Download Politics Class and Race

Politics of the United Kingdom
General Elections
Why are they important?
• General Elections give the people a chance to
affect the policies of their country by selecting
who will form the Government.
• The local Member of Parliament (MP) for each
constituency can represent the will of the
people from that particular geographical area.
• If an MP, or a party in general, is behaving in a
manner contrary to the will of the people,
they can be replaced.
When and How Elections Occur
• After a Government has been in power 5 years
an election must be called.
- This ensures that a Government or any
part of it cannot stay in power without the
support of the people.
-This time limit can be extended in
exceptional circumstances, eg. In a time of
war.
When and How Elections
Occur(cont’d)
• An election can be forced by either party.
• The governing party may force an election at any
time, as the Prime Minister can advise the Queen
to dissolve Parliament.
• The Opposition may force an election, but only if
it has the support of a majority of the Parliament.
To implement this, a vote of confidence must be
taken, and if the Government loses, Parliament
will be dissolved, and an election held.
When and How Elections
Occur(cont’d)
• A vote of no confidence is thus a very
important tool of Parliament, because it
affords a way for the Opposition to directly
challenge the Government.
• Once Parliament has been dissolved, by any
one of these methods, a general election is
held, in which every single constituency in the
UK must vote on who will be their MP.
When and How Elections
Occur(cont’d)
• The number of MPs from each political party
is counted up, and the party with the most
MPs elected forms the new government.
• The senior MPs in the government are called
the Ministers, with the Prime Minister being in
charge.
• Typically, each minister is in charge of a
separate area of the government.
When and How Elections
Occur(cont’d)
• The actual voting process is fairly simple: in
each constituency, voters are presented with a
selection of candidates, one of whom they
choose as the best candidate for them.
• The candidate with the most votes becomes
the MP for that area.
The Political Parties
• Politics in the UK is dominated by the two
main parties, the Labour party, and the
Conservative party.
• The Labour and Conservative parties have
ideologies resulting from very different
origins, but today the practical differences in
Government are less than in the past.
The Political Parties:
Labour
• The Labour Party has its origins in the trade
union movement.
• Trade unions emerged as groups of workers
who banded together to fight for better
working conditions.
• As individuals, each worker had very little
bargaining power against rich business
owners, as any single worker could be easily
replaced.
The Political Parties:
Labour (cont’d)
• As a group, workers could threaten to stop a
business from functioning in order to get
better conditions
• These origins in the working class led the
Labour party to be more interested in
supporting the workers in the UK, rather than
the rich and powerful.
• The richer members of society were seen as a
source of funds to support the poorer.
The Political Parties:
Labour (cont’d)
• A direct upshot of this focus on the less
wealthy sections of society was that when in
power, the Labour government imposed such
measures as:
-nationalising industries
-setting up public health care
-providing social welfare
• These sorts of publicly funded measures cause
higher taxes to be imposed to pay for them.
The Political Parties:
Conservatives
• The conservative party is traditionally seen to
be more biased towards promoting the ability
of individuals to acquire wealth.
• Measures to promote business often include
measures such as loosening financial
regulations and lowering taxes.
• Related to this is a belief that the public good
is better served by privatising industries such
as power and water.
The Political Parties:
Differences
• Although the main parties of UK politics
promote different ideologies, the practical
differences do not always reflect this.
• At any particular time, a party’s ability to win
an election depends on public feelings
towards specific issues, so political parties
have to be prepared to make changes if the
public has indicated a bias to a particular
policy, regardless of ideology.
Other Political Issues
• Apart from general elections, any constituency
can have a by-election unconnected to a
general election.
• This just means that for an MP to be replaced,
for instance if he or she retires, a new MP can
be elected without a general election.
• The UK is also a member country of the
European Union, and as such UK citizens can
vote for members of the EU parliament.
Other Political Issues (cont’d)
• Interestingly, the UK refused to adopt the
currency of the European Union, the Euro,
despite being a member, as the Government
took the position that it would not be an
economic benefit.
• The current ruling party in the UK is the
Labour Party, who have won the last three
elections.
Other Political Issues (cont’d)
• The leader of the Labour Party during all three
of these elections was Tony Blair, but after
scandals involving his handling of the Iraq war,
his popularity declined.
• He retired in 2007, and was replaced by
Gordon Brown, the current Prime Minister.
Class
• It is common for contemporary societies to be
divided into classes for political or economic
analysis, but the UK actually still retains some
of the formal trappings of class carried over
from ancient times.
• The formal class distinctions that still exist in
UK society tend to emphasise the other more
practical distinctions, such as personal wealth.
Class (cont’d)
• The lower class, or working class, traditionally
represents those citizens with so called “blue
collar” jobs, meaning lower income workers at
mostly manual labour type jobs.
• The middle class, mostly with professional
wage earning jobs, or “white collar” jobs, earn
more money, but aren’t necessarily rich.
• The upper class are difficult to classify in the
UK, because there are two possible definitions
Class (cont’d)
• The very rich and powerful, such as business
leaders, could be determined to be the upper
class according to economic or political
reasons.
• On the other hand, the aristocracy would be
seen as upper class from a more traditional
standpoint, almost regardless of their wealth
(although most would have valuable assets in
the form of property such as ancestral land).
Class (cont’d)
• Although the UK is considered to be a
democratic country, this hereditary aristocracy
still wields some real power.
• The monarch is a hereditary position, and
there are still a number of positions (92) in the
upper house of the UK parliament – the House
of Lords - filled according to title rather than
election (although this is being phased out).
Class (cont’d)
• In practice, these class divisions no longer
limit people from the lower classes from
moving up, except to positions of royalty.
Race
• The UK is populated by a number of minorities
of a non-European background.
• The British Empire had a number of colonies
in various parts of the world, and many UK
citizens have a family background from these
places.
• Like many other countries, the UK has laws
designed to prevent discrimination on the
basis of race.
Race (cont’d)
• Historically, racial discrimination was
commonplace, and even though officially it is
outlawed, problems arising from race related
issues still arise, particularly in areas with high
densities of a particular background or
culture.