UK General Election Assignment
Write an 800-1200 word (1.5 – 2 page), single-spaced, thesis driven essay in response to the following questions:

• Describe: What happened in the May 7 general election and why?
• Analyze: What stands out as particularly interesting or anomalous in the election results?
• Evaluate: What do the results mean for the UK? What challenges might ensue from coalition rule?

You may use the articles given. You must also do your own research. Properly cite your essay using parenthetical citation. You do not need a works cited page.

You will present and defend your essay in class. I look forward to it.

Start with this video from the Financial Times

Then  Wiki

The Guardian offers some useful graphic representations

Vox always wants to “explain” stuff. Let ’em

Now that you’ve got the basics, dig into the meat of it (sorry vegetarian friends).

Is Britain facing an identity crisis? The traditional dividing lines of left and right seem to be dissolving into new political tribes – metropolitan liberals versus the culturally rooted working classes, graduates versus the uneducated, the young versus the old. In June’s general election, traditional Labour heartlands like Mansfield went Conservative, while wealthy areas such as Kensington swung to Corbyn. Britain seems utterly confused about its politics. As the far left and Eurosceptic right have gained strength, much of the country has been left feeling politically homeless.

So what’s going on? How will these new alignments play out as the country faces the historic challenge of leaving the EU and forging a new relationship with the rest of the world? Are the Conservatives really up to the job, as they bicker over what kind of Brexit they want and jostle over who should succeed Theresa May? Is it now unthinkable that Jeremy Corbyn could be the next prime minister?

Looming over the current turmoil is the biggest question of all: What kind of Britain do we want to live in? What are the values that should hold our society together?
Speakers

• Professor Anand Menon, Director of The UK in a Changing Europe
• Hilary Benn, the Labour MP and Chair of the Brexit Select Committee
• Ken Clarke, Father of the House of Commons and the most senior Conservative voice in Parliament
• David Goodhart, author of one of the most talked about analyses of British politics and the rise of populism
• Helen Lewis, deputy editor at the New Statesman and prominent journalist on the left

Your assignment: Watch to the entire program here (about one hour). Take copious notes. Submit notes as homework.

The “winners and losers” political narrative is rather frustrating. Just the same, this Vox piece does seem to sum it up tidily. Spoiler, Teresa May won, but lost.

At the request of Parliament’s Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, King’s College London scholar Robert Blackburn spent four years drafting blueprints for a full-fledged constitution. The results were published last year in a parliamentary report titled “A New Magna Carta?”

Washington Post: Should Britain have a written constitution? In what ways could it be useful in settling the questions at the core of the U.K.’s existential dilemmas — devolved vs. centralized power, in Europe or out, four nations or one, etc.

Robert Blackburn: Britain should now move towards adopting a written constitution, which would have great benefits in providing a renewed sense of national identity, and settling the state of the Union across the four nations of the U.K. and the terms and limits of its partnership in Europe.

Within the country at large, a documentary constitution would enable ordinary people to know and see what are the principles, rules and institutions by which they are governed, to replace the present sprawling mass of common law rules in law reports, convoluted Acts of Parliament that are unreadable to most people, and unwritten conventions some of which are unclear even to politicians working at Westminster.

An initiative on enacting a written constitution would provide the opportunity for resolution of a number of constitutional problems, ones where despite cross-party agreement that something must be done, no outcome has been forthcoming, such as settling the rationale and democratic form for the parliamentary Second Chamber (House of Lords).

Read more of this Washington Post interview with Robert Blackburn

In May, Liverpool, Greater Manchester and four other combined authorities (see map) will elect a metro mayor for the first time. They are the poster children of the “devolution revolution” launched by the then chancellor, George Osborne, in 2015. The hope was that more joined-up decision-making at local level would boost regional economies and raise productivity. But many rural areas did not even submit a devolution proposal. Elsewhere local councillors rejected the notion. There are fears that, beyond the six deals concluded, it will be hard to do more. Lord Porter, head of the Local Government Association, said last month that he believes “devolution is dead.”

Some counties are restructuring anyway. Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire each plan to abolish their county, district and city councils and form a “unitary” one. Cornwall, Wiltshire and Shropshire have already done so. But district councils often align with parliamentary constituencies and, as district councillors act as ground troops in general elections, many MPs do not want unitaries.

