2.1 political parties Flashcards
What is a political party?
- a group of people drawn together by a similar set of beliefs
What do most political parties aspire to do?
- form a government
- adopt an agreed programme of policy commitments
How are parties different from pressure groups?
- pressure groups may represent a single sectional interest or be concerned with a narrow range of ideas
- pressure groups may try to influence parties to adopt their ideas, but do not usually enter their own candidate at elections
What does right-wing mean?
- for little or no change
- supporters of right-wing parties stress the importance of order, stability, hierachy and private property
What does left-wing mean?
- desiring change, reform and alteration to the way that society operates
What are the main functions a party must perform within a democratic system?
- representation
- participation
- recruiting office holders
- formulating policy
- providing government
What is representation as a function within a democratic system?
- represent the views of people with a certain set of beliefs
What is participation as a function within a democratic system?
- parties encourage people to vote, join a party and to support it through funding
What is recruiting office holders as a function within a democratic system?
- party membership can lead to recruitment as candidates for public office
- candidates can learn political skills as campaigners and organisers
What is formulating policy as a function within a democratic system?
- parties generate policies that embody the ideas for which they stand
- at a general election these proposals are put into a manifesto
What is providing government as a function within a democratic system?
- the winning party at a general election has the opportunity to form a government
- the party then controls the business of parliament, with a view to passing its manifesto into law
How are MPs usually paid?
from general taxation
What was the basic annual salary of an MP in 2024?
£91,346
What can an MP claim expenses for?
- cover the cost of running an office
- living in Westminster and their constituency, and travelling between the two
How do parties gain funding?
- through voluntary subscriptions of their membership
- fundraising events in MPs constituencies
Why has party funding been a controversial area?
suspicion that powerful interests offer financial support in return for political influence
What is short money?
a special state provision to support the activities of the opposition in parliament
How have Labour been traditionally funded?
through trade unions
What have the large parties been accused of?
offering political honours (‘cash for honours’), to their most generous benefactors
What has resulted due to the 2000 Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act?
- an independent electoral commission was set up to supervise party spending on election campaigns
- the amount a party could spend was capped at £30,000 in a constituency
- donations of more than £5000 (nationally) or £1000 (to a constituency party) had to be declared
- parties had to publish details or donations at regular intervals
- donations from individuals not on the UK electoral roll were banned
What was the ‘cash for peerages’ scandal?
2006: several wealthy individuals who had loaned money to the Labour Party had been nominated for honours
What did Sir Hayden Phillips propose in 2007?
to address the problem of private donations there would be a move towards a system where parties are funded from taxpayers’ money
What was the 2016 Trade Union Act created by the Conservatives?
obliged new trade union members to choose whether to ‘opt in’ to making payments towards the political levy
What was supported by Labour and Lib Dems at the 2015 election?
to impose limits on individual donations to parties
What are arguments for state funding?
- parties play an important role in representative democracy, so deserve public funding
- public funding would remove the great disparity in resources available to different-sized parties
- if the state matched donations by party members, it might encourage participation by the public and recruitment to parties
- it would curb the possibly corrupt influence of private backers on party policy
What are arguments against state funding?
- increased state funding could lead to calls for greater state regulation, possibly reducing parties independence
- it is hard to decide how. much support a party should have to qualify for funding
- public funding could isolate parties from the wishes of the voters
- taxpayers would resent compulsory contributions to parties of which they disapprove
