separate election and is not a member of the parliament (or Congress, as it is called there). Unlike Norway and the USA, Britain cannot trace its constitution back to a time when a group of (inevitably) men sat down around a table and said, “Okay, what’s a sensible way of organising this?” The British constitution is not a single document composed at one time, but simply the hundreds of laws and conventions developed over the centuries that, taken together, regulate the system of government and political life in Britain and protect the rights of the individual. Most of the institutions at its core were developed at a time when democracy was still unthinkable. The electoral system This applies not least to the electoral system. It came about at a time when only a tiny proportion of the population was represented in parliament (as one wit put it: Nowadays it’s the votes that count. In the old days, it was the counts that voted!). The aristocracy and the high clergy had their seats in the House of Lords, which to start with was where the real power lay. However, the land-owning gentry were also allowed to have their representatives, in a separate chamber called the House of Commons. In order to ensure that all parts of the realm were represented here, the country was divided up into voting districts, called constituencies, each of which corresponded to, literally, a seat in the Commons. Voting was based on what is called a first-past-the-post system, meaning simply that the candidate with most votes in each constituency wins the seat. So the voting system was in place long before the advent of political parties (the 18th century) and votes for all (the early 20th century). Its survival into the modern age has had a profound effect on the way the political life of the United Kingdom developed. It has strengthened the position of the two largest parties and generally hindered the rise of smaller ones. In doing so, it has encouraged adversarial politics, i.e. politics where two sides oppose each other vigorously. This is reflected in the layout of the House of Commons, where the government and the opposition physically face each other. For the last 100 years, these two sides have been the right-of-centre Conservative Party and the left-of-centre Labour Party. These two parties have generally taken it in turns to govern the country. There are currently 650 constituencies in the UK, giving the same number of Members of Parliament (MPs). These constituencies vary in size. The largest has over 100,000 people who can vote; the smallest has fewer than 30,000. Most, however, have an electorate of between 60,000 and 75,000. On the day of a general election, there is an election in each of these constituencies. These general elections are held every five years on the first Thursday in May. Exceptions are if either the government is given a “no confidence” vote by Parliament or if a 2/3 majority of MPs votes for an earlier election. The Conservative Party Also referred to as the “Tory party”, the Conservative Party was originally the party of Britain’s land-owning class. It extended its appeal as the electorate grew in the transition to democracy, becoming in the 20th century the favoured party of the middle class and of business interests. They were the party of government for two-thirds of that century. Traditional strongholds for the Conservatives are in affluent, rural Southern England. In
constitution grunnlov convention konvensjon House of Lords Overhuset House of Commons Underhuset realm kongerike constituency enmannskrets/ einmannskrins first-past-the-post system «førstemann-i-mål»-system proportional representation mandatfordeling etter forholdstallsvalg / mandatfordeling etter forholdstalsval electorate velgermasse/ veljarmasse general election parlamentsvalg/ parlamentsval affluent velstående/velståande
Proportional representation means that the votes of the electorate are represented proportionately in the elected body. PR voting systems, like the one we have in Norway, ensure that also smaller parties are represented, rather than the first-past-the-post system that favours larger parties and is more likely to deliver parliamentary majorities.
UNDERSTAND a What are some similarities and differences between the political systems in the UK and the USA? b What is the first-past-the post voting system, and how has this system affected British politics? c How do general elections work in the UK?
Chapter 2: Changing the World
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