978-0-07-811257-7 MHID 0-07-811257-5 Vice President & Editor-in-Chief: Brent Gordon Vice President, EDP/Central Publishing Services: Kimberly Meriwether-David Editorial Director: Paul...
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...The Eurozone crisis (often referred to as the Euro crisis) is an ongoing crisis that has been affecting the countries of the Eurozone since late 2009. It is a combined sovereign debt crisis, a banking crisis and a growth and competitiveness crisis.[8] The crisis made it difficult or impossible for some countries in the euro area to repay or re-finance their government debt without the assistance of third parties. Moreover, banks in the Eurozone are undercapitalized and have faced liquidity problems. Additionally, economic growth is slow in the whole of the Eurozone and is unequally distributed across the member states.[8] In 1992, members of the European Union signed the Maastricht Treaty, under which they pledged to limit their deficit spending and debt levels. However, in the early 2000s, a number of EU member states were failing to stay within the confines of the Maastricht criteria and turned to securitising future government revenues to reduce their debts and/or deficits. Sovereigns sold rights to receive future cash flows, allowing governments to raise funds without violating debt and deficit targets, but sidestepping best practice and ignoring internationally agreed standards.[9] This allowed the sovereigns to mask (or "Enronize") their deficit and debt levels through a combination of techniques, including inconsistent accounting, off-balance-sheet transactions as well as the use of complex currency and credit derivatives structures.[9] From late 2009, fears of...
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...Coalition Cuts: “Tough But Fair” Immediately as I write this essay Britain’s national debt stands at around £946,319, 240,034, 83.7% debt to GDP ratio whilst the US has a national debt of over $13,492,377,103,199. ‘Thanks to Mr Osborne, Britain now has the earliest, most aggressive programme to cut government borrowing in the G7, despite widespread fears about the strength of the UK and global recovery’ (Flanders, 2010). In this essay I will focus on Britain’s budget deficit, in particular the Emergency Budget, presenting various topics for debate in relation to different aspects of the budget. I will further expand into broader topics such as the recession as a whole, the previous Labour government, other countries situations and subsequent response and the theory behind the policies undertaken, whether driven by political or economic incentives for example. Throughout the essay I will attempt to present ideas in a balanced approach, clearly showing the difference between positive and normative statements. An economies growth rate fluctuates over a period of time, known as the economic cycle. It shows the changes over time in the macro economy such as a recession where growth falls below the trend growth rate: a negative output gap. Such events are cyclical and the general period of time between one boom and another is usually five to eight years (Peter Cramp, Informe). Gordon Brown was keen to avoid successive budget deficits...
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