Political Parties

• Features of political parties

  -Parties are associations of people who hold similar political views and wish to promote them

  -Parties seek governmental power

  -Most parties have some kind of hierarchy

  -Most parties have a system of membership
• Functions of political parties

  1. improve society

  2. select + campaign for candidates

  3. educate public

  4. allow for public participation

  5. when not in gov.t, call gov.t to account
• Funding of political parties

  1. party membership

  2. fundraising events

  3.loans

  4. donations

  5.self finance
• Short money

  Subsidy designed to help opposition parties to compensate for the lack of civil service help.
• Electoral Commission grants

  £2 million per party
• Party funding reforms

  1. restrict size of individual donations

  2. impose tight restrictions on how much parties can spend

  3. restrict donations to individuals

  4. replace all funding with state grants, paid for via tax
• state funding for

  1. end corrupt use of donations (e.g cash for honours)

  2. End hidden forms of influence ( e.g Bernie Ecclestone)

  3. Reduce financial advantage of larger parties + allow small parties to make progress

  4. Improve democracy by ensuring wider participation
• Lubov Chernukhin

  Husband closley associated with Putin, donated £1.7 million to Conservative party, enjoyed personal meetings with last 3 PMs
• Bernie Ecclestone

  - donated £1 million to Labour before the 1997 general election

  - led to Labour government makes Formula One exempt from and EU ban on advertising tobacco
• State funding against

  1. Tax payers object to funding 'private' organisations

  2. Difficult to know how to distribute funding

  3. parties may lose independence and see themselves as organs of the state

  4. excessive state regulation of parties
• 2007 Phillips Report

  'pence-per-voter' would only serve two largest parties
• Political parties, elections and referendums act (2000)


  Imposed limits on party spending in GE and other elections to make parties less reliant on wealthy individual bankers
• left-wing

  Associated with socialism, promotes redistribution of income, regulation of the excesses of capitalism, protection for workers rights and overall state intervention
• right-wing

  the conservative or reactionary section of a political party or syste. Limited state role, low tax and welfare , promotion of free markets
• Conservative Party main ideas

  1. order and harmony

  2. oppose strongly held ideology / principals

  3. gentle reform over radical

  4. individualism + minimal state

  5. patriotism

  6. pragmatic

  7.low tax

  8. strong property rights

  9. preference over community rights

  10. stress on law / order / national security
• One Nation Conservatism

  A faction within the conservative party that is concerned with social cohesion, Supports welfare state and advocates a mixed economy rather than solely privatisation, pro EU, organic society
• noblesse oblige

  the duty of upper classes to take responsibility for the welfare of the lower classes
• Organic Society

  an understanding that society operates like a living organism with each member integrally related to all others, and the whole is more than the collection of its parts. In an organic society, members are interdependent, bound to each other by mutual responsibility, and each individual's own good is integrally related to the good of the whole.
• New Right

  faction that combines neo conservative beliefs ( traditional values and law and order) with neo liberal economic beliefs ( low tax and little state intervention)
• Neo-conservatism

  An ideology which brings together a belief in fiscal conservatism, that is a return to classical liberalism (increase the free market, decrease the size of government), with a social conservatism, that is a call to return to traditional notions of social and political morality, with state as moral authoritarian figure
• Neo-liberalism

  A strategy for economic development that calls for free markets, balanced budgets, privatization, free trade, and minimal government intervention in the economy.
• Conservatives are more new right evidence

  1. 2019 manifesto pledged not to raise national insurance contributions, vat and tax

  2. 2010 party has supported welfare reform, leading to a reduction of benefits through benefit caps and 'bedroom tax'

  3. 2020 priti patel proposed points based immigration system to reduced unskilled immigration

  4. Bojo Get BREXIT done and the us led wars in Iraq + afghan
• Jeremt hunt foreign aid 2022


  Jeremy Hunt has gone back on the Conservative Party's 2019 manifesto promise to keep foreign aid spending at 0.7 per cent of the UK's gross national income.

