The Current Functions Of The United Kingdom

Furthermore The First past the Post system gives rise to a coherent opposition in the legislature. In theory, the flip side of a strong single-party government is that the opposition is also given enough seats to perform a critical checking role and present itself as a realistic alternative to the government of the day. It advantages broadly-based political parties. In severely ethnically or regionally divided societies, FPTP is commended for encouraging political parties to be ‘broad churches’, encompassing many elements of society, particularly when there are only two major parties and many different societal groups. These parties can then field a diverse array of candidates for election. In Malaysia, for example, the Barisan Nasional government is made up of a broadly-based umbrella movement which fields Malay, Chinese, and Indian candidates in areas of various ethnic complexions.

'The House of Lords is now more effective than the House of Commons in checking government power'. Discuss

Elective Dictatorship is the term used to describe the government and the Prime minister to be seen as having powers over the country that seem excessive. A government appointing as an elected dictatorship is likely to have a large majority over all other parties in the House of Commons. This essay will analise the arguments for and against the UK having an elected dictatorship. It will conclude that a proper dictatorship is never possible because the UK’s constitution is a democratic one and there are counter balances to accessive Prime ministerial powers. However when a government has a very large majority it can use its control over the House of Commons to make decisions that can seem to some as being dictatorial.

The second reason why FPTP should not be used for elections to the House of Commons is that it is not representative, meaning that the percentage share of votes is not proportional to the percentage share of seats, because of single member constituencies. This is a weakness as it means that there is not a fair level of representation within the House of Commons, which makes the system less democratic as not everybody’s views are entirely represented in Parliament. For example, in the 2010 general elections, the Conservative party won 36% of votes, but a staggering 47.1% of seats, whilst UKIP gained 3.1% of votes, but 0% of seats, indicating the tendency of FPTP to radically distort the relationship between votes and seats. Due to the fact that FPTP is a plurality system, rather than a majoritarian one, MPs can win the seat by as little as 1 vote, meaning that

FPTP is the voting system used for the election of MPs to 'seats' in the UK Parliament. It is a system in which the 'winner takes all' and usually gives a clear majority both at constituency and national level. This means that a candidate in a constituency only needs one more vote than the nearest rival to win the seat. Similarly, political parties only need to win one more seat in the House of Commons to have a majority.

The European Parliament handles decisions, which would affect the countries, which are members of the EU; these issues include the environment, equal opportunities, transport, consumer rights, movement of the workers and goods, etc. Currently there are 72 members of the UK that get directly elected to become part of

Westminster is the location of the Houses of Parliament, where the majority of political decisions (other than those for devolved states) are made for the nation. The current Westminster electoral system is First Past the Post (FPTP) which is used for general elections every 5 years (due to the new fixed-term parliaments brought in by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.) The FPTP system is constituency based, each person votes for a representative for their constituency and whichever party wins the most constituencies gains governmental power. First Past the Post works on the basis of a plurality of votes, that is, that the winning party need only gain the most votes out of all parties to gain power, they do not need an overall

The second function that I’m concentrating on is Representation. In the Commons MPs are elected every five years to represent local constituencies. The link between the House of Commons and the local constituency is very important as it provides information to the government on how the public is responding to their policies and ideas for new

Section 3 of the Charter grants all Canadian citizens the right to fair and free elections, allowing them to select a legitimate Member of Parliament (MP) to make decisions and fairly represents them. Canada 's First-past-the-post (FPTP) system provides a simple and effective way to do this, allowing for the creation of a stable, efficient government. Although the First-past-the-post (FPTP) system has served Canada well for numerous years, many flaws exist within it, and have created pressing problems for Canadian representative democracy. Instances, such as the Conservative Party winning majority with 39.6% of the votes , reveal that this system does not accurately reflect the voter preference, but instead can distort it. The outcome between the votes cast and the seats assigned is disproportional, usually over-representing the leading party and penalizing minority parties. This is further exacerbated in a case like the Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois, where the concentration of party support led to misrepresentation in seats. In addition, under-representation also exists in relation to gender and ethnicity. The FPTP system favors broadly acceptable parties and candidates, thus excluding minority parties and women from parliament. Although benefits of the FPTP system exist, the shortcomings lead to problematic, distorted representation, citizen dissatisfaction and decreasing voter turnout, and the undermining of national unity.

In practice, the executive government does more than simply administer the government and execute the laws passed by parliament. Since the government must control the House of Representatives to survive, in practice the executive also determines what legislation shall be debated and passed by the House of Representatives. Because budget appropriations (parliamentary allocations of money) and tax proposals must originate in the House of Representatives, the executive arm thus has the dominant power in the political system.

The HOuse of Commons is elected by the first-past-the-post system, which produces a mismatch between the votes cast for UK political parties and the seats that each party wins in parliament. For example in the 2015 general election, UKIP gained 12.6% of votes but only one seat in the House of Commons. Therefore, the UK is undemocratic as it does not accurately represent the views of the

FPTP is the second most used electoral system worldwide, and in the UK it is used primarily in general elections to reach a fully representative, democratic electoral system. In assessing whether we should scrap FPTP, we must first establish what an electoral system ought to provide. The purpose of an electoral system in the UK is to fairly elect representatives for the population to make up an effective government, as we operate with a system of representative democracy. For an ideal democracy to function, an electoral system that delivers a strong constituency link, genuine voter choice, an effective government is fundamental. It is also important for a system to operate simply and with transparency for the population. As Tom Stoppard once wrote, “It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.”

The first past the post system also known as the single - member plurality system is a classification in which the country is divided into districts. This system is quite successful as it allows the winner to obtain a majority in parliament. The candidate gains a parliamentary seat by finishing first in a single district. This reform would not achieve the desired effect of reducing the disintegration of the party landscape. This is because, despite its antiquity and simplicity, the first past the post system is becoming less common as it is possible that the party with the most votes may not win the election. Thus, it focuses enormous power in the hands of one party that might only represent 20% of the electorate. It is mainly used in Britain

The Additional Member system is able to combine both First Past The Post and Proportional representation. A proportion of sets is awarded through FPTP, while the rest are awarded on a regional list system. The electorate is able to vote for a constituency candidate, and a party as well. Therefore some of the elected representatives have a constituency to look after, whilst other do not. The rest are allocated on a proportional basis. AMS is used in the UK for the elections for the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the London Assembly. The main advantages to this system is that there is a fair degree of proportionality to the votes cast and that voters can vote for both candidates and parties.

As one of Europe’s oldest democratic countries, the United Kingdom consequently has one of the oldest voting systems, a plurality system often called First-Past-The-Post. The system relies on a basic principle; voters can vote for only one candidate and the candidate who receives the most votes wins the seat. (UK Parliament Website, 2014) As the quotation from David Cameron shows, the system is often hailed as one of the simplest voting systems possible, and is mainly used in the U.K for national elections.