Paper 1: Political Parties

Question 1

What is a political party?

Answer 1

Group of ppl drawn together by similar set of beliefs known as an ideology, might not all be identical so there are some divisions within parties

Question 2

Examples of divisions in parties

Answer 2

Tories split over Brexit (May and Cameron remain and Johnson and Gove leave)
Labour split over nuclear weapons

Question 3

Functions of political parties: Representation

Answer 3

Main function is to represent ppl with certain set of beliefs, ppl can be represented in other ways e.g. pressure groups but parties bring order to the system in a representative democracy

Question 4

Functions of political parties: Participation

Answer 4

Need to encourage participation to win power such as joining a party and supporting it
Labour proposes more power to party members than other parties

Question 5

Functions of political parties: Recruiting Office Holders

Answer 5

For small no. of ppl, party membership can lead to recruitment as candidates for public office
Parties have right to reject or ‘deselect’ candidates who fail to live up to expectation
Parties can move candidates to safe seats if they really want them to win e.g Labour party in 2010 when they moved Luciana Berger to Wavertree seat
Tories but Esther McVey in Tatton

Question 6

Functions of political parties: Formulating policy

Answer 6

Parties generate policies that embody ideas they stand for
Put ideas forward in manifesto
Parties said to have educative function by communicating and explaining ideas to public but likely to distort opponents’ policies in their own interests

Question 7

Functions of political parties: Providing Government

Answer 7

Winning party forms govt. which controls business of parliament
PM who loses confidence of party is vulnerable e.g Thatcher in ‘90

Question 8

Where did distinction of left and right wing politics come form?

Answer 8

Came from pre-revolutionary France where seating in French assembly reflected views
Those who wanted democracy and reform on left and those in favour of the King on the right

Question 9

How are MPs paid?

Answer 9

Payed from general taxation and currently earn £74,692 a year
Allowed to claim expenses to cover running an office, living in Westminster and constituency and travelling between the two

Question 10

What’s Short Money?

Answer 10

Special state provision to support activities of the opposition in parliament
To qualify, a party must have at least 2 seats in Parliament
Paid £17,000 per seat they have plus funding calculated on amount of votes they receive and travel allowance
Labour gets £6.2 million in short money

Question 11

Tony Blair and Bernie Ecclestone

Answer 11

Blair faced criticism with months of coming into office in ‘97 after motor-racing boss, Ecclestone had donated £1 million to Labour in return for a delay in imposing a ban on tobacco advertising in F1
The money was returned

Question 12

Tony Blair and Cash for Honours

Answer 12

2006/7 emerged that Labour had been creating peerages in HofL in return for big loans to the party
Police investigation followed and Labour had to repay the money

Question 13

John Major and Cash for Questions

Answer 13

MPs accused of accepting money for asking questions (or lobbying) in parliament

Question 14

What did Blair do in response to the Cash for donors/questions scandal

Answer 14

Passes the 2000 Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act which inc:
Independent electoral commission set up to supervise party spending
Amount that party could spend in a constituency was 30k
Donations form ppl not on UK electoral role were banned

Question 15

What was the party funding in 2014?

Answer 15

Tories- £29 million
Labour- £18.5 million
Lib Dems- £8 million

Question 16

Should parties receive state funding: Yes

Answer 16

Parties play imp. role in representative democracy and so deserve public funding
Would be fairer for smaller parties
If state matched donations with party members, might encourage membership
Would curb the possibly corrupt influence of private backers on party policy

Question 17

Should parties receive state funding: No

Answer 17

Increased sate funding could lead to calls for greater state regulation, reducing parties’ independence
Hard to decide how much support a party should have to qualify for funding
Could isolate parties from the coshes of the voters
Taxpayers would resent compulsory contributions to parties of which they disapprove

Question 18

What’s a one-party dominant system?

Answer 18

A number of parties, but only one has a realistic prospect of holding power

Question 19

What’s a two-party system?

Answer 19

Two parties compete for power at elections, other parties have no real chance

Question 20

Argument that UK has a multiparty system

Answer 20

In 2015 election, 13.5% of voters backed parties other than big two
Some parts of UK e.g Scotland has a genuinely multiparty competition
Although parties such as Green Party, UKIP have struggled to gain parliamentary representation at Westminster, they achieve success in second order elections

Question 21

Arguments that UK doesn’t have multiparty system

Answer 21

Labour and Tories are only parties with a real chance of forming the govt.
2015, won 86.5% of seats
Only competition is Lib Dems who still were 224 seats behind Labour in 2015

Question 22

Factors affecting the success of political parties

Answer 22

Representation
Funding
Leadership
Media

Question 23

Conservatives and media

Answer 23

Supported by Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph + Times
Spent over £1 million on FB ads
2017 said to have lost social media election

Question 24

Labour and the media

Answer 24

More social media presence than other parties
2017, Labour’s last minute ad was viewed more than double that of Tories videos
Milliband and bacon sandwich

Question 25

Conservatives and leadership

Answer 25

2016 May became leader after opponent withdrew
Called general election to increase majority but lost seats
2018, faced with ‘vote of no confidence’, 1/3 of her won party voted against her
3 MPs defected into independent group

Question 26

Labour and leadership

Answer 26

Corbyn has good media presence, appealing to young voters
Won vote of no confidence in 2016 and won leadership election twice
Not seen as overly intelligent + no ministerial experience

Question 27

What is adversary politics?

Answer 27

Occurs when there’s deep divisions between the parties

As UK is mostly a stable two-party system, adversarial politics are rare

Question 28

What’s a constitution?

Answer 28

Set of principals which may be written or unwritten that establishes the distribution of power within a political system

Question 29

What did the constitutional reforms hope to achieve?

Answer 29

Democratisation
Decentralisation
Stronger protection of rights
Modernisation

Question 30

When was the House of Lords reform?

Answer 30

1999

Question 31

What was included in the House of Lords reform?

Answer 31

Removal of hereditary peers