The biggest problem is persuading the people in places like King’s Lynn to support change. “If you asked all my friends in the town,” says one lifelong resident out shopping with his wife, “I doubt any of them have even heard of devolution.”

Read more from the Economist 

The campaign to leave the European Union has won the referendum. It means the UK is now committed to withdrawing from the group of 28 countries, a process that has come to be known as Brexit. What does this mean for the UK and EU?

BBC Parliament TV looked back at some major events in the British Parliament since September 2015 in their program “Westminster in Review” hosted by Keith Mcdougall.?Topics included:

• the debate on the United Kingdom’s future membership in the European Union (EU)
• combating ISIS* in Syria
• the election of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
• the use of a robot in Parliament and debate on the hedgehog being a national symbol.

Video compilation of the Parliament’s last quarter of 2015

Jeremy Corbyn is the new leader of the Labour party. What are his beliefs?

1. The deficit should be tackled – but not through spending cuts and not to an “arbitrary” deadline. Instead Corbyn would fund its reduction via higher taxes for the rich and a crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion while tackling “corporate welfare” and tax breaks for companies.

2. Britain’s railways should be renationalised. He is also opposed to the HS2 rail scheme, saying it would turn northern cities into “dormitories for London businesses”

Read on from the BBC

The Labour conference has formally committed itself to the renationalisation of the English rail network as it pledged to oppose another round of “unneeded, unwanted and ill-thought-through privatisation”.

In a significant boost for the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has suffered a series of setbacks over the EU and Trident, Labour’s national executive committee agreed a statement that paves the way for the rolling renationalisation of the rail network.

The government has inadvertently provided further evidence that it is looking at privatising Channel 4, after an official was photographed entering Downing Street with a document setting out options for a sell-off.

After months of ministerial obfuscation on whether the sale of the state-owned, commercially funded broadcaster was being considered, the document reveals that proposals have already been drawn up in a bid to raise an estimated £1bn for Treasury coffers.

Oopsies.

The BBC coverage of the election and results

A collection of coverage from the Economist 

StatWonk Nate Silver’s 538 coverage 

Anne Applebaum offers this jeremiad in response to the election results

UK General Election Assignment
Write an 800-1200 word (1.5 – 2 page), single-spaced, thesis driven essay due in response to the following questions:

• Describe: What happened in the May 7 general election and why?
• Analyze: What stands out as particularly interesting or anomalous in the election results?
• Evaluate: What do the results mean for the UK? What challenges might ensue from coalition rule?

Use the articles given. You may also do your own research.

Properly cite your essay using parenthetical citation. You do not need a works cited page.

You will present and defend your essay in class. I look forward to it.

• Who are the candidates? Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Jeremy Corbyn, Liz Kendall

• Dates: Ballot papers were sent out on 14 August; voting can take place by post or online. They must be returned by 10 September. The result is on 12 September
• Who can vote? All party members, registered supporters and affiliated supporters – including those joining via a union
• What is the voting system? The Alternative Vote system is being used so voters are asked to rank candidates in order of preference
• How does it work? If no candidate gets 50% of all votes cast, the candidate in fourth place is eliminated. Their second preference votes are then redistributed among the remaining three. If there is still no winner, the third place candidate is eliminated with their second preferences (or third in the case of votes transferred from the fourth place candidates) redistributed. It is then a head-to-head between the last two candidates

June Thomas, a Brit living in D.C., offers her insight into the meaning of the 2015 General Election.

The BBC summarizes David Cameron’s New Cabinet and New(ish) Agenda

Mr Cameron said that unless the current rules are changed: “English MPs will be unable to vote on the income tax paid by people in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, while Scottish MPs are able to vote on the tax you pay in Birmingham or Canterbury or Leeds.

“It is simply unfair. And with English votes for English laws we will put it right.

“Because if you have basic constitutional unfairness like we’ve had, if you have the people in one part of the UK feeling like they are getting a raw deal, then resentment festers, and that undermines the bonds and the fellow-feeling that are the basis of the United Kingdom.”