Watch live or archived footage of Lords and Commons debates here.

THIS may seem an odd moment to make the claim, but . The outside world may see an unvarying kingdom of royal weddings, golden carriages and clip-clopping Horse Guards, with a young prime minister drawn from the old Establishment. But strip away the pageantry, and David Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition is proposing radical changes to the constitutional order.

A national referendum Britain is a country in the grip of a modernising frenzy on May 5th and months of parliamentary wrangling lie ahead. But if all the changes being proposed by the coalition come to fruition, British democracy could look and feel very different by the next general election, set by the coalition for May 2015.

Depending on the outcome of the referendum [it failed miserably -DL], that general election may be held using a new voting system: supporters of change call it the biggest shake-up since votes for women in 1928. Voters are to be asked to choose between keeping the winner-takes-all system of first-past-the-post (FPTP) and moving to the alternative-vote (AV) method, in which voters rank candidates in numbered order of preference. Under AV, if no candidate wins more than 50% of voters’ first preferences, the least popular candidate is eliminated and the second preferences of those who voted for him are distributed. The process continues, redistributing third, fourth or lower preferences until someone crosses the 50% line.

David Cameron gave a speech about Islamism and British values at a conference in Munich. Back home, the rows have not stopped since. Much of the fuss has a distinctly synthetic tang. Absurdly, Sadiq Khan, the Labour shadow justice secretary, accused the prime minister of “writing propaganda” for a far-right group that held a rally on the same day. Conservatives chortled that Mr Cameron had hailed the end of multiculturalism. What he actually said was that a doctrine of “state multiculturalism” had encouraged Britons to live segregated lives. In its stead, he proposed a “muscular liberalism” that confronts extremism and promotes a British identity open to all.

The Culture War (?) rages on…

PARLIAMENTARY arithmetic, personal compatibility and shared ideas all played their part in bringing the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats together in a coalition government last May. But the compromise without which the deal might not have happened was the Tories’ offer to hold a referendum on the Lib Dems’ cherished goal of electoral reform. Scheduled for May 5th, the plebiscite will ask whether Westminster’s first-past-the-post voting system (FPTP) should be replaced by the alternative-vote model (AV). It could be the most fraught single issue to face the coalition in 2011, and perhaps in the whole five-year parliament.
The proposed reform itself is fairly modest. Under FPTP, voters can only back one constituency candidate at a general election. Under AV, they would rank the contenders according to preference. If no candidate won 50% of first preferences, second and subsequent preferences would be tallied until somebody did. This is not the proportional representation of Lib Dem dreams. Indeed, some experts say AV would sometimes be less proportional than FPTP, if the make-up of the resulting parliament is measured against the first-preference votes cast for each party.

Read more about what might be THE issue of this coalition Parliament

The coalition is making local government more powerful, but also poorer and—probably—more unpopular

Why more unpopular?

On February 15th the government was forced to drop plans to split the Isle of Wight into one and a half parliamentary seats. The half-seat was to be joined to a chunk of the English mainland, creating a constituency divided by several miles of sea. Victory honours go to Lord Fowler, a former Conservative Party chairman and longtime island resident. Fully 196 peers, among them seven former Tory cabinet ministers, backed his House of Lords amendment that makes the Isle of Wight an exception to a government plan to redraw almost all British constituencies to fit a quota of 76,000 voters, with only small variations allowed. The Isle of Wight constituency (Britain’s biggest) currently boasts 110,000 electors.

Read more about this electoral tomfoolery

David Cameron has criticised “state multiculturalism” in his first speech as prime minister on radicalisation and the causes of terrorism.

At a security conference in Munich, he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism.

Sounds like Germany?

More from the BBC…

Last year [2009] Northern Ireland suffered 22 terrorist-related attacks; so far this year there have been 39. Last year 17 people in the province were charged with terrorist offences; this year, according to Matt Baggott, the chief constable of Northern Ireland’s police service (PSNI), the figure is already 74. On September 24th, acting on advice from the Security Service, MI5, Theresa May, the home secretary, raised the official perception of the threat from republican groups to a level that implies an attack on the mainland is “a strong possibility”.

The specter of the Bad Old Days in the UK?

SINCE the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government was formed in May, most observers have looked to the Lib Dems as the main source of disaffection. Yet the big arguments within the cabinet so far have been “blue on blue”, mostly involving causes dear to the Tory right.