  The chancellor announced as part of Thursday's Autumn Statement that the spend will stay at 0.5 per cent until April 2028.
• One nation evidence

  1. furlough scheme / rishi 2020 £170 billion investment programme for infrastructure growth

  2. 2019 levelling up michael gove

  3. 20,000 more police and 50,000 more nurses

  4. david cameron preferred rehab over prison

  5. most con mps voted remain EU
• LABOUR main ideas

  1. high tax

  2. redistribution wealth

  3. welfare state

  4. nationalisation industry

  5. economic reform

  6. trade unions

  7. promote equal rights
• Old Labour (social democracy)

  Key Labour principles embodying nationalisation, redistribution of wealth from rich to poor and the provision of continually improving welfare and state services, which largely rejected Thatcherite/ free-market reforms or a Blairite approach.
• New Labour (Third Way)

  A revision of the traditional Labour values and ideals represented by Old Labour. Influenced by Anthony Giddens, the 'Third Way' saw Labour shift in emphasis from a heavy focus on the working class to a wider class base, and a less robust alliance with the trade unions. Mixed economy, public- private partnerships
• Evidence of old labour

  1. 2019 manifesto pledged raise min wage from £8.21 to £10

  2. Brown gov.t nationalised failing banks such as Northern Rock and part of Royal Bank of Scotland

  3. Corbyn pledged creation of national investment bank with over £350 million to rebuild regional industries

  4. Under Corbyn, pledged to take hospital cleaning into public

  5. 2019 manifesto proposed a "presumption against prison sentences" for non violent and non sexual offences

  6. Miliband urged his party to vote against Syria in 2013
• New labour evidence

  1. Gap between richest and poorest grew under Blair despite introducing national minimum wage

  2. labour didn't reverse Thatcher's privitisation of public utilities

  3. Cleaing services for NHS contracted out under Blair

  4. Bair encouraged business' to sponsor underperforming schools

  5. 2019 manifesto promised to restore prison officer levels to that of 2010

  6. Ed Miliband supported strong action against isis

  7. Former shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn supported 2015 syria
• Lib Dems

  Of the three main political parties in the UK, this is the one that is most disadvantaged by the electoral system.
• Orange Book Liberals

  liberals following a form of liberalism harking back to 19th century that proposed the maximisation of personal freedom and the minimal state
• modern liberals

  Liberals who believe that, under free-market capitalism, many individuals are not truly free, and that the state must help them in a more active way.
• Importance of smaller parties

  1. divert votes away from main parties e.g SNP decimated Labour support in Scotland AND ukip took votes away from conservatives and labour in 2015

  2. In marginal constituencies the smaller parties split vote

  e.g Brexit party didn't campaign in marginal seats in 2019

  3. Smaller parties effect larger party policy e.g UKIP 2014 European parliamentary success led to referendum and their 2019 (Brexit party) popularity at EE led to hard brexit
• Other UK political parties

  SNP

  Brexit party

  UKIP

  DUP

  Sinn Fein

  Plaid Cymru

  Green
• Limits on smaller party importance

  1. support base in small area e.g SNP in scotland

  2.Electoral impact limited to one election e.g UKIP's vote collapsed in 2017 GE

  3. FPTP not kind to parties whose vote is wide but shallow e.g UKIP 2015

  4. Policies of smaller parties subsumed by the larger e.g Labour bringing forward net zero carbon emissions in 2019 manifesto dampended green support
• dominant party system

  party system in which multiple parties exist but the same one wins every election and governs continuously
• two-party system

  An electoral system with two dominant parties that compete in national elections.
• three party system

  a political system which can be seen to be dominated by three major parties
• multi-party system

  political party system that recognizes 3 or more major political parties
• dominant party system evidence

  1. 1979-2010 only one party in rule Tory gov.t (18 years) then 13 years of labour

  2. 2015 coaltion was a phenomenon and has not been repeated

  3. One party in govt since the 2019 GE - Tories have had 56% of seats in HOC

  4.Minority Gov.t can still control parliament e.g May able to delay vote on Brexit to her time of choosing

  5. Survived two votes of no confidence one May 2019 other Bojo 2022

  COUNTER

  1. DUP deal needed for MAY