Is Social Class Still the Most Important Determinant of Voting Behaviour in Contemporary Britain?

While the United Kingdom is considered a representative democracy it is arguable to how representative it is of everyone. It is highly unlikely that you would ever find an MP is Parliament who is from a lower class background with the majority of MPs coming from the middle and upper classes. This shows a problem with the UK’s system as not everyone is getting their voices heard in this regard. While it is possible for pressure groups to get their views heard by governments, they will ensure that pressure groups do not become so powerful they steal the government's legitimacy.

The fact that, in the United Kingdom, we have multiple political parties, with a variety of view points and policies, is exemplary of the fact that political parties enhance democracy. The existence of various political parties gives the public voting options, and provides them with a choice of who governs their country, which is arguably a democratic approach, and encourages public participation. The idea that the public are not only voting for the party and its leaders, but also its policies show that they have an influence in how the country is run. For example the Conservative party (under David Cameron) believes in traditional institutions and values, protecting the rights and interests of property owners, and support the idea that the wealthy do have a responsibility to improve the conditions of the disadvantaged. However modern Labour (under Ed Miliband), emphasises that education is the main driver of social justice and social mobility, agrees that there should generally greater stress on environmental protection, and the party now favors more active state

‘Voting behaviour at UK elections is determined more by issues of personality and image than on the basis of policies or performance in office’. Discuss.

Despite some proponents of compulsory voting claiming that rising rates of informal voting are due to a lack of respect towards politics research suggests that it is not the case. In 2004 the electorate with the highest rate of informal voting was the NSW seat of Greenway. At 12% Greenway’s informal voting rate was twice the national average. However this was largely due to other factors, the AEC concluded that in the 2004 federal election’ The 10 divisions with the highest informality levels were in the 27 divisions with the highest non-English speaking background levels nationally’ (Hill and Young 2007). Education level is another important factor in voting rates with the lowest informal vote in 2004 held mostly in upper middle-class seats especially those the Liberals Party held including Indi, Kooyong and Higgins. The rate of informal voting can be as low as 3% in affluent electorates such as Higgins but as high as 12% in electorates such as Greenway with a large proportion of voters from non-English speaking households. (Hill and Young 2007)

Most of the general British public were not able to vote meaning they had no control over MPs and the laws that effected their lives. The MPs in the running for elections were part of Britain’s richest families so they didn’t have much of an idea of what life was like for the average Britain;

A socioeconomic status is the level of education and income a person has. People with higher educations and incomes are more likely to vote than people with lower educations and incomes. When it comes to voting one's “education level is the single most important factor in predicting whether an individual will vote” (218). Other socioeconomic groups that influence whether or not a person will vote is their partisan tie. “Individuals with strong partisan ties to one of the major political parties are more likely to vote then nonpartisans or independents” (218). Nonpartisans and independents may not feel as if they owe as much to a certain party. Therefore, they don’t feel obligated to vote in an

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

It has become a fact of life that our world is governed categorization. There is nothing in our realm of awareness that has not been labelled or ranked. These practices originated from the basic human conditioning for survival and understanding. However, they soon developed into numerous attitudes, behaviors, judgments and systems of policies that have constrained and segregated our population (Kadi). Heeding the ominous effects of these systems of classification, John Updike utilizes his short story “A&P”, as a reflector of our society. Updike exercises the literary elements of a condescending tone, commonplace setting and the characterization of Queenie to showcase the influence of classism in our country. Updike’s

The media has a lot to do with a party's image, as it is the main and

British society is split into hierarchical categories with “higher” “middle” and “lower working” class. The British class structure is shaped like a pyramid cut into three

The purpose of this assignment is to Examine the extent to which social class determines life chances in contemporary Britain, and explore the relevance of the issue for students on a social work degree. Within this document I will identify and explore key concepts and approaches in the sociological analysis of social differentiation in modern society. I will then use these concepts and apply them to contemporary britain in order to explain how social class influences an individual 's life chances. I will also discuss and examine the value of these theories to students on a social work course.

McKenzie R.T., 1958. Parties, Pressure Groups and the British Political Process. Vol. 29 ( 1 ), pp. xx.

Taunton’s articles discusses the ways that H.G wells manages to display the division of class and how our human race is going to develop. He goes through many different aspects of the book in this article by discussing how Wells reflects on the present to come up with his insight about the future. He blames the treatment towards the poor to be

• To develop an understanding of the ways in which British society is a stratified and differentiated one.

In this extract, the Labour Party, and Attlee, do not only detail a programme for the oncoming elections – they also hugely criticize the Conservative Party and their faith in capitalism and privatization of the industries. They defend the lower classes by saying that the Tories have installed in the UK “a restrictive anti-social monopoly or cartel agreements – caring for their own capital structures and profits at the cost of lower standard of living for all.” (l. 28-29). That is to say that the Conservative Party only wanted to make profit by installing a capitalist society to the expense of the lower classes, which were poorer than ever during the Great Depression, and that this type of society only profited the richer classes and the elite. Indeed, capitalism is a type of society whose bases are above all the private property of