Can David Cameron keep his own party happy?

Here is some of the coverage by The Economist of the 5 candidate race to lead the Labour Party after its defeat in the 2010 general elections.

The 5 Way Race

On Ed Miliband’s Victory

Bagehot Commentary on Ed Milliband

Government spending has spiraled. See how much it has increased

A graphic illustrating who’s who in Cameron’s cabinet and in each government department

In the name of government  transparency and accountability The Guardian offers the Aristotle program which allows the user to track the record of any given MP.

A whirlwind tour of the UK election campaign from Slate
Britain’s teeming but invisible average earners will decide the coming election. Neither David Cameron nor Gordon Brown seems to understand them. Read about the impact of class on the 2010 election and beyond.

A dynamic, interactive election results map from the BBC

A graph showing how a proportional representation system would have changed the general election result

A chart showing which political parties national newspapers have supported in every general election since 1945 – and who they are endorsing at the 2010 election

Bagehot offers his take on the effect that this election will have on Britons (“Farewell Free Stuff”)

A look into Labour’s Future

In “Learning How to Share” the Economist offers a comparative perspective on coalition governing.

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 6 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?

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.

Pessimists about politics might consider the following facts. Thirty one years ago yesterday, St David’s Day 1979, Welsh voters humiliatingly rejected the Callaghan government’s Wales devolution act in a referendum by 79.8% to 20.2%. Nearly two decades on, however, Welsh voters narrowly supported the Blair government’s Wales devolution act in a new referendum by 50.3% to 49.7%. Today, according to a St Davids Day BBC Wales/ICM poll, only 13% of Welsh voters now want to see the Welsh assembly abolished, while only 18% are satisfied with the limited powers conferred on the assembly in 1998. Most Welsh people would like to see not less or no devolution – but more. By 56% to 35% they say they would vote for an assembly with full legislative powers in a referendum now scheduled for next year.

Read on at the Guardian

Mr Brown announced that the House of Commons would vote next week on legislation mandating a referendum, to be held by October 2011, on switching from the first-past-the-post system (FPTP) hitherto used in Westminster elections to the “alternative vote” method (AV) used in Australia.

Bagehot Explains

BRITONS interested in politics (about a third of them, apparently) face a raucous punditocracy eager to assure them that their countrymen are becoming more liberal or more conservative, more cynical or more idealistic, usually according to the personal political views of the sage in question. Those looking for something more authoritative might be interested in the annual Social Attitudes Survey, which distils the responses of over 80,000 people to a variety of questions on politics, economics and society.
The most recent, based on interviews in 2008, was published on January 26th. It describes an increasingly jaded, increasingly liberal country, still attached to big government but dubious of official attempts to help the poor.

Read on from the Economist

BRITAIN, and especially England, is occasionally compared to North Korea (only half-jokingly) as one of the most heavily centralised states in the world. Whitehall bureaucrats micromanage schools and hospitals; local government is dependent on the Treasury for most of its funding. But one bastion of local power has for years stood apart from the trend towards central control: planning, the process by which building projects are granted or denied permission to proceed. Objections from stubborn locals can derail or delay everything from small wind farms and shopping centres to huge projects of national importance. The most notorious example is probably Heathrow airport’s fifth terminal, which languished in the planning system for year upon year before eventually being approved in 2001.
On November 9th all that seemed set to change, as Ed Miliband, the energy and climate-change secretary, delivered the first of the government’s “National Policy Statements” on infrastructure. These will inform the work of the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), an independent body set up last month. Led by Sir Michael Pitt, a veteran planner and local-authority boss, it will take over responsibility for planning nationally important projects from March 2010. Decisions that used to take years will, in theory, take just months or even weeks, with public involvement drastically curtailed.

Read on here

TO JUDGE from the awe with which he is regarded by his rivals, Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) is a politician of wizard-like cunning. Look, they say, at the scandal over the release of the Lockerbie bomber. Saltires were waved in Tripoli and brickbats hurled from Washington; yet, even as he insisted the decision was Scotland’s alone, Mr Salmond contrived to deflect much of the blame onto Gordon Brown. Their deep fear is that Mr Salmond will conjure Scotland into independence.

Read on from Bagehot

This is a rick editorial that dances across many of our APCG themes.

 

Here’s a link to a show called  Question Time session of the British National Party on YouTube

Here is a link to the real Question Time on Parliament

Cameron vs. Brown. Ouch (May 2007)