...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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...Edexcel AS Politics Edexcel AS Politics ExamBuster 2009 Introduction to Unit 1- People and Politics Understanding the Examination and Exam Technique Choosing your questions In this unit you are presented with four questions. They are of equal value and each question covers one of the four sections of the specification. These are: Democracy and political participation Party policies and ideas Elections Pressure groups There is no significance to the order in which questions appear. Each question is divided into three sections (a), (b) and (c). When choosing which questions to do, the following principles are recommended: It is almost certain that you will be better off choosing your strongest question to do first. You should choose questions on the basis of how well you can answer the section (c) part. The (c) part carries 25 of the 40 marks available for the whole answer. Do not choose a question simply because you can do part (a) especially well. The (a) question is only worth 5 marks. It would be illogical to choose your strongest (a) part if you cannot do well on section (c). If you cannot decide between several (c) parts, i.e. you can do more than one equally well, make your choice on the basis of part (b) which carries 10 marks. But remember, it is the (c) parts that will determine most what your overall mark will be. So, when you first look at the exam paper, look at the (c) sections first. Assessment Objectives Each question is divided into three sections,...
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...My interest in politics comes from the world around me. Throughout my time studying the subject I have become more absorbed in the wide and ever-changing spectrum encompassed by the term politics. It is impossible to go through life without being affected by politics in some way. I find the extent of political apathy especially amongst young voters astonishing. To gain a clear understanding of this I read Colin Hay’s “Why We Hate Politics” His in depth analysis on how political disenchantment and depolarization has become such a problem due to inter party competition and the lack of clear policy difference leads to the intriguing question how democratic is the UK really? Social equality and how it has led to the social demographic of British society is an area of politics that fascinates me. I was inspired by Owen Jones book “Chavs” where he looks at ongoing class warfare. I was particularly interested in the chapter were he compares the public and media reaction to the disappearance of Shannon Mathews a young girl who grew up in the predominantly working class community of Dewsbury to the famous disappearance of Madeleine McCann. This led me to begin an Extended Project Qualification titled “Why don’t the Jobless get a Job” in which I am undertaking extensive research including...
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...A pressure group is an association that may be formal or informal, who's purpose is to further the interests of a specific section of society or to promote a particular cause. They have several functions and methods. There are several ways pressure groups can be seen to enhance democracy such as educating the electorate on important social issues, holding the government to account and increasing participation in politics. Firstly, pressure groups are democratic as they can be seen to educate and inform the public about important issues. Pressure groups promote debate and argument making the public more informed on issues and decisions they wish to have an influence on. This can be done through the use of the media which allows pressure groups to get widespread recognition and awareness of their cause, whilst giving several methods to allow the public to engage. Furthermore many pressure groups can force the media to cover issues that may have been lost. For example the BMA presents important facts and figures through the media such as 1/3 of adults in England are obese. They convey this information through the media attracting public attention to such shocking figures, highlighting important issues educating the electorate whilst informing public of their cause. However pressure groups can be undemocratic as they can be seen to wield more influence than their place in society warrants, through drastic action recognised by the media. This promotes views on very small issues...
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...put aside any personal bias in the courtroom and they must conduct themselves in an impartial way inside and outside the court. Judicial neutrality and independence are not only important to make fair and just decisions but they are also crucial to uphold democracy. There are many ways in which judges can be seen to uphold their judicial independence. The very fact that judges are unelected, are not members of political parties thus upholding law not politics and are not trained by the government show that as far as politics is concerned the judges are very much removed. On the other hand although they are not directly involved in politics this does not mean that judges cannot hold political views, in fact most judges tend to hold politically conservative views. Furthermore it is almost impossible for judges to stay out of politics in its broadest sense. Every judgement can be seen as a political statement, this can be seen clearly in the case of Gillick, which showed that it is difficult for them to stay out of politics when they poses the power to make new laws. Politically judges are as far removed as possible, it would be difficult to find any other alternatives without removing judges rights to have political opinions altogether. In order to keep judges out of touch with parliament, judges are paid from the consolidation fund. This is a sum of money that is the judges salary, hidden from parliaments eyes. In order to reduce the risk of parliamentary bribery, parliament...
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...activities of a state are run by two major parties and rest of the parties carry less importance. It doesn’t mean that in a Bi-party system there is only two parties in a state and there is not any existence of third party. There can be many parties in this system but the main role is played by two major parties who oppose neck to neck one another in every election As example we may give a glance on UK and U.S.A. . Both of these countries are going through in this process or system. In UK there are Conservative party, Labour party, Liberal party, Communist and Fascist party. But in the field of politics Labour party and Conservative party are important. The form of Government is interchanged between these parties. Sometimes Conservative party and other times Labour party. In the House of Commons the Liberal party has a few seats but no seat has been obtained by Fascist and Communist party. The same view is in U.S.A also. Politics of U.S.A. is run by two major parties named as Democratic party and Republican party . Others do not have any importance in the politics. In every country who has Bipartisanism system it is a common scene that power passes from one party to the other and society gets a little bit worse with each election. There is not any variation in internal activates of a country. From two parties, one another come to form a government always by and by and they become the policy maker and ruler of the country. People just participate in the election...
