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David Cameron conducted his first major reshuffle last week and the details of who is in or out; promoted or demoted dominates the Sunday papers. The Guardian’s Andrew Rawnsley suggests that Cameron has provided a masterclass in how NOT to reshuffle a cabinet. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/09/andrew-rawnsley-cameron-cabinet-reshuffle There have been quite a few grumblings this week that the … Continue reading
David Cameron reshuffled his Cabinet this afternoon. With several high profile scalps and demotions this is arguably the biggest assertion of the PM’s power over government thus far. Needless to say the online editions of the broadsheets and magazines have already produced enormous amounts of copy on this story. Here are some of my favourites … Continue reading
The BSkyB, Murdoch, Hunt, phone- hacking saga provided some wonderful Unit 2 examples this week. Any question on ‘how effecitvely is the PM held to account’, ‘how effective is Parliament in holding the PM to account’, ‘how powerful is the PM’ or indeed questions concerning the power or accountability of Ministers would benefit from this anecdote. 1) On … Continue reading
This story is a god- send to AS politics pupils- if ever there was a multipurpose example this is it… For many Liberal Democrats constitutional reform was the pay back for getting into a political bed populated with ‘nasty’ Tories back in 2010, we all know that electoral reform didn’t go well for the Liberals … Continue reading
While everything went wrong at home David Cameron has been clocking up some air miles in recent weeks with a trip to the USA and his current tour to Asia. The trips themselves provide good examples for the idea that a ‘Presidential PM’ behaves as a statesman- going to Japan to drum up investment in … Continue reading
David Cameron has had a rather difficult few weeks- the Health and Social Care Act 2012 is a woefully unpopular piece of legislation, Osborne’s budget has been criticised- most recently over the cap on tax relief for charitable donations (a policy that appears to be diametrically opposed to everything the Big Society seems to stand … Continue reading
In Unit 1 you are required to know about divisions within as well as between the parties. There has been a lot of attention on the Labour party of late, with people examining the pros and cons of Blue, Red, Purple and Black Labour. There has been less said about the formal groupings within the Tories. … Continue reading
The House of Lords defeated the government on its proposal to cap benefits at £26000. This is what can be described as a multi- purpose example, working for Unit 1 and Unit 2. While the Lords will claim this is evidence that an unelected chamber has its uses (doing the right thing in the face … Continue reading
David Cameron’s decision to urge the ECJ to reform is interesting in terms of both Units 1 and 2. An analysis of the relationship between the UK/ Conservatives and Human Rights can be found at the LSE Blog http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2012/01/25/human-rights-bpp-round-up/ However this is an important case study for various different reasons aside from the preservation of … Continue reading
We’ve mentioned the propensity of the current crop of Tory backbenchers to revolt before, (for detailed analysis have a skim through the posts on the Nottingham University politics blog- if you are interested in the statistics http://www.revolts.co.uk/). The EU referendum rebellion, in October 2010 makes and excellent example. However the size of that rebellion (itself a post … Continue reading
An interesting albeit critical (unsurprisingly) piece about David Cameron’s leadership style in the New Statesman http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2012/01/cameron-policy-european The article has some excellent snippets on the nature of governing from Number 10, evidence to suggest that Cameron is good in a crisis but that ultimately he has a tendency to make them, there are some good bits on Steve Hilton … Continue reading
The House of Lords defeated three parts of the Coalition’s Welfare Bill last night. This is an excellent example of the role of the House of Lords and in the ways in which Parliament can hold the government to account. The Independent has a really good summary of what happened, with some excellent pieces of detail … Continue reading
The Unit 1 Parties topic looks at both the divisions between and within the major political parties. At the moment there are a lots of divisions within the Labour Party, but the Conservatives in contrast look relatively unified at least at a Cabinet level. Bruce Anderson’s piece from Conservative Home explores this relative unity http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thecolumnists/2012/01/bruce-anderson-cameron-seems-entrenched-in-power-because-of-the-formidable-team-behind-him.html … Continue reading
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