Evaluate the Factors That Influenced the Result of the 2010 Uk General Election.

Labour disunity was a huge contributing factor as to why the conservatives were able to dominate from 1951 to 1964. However, there are also other factors that assisted conservative dominance. Whether that be conservative strengths, good timing, the end of austerity or their handle on public opinion, all factors contributed to the dominant years. However, how long the conservatives actually dominated is also a question. Did they dominate for the whole period, or just part of it? The years 1962-1964 question conservative dominance and how labour reunited.

Political parties have many functions, one of which is to uphold the principles of a democratic political system. A democratic political system is one which involves various features, such as a peaceful transition of power from one government to another, free and fair regular elections, people having open access to independent information, government accountability to the people and representative institutions and that the government operates in the broad interests of the people. Democracy can take a number of forms, the main two being representative and direct democracy. In the UK a representative democracy is in place. Arguably, the mere existence of political

The UK is divided into parliamentary constituencies of broadly equal population (decided by the Boundaries Commission), each of which elects a Member of Parliament to the House of Commons. The leader of the party with the largest number of MPs is invited by the monarch to form a government, and becomes the Prime Minister. The leader of the second largest party becomes the Leader of the Opposition.

The election campaign in 1964 was a close run contest even though there was a low public approval of the current Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home. The labour party only won a majority of 3 seats. The reason for the decline in support for the Conservative party was because of events and scandals such as the Profumo affair

There is a number of systems that use PR such as the Single Transferable Vote (STV) (the Regional and National Lists) and the Alternative Vote. There is a third system that combines these two, known as the Additional Member System (AMS) or the hybrid or top-up system. The AMS system is presently used in elections for the Scottish Parliament, where voters can vote for single candidates in their constituencies but also for candidates from regional 'lists' put forward by each party. If there is a discrepancy between the percentage of seats the party has won and the percentage of votes cast, the seats are 'topped up' from the

In this essay I will assess the outcomes of Additional Member system, First Past the Post system and the Closed Party List system. The F-P-T-P system is used to elect the members of House of Commons and local government in England and Wales. Voters select candidates, and do so by marking his or her name with an ‘X’ on the ballot paper. This reflects the principle of ‘one person, one vote’. The Additional Members system is used in Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly and Greater London assembly. It is a mixed system made up of F-P-T-P and party-list elements. The Regional party list (or the closed party list) is used to elect the

Political parties have a tremendous amount of influence on the election process. Firstly and most importantly, the political party in power is the one who chooses when to have a general election. This means they can call a general election at any time within the five-year period that suits them and makes it more likely for them to win. The party in power is likely to have the funds to support their candidates and the resources for publicity to help them win the seat. This puts smaller parties and independent candidates at a distinct disadvantage.

When the Conservative Party came to power in 1951, they won the election by a slim majority of 26 seats, leaving them with very little power to make important changes. However, their number of seats increased throughout their thirteen years in office, leaving them with a majority of 107 in the 1959

Another contributing factor at this election may have been performance in office, which in the above statement is not seen as important as personality and image. However, performance in office may have been extremely detrimental for the conservatives in 1997 because of their crisis in 1992. This focuses on the retrospective model, as people saw the Conservatives as incompetent in handling the economy because of Black Wednesday in September 1992. The Conservatives and especially Noramnt Lamont, Chancellor of the Exchequer, were to blame for the crisis that saw the pound forced out of the ERM. This didn’t help at the 1997 general election where they did extremely badly in a huge Labour win.

Advocates of the parliamentary form of government suggested a few competitive strengths of this system of government. Since it has gained a stable parliamentary majority, the government is able to smoothly process its legislative project. In addition, the government is adequately furnished that it could still choose to adopt measures designed to support the national interests while many strong sectional groups oppose such measures (Dyck, 2012). The prime minister is the leader of this type of government, who is obliged to be responsive to all its people’s demands. Also, the people have the right to vote and replace the prime minister due to any incompetency of governance that does not address and fulfill their desires. This is known as the non-confidence vote; the government may be removed when it has lost confidence in the parliament, and cause the head of state to resign a new government (Dyck, 2012). An example of such measure occurred in Britain on March 28th, 1979. When James Callaghan’s labour government was defeated in the House of Commons just by one vote, it was forced into an early election that was won by the opposition leader Margaret Thatcher (Dyck, 2012). In this case, it can avoid or at least reduce the period of legislative gridlock, because of its flexibility in elections and the power is centered in the country’s prime

In recent years, it has been increasingly apparent that European Parliament election turnout is on the decline, with just 35.6% of British citizens casting their vote in 2014. This is remarkably low, especially when viewed alongside other national decisions such as the referendum for Britain to leave the European Union, which received a staggering 72.2% turnout. However, this decline was not

Between the years of 1945-1970 social class dominantly shaped the voting behaviour of individuals. Whilst there has been a decline in prominence of class voting: Labour remains the most popular working class party and Conservatives perform best among middle-class voters. Social classes are defined by economic and social

In the 1999 European elections the voter turnout for Britain was just 23%. The party ‘List’ method of elections has caused a great deal of controversy and there

Voter turnout, as well as election results, depend upon and are effected by several different factors. Everything from family status to beliefs about abortion can determine how a person will vote. In my presentation, however, I focused on three aspects that effect voter turnout and elections. I found, in my research, that a voter's age, sex and party identification greatly factor into how a person will cast his or her vote.

In 1997 Labour pledged a referendum on PR, but it was postponed and it has been argued that two strong political parties, Labour and Torries, would have lost the most if there were any changes in voting systems. If the referendum took place in 1997 elections, Labour majority would have to share, approximately, from 46 seats to 166 MPs with Liberal Democrats. Liberal Democrats gained 16,8% of the total votes, but won less than 10% of the total seats.