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...Government and Politics Megan Barry ‘Should direct democracy be more widely used in the UK?’ Direct democracy is a form of government in which all laws are created by a general vote of society. This means that political decisions are put forward to the people as they are the ones who are going to be directly affected by the outcome of the decision. An example of direct democracy used occasionally in society is referendums. A referendum is a general vote by the electorate on a single political question which has been referred to them for a direct decision. Within this essay I am going to be arguing whether direct democracy should be used more widely by weighing up the benefits and the disadvantages of direct democracy and the result on the general public. One argument for direct democracy being used more extensively in the UK is that it gives a more advanced and more accurate representation of the public’s attitude on an issue raised in parliament. Many local citizens do not often communicate with their MP; occasionally it can be difficult for Parliament to come to a decision that accurately reflects public opinion. MPs have to make choices bases what they personally feel is right and is not always entirely what the public want. Referendums give a distinct result that reflects the public’s demands. This is better as the public are satisfied and there is little need for ‘guess-work’ by the government. An example...
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...helping them would still maximise utility. I enjoyed the programme as it gave me a taste of university-style learning and I won the Oxford Scholar award for my essay on the legal and practical implications of accepting hard determinist and physicalist arguments. We had to defend out essay to a PhD student which drew on my experience in competitive debating, I am the current Best Speaker of LSE and a finalist at competitions such as Durham and SOAS Schools. I also run my schools debating programme and coach in a local primary school. By demanding an understanding of both sides on any issue, Debating has taught me to be receptive to a variety of perspectives. The political structures of countries is something that also really intrigues me. In Politics we learnt a lot about the characteristics of liberal democracies and I often felt that we looked at it with an underlying and unproven assumption that this was the best way to govern. My desire to learn about the political structures countries led me to...
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...back in history and assess how the differences rose and how they have influenced the modern day perceptions of the key national matters. In the US and the UK, the cultural wars are commonly as a result of the differences in the settings of the traditionalists and the conversationalists. In essence, the differences in the conservative and the progressive values has been the main bone of contention between these two different groups. The root of the differences can be traced to way back in the 1920s, when the rural and urban cultures had an evident conflict. There then followed immigration of people from different continents into America for several decades, causing further culture wars. The differences have always taken a center stage in the various debates especially those touching the issues of the history of public schools and the delivery of the science curriculum in the US and the UK. The realignment and the polarization that took place in the 1990s played a huge role in transforming the modern politics, economics as well as religion. In his 1991 publication, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, James Hunter touches on a couple of issues that have since shaped the destiny of the US to be specific. According to him, culture wars date back to the 1960s. Key Issues that the publication looked at were: gun politics, abortion, and alienation of the church from the state machinery as well the issues of privacy of the American citizens. For each of the items, there were...
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...The media is too influential and this undermines democracy in the UK. This paper will examine the above statement in regards to media undermining democracy. It will look at arguments both for and against, what influence the media has on our democracy, it will look in to media and government bias, refer to statistics along with some theories, this is to try and determine if behaviours and attitudes can be influenced by what we see and hear in the media. Other points that will be addressed include the effects of spin and how the media tends to deliver its information to its audience. In todays society more or less everyone knows about the media. We as a nation tend to partake in some kind of media activity daily. It has been said that we take the modern media very much for granted as we are totally immersed in them. For example “Just as fish will be the last life form on earth to discover water, because they are completely surrounded by it and know of nothing else” (the new politics, 2007:301). There for it’s hard to imagine what life would be like without the daily paper, radio and tv. Some allege that the effects of the media are strong and clearly visible, however others argue with equal conviction that the media have minimal or no direct effects (the new politics, 2007). According to the reinforcement theory the media can only reinforce attitudes that already exist and this is down to two reasons markets and personality. They believe that the effects of mass media are...
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...To what extent does democracy in the UK suffer from a ‘participation crisis’? Over time, as society changes many seem to form presumptions that in the UK there is an evolving ‘crisis’ in political participation as less people are willing to actively participate or engage in any political activities whatsoever. This can be problematic as participation in politics is crucial because it will allow the government to be held responsible. There are several reasons suggesting a ‘political participation’ which can be evident from the current turnout at general elections because they have been considerably lower than average between the years of 1945-1997. In the election year 1992 the turnout was 77.7% which gradually declined to 59.5% in 2001 which highlights the significant difference of election participation decline as the years went by. This perhaps could be due to the number of the population disagreeing with the ideologies of the political parties and have perhaps different strong ideas thus resulting in them in not turning up to the elections. Also, the fall in turnout levels could be because of people progressing in the industrial sectors as society is modernising so this occupies people and doesn’t allow them to make the time to actually go vote. Moreover, another contributing factor to the ‘participation crisis’ is that party membership has been declining drastically over the last thirty years as during 1980 the membership of all parties was a staggering 1,693,156 as well...
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...Edexcel: Government & Politics, Unit 1, Pressure Groups Pressure Groups Definition: “an organisation which seeks to influence a comparatively small range of public policies and which is not attributed to a recognized political party.” Function of Pressure Groups Governing process: they play a key role in the governing process. They are involved in all stages of the policy making process, ensuring the interests of the public are taken into account. Representative function: they either represent; Sections of the public The interests of the general public. (They claim) Educative function: they help to educate/inform the public and the government about politically important issues. Opportunities: they provide more opportunity for political participation than parties do. Scrutinize: they often scrutinize legislation, giving suggestions on how it may be improved. Tension release: pressure groups provide an outlet for people’s emotions, particularly if they are strong ones about certain issues (for example, the Iraq war, dog hunting etc.) This is a highly important function, as it helps maintain a peaceful society, as people can channel their emotions in a non-violent way. Types of Pressure Group Insider: a pressure group that has strong links with decision makers and are regularly consulted on areas of policy. They are so called because they work inside the political system through MPs, peers and committees. They may have this access because...
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...Firstly, referendums have been held to prevent the internal collapse of political parties. This refers to situations in which a political party is divided over a political issue, and the lack of consensus jeopardises the stability of the party. Failure to reach a consensus may cause revolts amongst back-bencher's, rendering party whips redundant. This can seriously danger the electoral prospects of the party, as publicly divided parties causes the electorate to lose confidence. Referendums therefore provide a democratic form of dispute resolution. A good example of this being exercised in practice is the 1975 referendum over the UK's membership to the European Union. This prevented the collapse of Harold Wilson's Labour Government. Secondly, referendums are used when Government is confronted with extremely controversial political issues. Governments use referendums in these circumstances because deciding the issue themselves may sometimes lead to serious public discontent, once again jeopardising the public popularity and electoral prospects of the party. Membership to the EU is an example of such an issue. An even more obvious example is the Good Friday Agreement referendum. Thirdly, referendums are used to further democracy, and in particular, direct democracy. Political parties in modern, liberal-minded countries all have democracy as a central theme of their electoral manifesto. The 1997 Labour Party manifesto is a key example, as it explicitly expressed a commitment...
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...P6 How political, legal and social factors are impacting upon the business activities and stakeholders of McDonald’s Contents page 1. Introduction 2. McDonald’s 3. Aims and objectives 4. Political factors 5. Political factors in UK 6. Political factors in USA 7. Social factors 8. Social factors in UK 9. Social factors in USA 10. Legal factors 11. Legal factors in UK 12. Legal factors in USA 13. Referencing 14. Bibliography Introduction In this report I am going to be talking about McDonald’s and how as an organisation it is influenced by political. Legal and social factors in two different business environments. McDonald’s McDonald’s is a global organisation that is known all over the world. It is an organisation which has gone from strength to strength since it first opened its doors. It serves more than 60 million customers daily in more than 100 hundred countries worldwide. It has taken over the hamburger market and now is the largest chain of fast food restaurants in the world. They are a really popular organisation and are well known all over their logo is recognised by almost everyone around the world. In 2012 McDonald’s had sales revenue of $27, 5 billion and a profit of $5, 5 billion. These numbers on their own show you just how big the McDonald’s organisation is they make a huge amount of money and that shows that they are achieving what they set out to do as an organisation because McDonald’s is...
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...Religion and Politics and the effect of religion in America For a virtuous instance of how religion affects politics in our current world we need not look very distant but rather look around you. The influence of Catholicism on Latin American politics, and the role religion plays on Middle Eastern politics have had a profound affect in those related societies. After examining the effects of religion into the above mentioned societies it is clear that the introduction of religion into politics has proven to be suppressive and counterproductive to most third world countries, and various subcultures in first world countries. A very well known writer and scholar on the history of Egypt, Budge, E. A. Wallis, "Egyptian Religion and Society: Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life (Library of the Mystic Arts)". Citadel Press. August 1, 1991. Wrote, “Most scholars have concluded that, in later times at least, there was no close personal tie between the individual Egyptian and the gods, that the gods remained aloof, that their relationship to humans was indirect, communicated to him by means of the king”. We must remember that there was no established book or set of teachings, as the Bible or the Qur'an, and few prescribed conditions of behavior or conduct. Humans were guided essentially by human wisdom and trusted in their belief in the goodness of the gods and of their divine son, the king. An important concept in Egyptian life was the idea of justice. Although the Egyptian was entirely...
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