Tài liệu Part 10- Britain pptx

By tradition theyalways come through in pairs, each pair comprising MPs from two different parties.. And that'stheend ofit.Ther eisn preferentialvotin g ifavoter chooses more thanonecan

Question s 97 Th e stat e o pe ning o f P arli am ent

These p ho tographsshovvtwo sce nes

from the annua l state opening of

Parliament,This is an example of a

traditiona l ceremony which

remindsMPs oftheirspecial status

and ofthcir 'togetherness' In the

first photograph, 'Black Rod', a

servantof the Queen, is knocking

on the door of the House of

Co mmons a nddeman di ngt hat t he

M Ps let t he Queen come i n and te ll

t hem what 'he r' governme nt is goi ng to do in t he com ing year The Commons a lways refuse her entry.

This isbecause.inthe severueenth

century, Charles I once burst in to

t he chamber and tried to arrest some

M Ps.Evers incet ac n themonarch

has not been allowed toenterthe Commons Ins tead, the MPs agree

to come through to the House of Lords and listen to the monarch in there This is what they are doing in the second photograph By tradition

theyalways come through in pairs, each pair comprising MPs from two different parties.

/

people agreethat ha in gtwoHo uses ofParliament is a goodidea,

a n d t h at thi s seco nd hou se co u ld have a more usef ul f unc t io n ifit

wereconstitu tedin adifferentway (witho ut thehereditary element)

However, at histime, nobodyc nagree onwhat would bethe best

way to reform the com pos it io n o f h e secon ho u se, and so, des p i te

recent reforms w hich have red uced the here ditar y element, it remains

as a fascinating (butvalua ble)anachronism inamodern state

QUESTIO N S

I Where would an MP of the ScottishNationalist

partyprobablysitin the Ho use ofCom mons'

2 In what way s do the seating arrangemen ts,

generalfacilitiesand payfor British MPsdiffer

from those of parliamentary representative s in

your country?Why are they different?

3 Many MPs in modern times are experts in

vario usfieldsof governme nt Becau se ofthe

complexityof modern governme nt, this is

somethingwhichsee ms to be necessary Bu t it

cou ld be said to h ave disa d va ntag es , too W hat

do yo u t h ink these di sadv ntages are?

4 When the Commons decid e to vot e , they do not

vote immediately.Instead, a'division bell'rings throughoutthePalace of Westminster , after

which MPs have ten minutes in w hich to vo te.

Why?

5 Manyof themembersof the Hou se ofLords are

her edi tar y aritsocrars.Whydo theBritishput

up wit h such an undemocratic eleme nt in their parliamentary system?

Lookatthetablebelow.You canseethat the electo ralsystem used

in Br itain do esn 't see m t o a dd u p I n th e 20 0 1 ele ction , th e

L abo ur part y r ece i ve d onl y four out of eve ry t en v ot es, b ut it w on

m or e t han s i x ou t of ev e ry ten s ea ts i n t he H ou seofCommons.I won tw o -a nd -a.) la l f t i m es a s man y s eats a s th e Co nse rvative p art y,

eventho ughit received lessthan one-and -a-h alftimes asmany votes.The LiberalDemocrat party didvery badlyoutofthe system

Itgot almosta fifth ofthe vote, butwono ly one in thirteenofthe seats in the Commo s.Andyet it was much luckierthanit hadbeen

in thepast.Thearithmeticalabsurdi tyof the systembecomesclear

wh en w e co m pare th e fo rtunes o f the Lib eral D e m o crat s t hi s ti me wit h t h eir fortu nes in the 199 2 e lecti on O n t ha t oc casion , it go t t h e

same proportion of thetotalvotebut fewerthan halfthe numberof

se ats What ' s g oi ng on ? A s i s ofte n the c ase wi th Br iti s h in s ituti on s,

theapparentlyillogicalfiguresarethe result ofhisto ry

The s ystem Unlikeinanyothe rcountryin theworld the systemofpolitical

r epre s ent ation th at i s use d in Br itain e volve d be fo re t he co m in g of

d em o crac y It a l so evo lved b efore na tion al i ssues b ecam e mo r

imp rtant to peoplethan localones.Intheory, theHouse of Commons

is simplya gatheringofpeoplewho eachrepresent a particularplace

in thekingdom.Origin ally,it wasn t heconcernof any body in

go ve rnm e nt a s to h o w e ach r epre s e nta tive was c hosen T hat wa s a

ma tt e f or e ach t own o r co unty to decid e fo r i tse lf No t unt il th e

n in eteenth c entur y w e e l aw s pa ssed ab out h o w e lec tio ns w ere to be

conducted ( E>Theevolutionof the ectoral system)

Labou r Conse rvative Libera l Dem ocrat A ll otherpar ties

Vo tes 10,7 40.648 (4 1 %) 8 35"7,29 2 (32 %) 4.8,6, '37 (18 %) 2.45"4.45"3 (9 %)

British gener al e lecti on results 2 00 I

This system wasin placebeforethe developme nt of modern polit

-icalparties(see chapter6).Thesedays,ofcourse , nearlyevery bo d y

votesforacand idate becausehe orshebelon gstoaparticularparty

Butthetradition rema insthat an MPisfirstandforemos ta repr esen t

-ativeof aparticularlocality Theresultofthistradi tion istha t the

electoralsystemis remarkab lysimple.It works like this.The cou nt ry

isdivided in toa numberofareas ofroughlyequal pop ulatio (abo u t

9°,000),known as consttuencies.Any body who wantsto beanMP

must declare himselfor herselfasacandidate inoneofth ese co stitu

-encies Onpolling day(th eday of theelect ion ) , votersgo to polling

stations and areeach given a single pieceof paper (th eballo tpaper)

withthe namesofthecand idatesfortha t constitue ncy(only) on it

Each voterthen putsacross next to the name of one can d idate After

the pollshaveclosed , theballot pap ers recou nted.Thecandidate

withthelargestnumberof crossesnextto hisor her nameis the

winner andbecomesthe MPforth e constit uency

And that'stheend ofit.Ther eisn preferentialvotin g (ifavoter

chooses more thanonecan d idate, hatballotpap eris 'sp iled'and

isnot cou ted) ;there is no counting of the proportion of votes for

each par ty(all votes cast for lo sing can d id atesaresim plyig ored) ;

thereis no extra allocationof seatsin Parliamentaccording to party

stren gths.At the 2 0 0 I election, there were 659 cons titue ncies and

659 MPswer e elected It wa called a generalelection, and of

course cont ro lofthe government depen de d o i ,but in formal

term si wasjust 659 separate electons going on at the same tim e

Hereare the resu lts fro m two constituen cies in 200 I

Conservative AdrianFloo k 2 ,0 33 Elaina Cohen 5,274

LiberalDem ocrat Jackie Ballard 22 , 798 Pau l Rowen [3 ,75[

Labour And rewGo ier 8 , 254 Lor an Fitzsimons 19,4 ° 6

If we addthevotesreceived foreach partyinthesetwoco nst ituen cies

together wefind th at th eLiberal Democratsgotmorevotesthan

Co servativeorLabou r.An dyet, these two parties ea hwona seat

whilethe Liberal Democratsdidn t.Thisisbecau se theywere not

first neitherconstitue ncy.Itis co mi ng first h at matters.In fact the

systemisknown asth e 'first-pa st-the-post' system (an allusionto

horse-racing)

F orma l a rra ngeme nts

In practice,it is the governmen t which decides when to holdan

election The law says that an electon has to take placeat least

every five years How ever,the int erv al betw een electio nsisusually

a bitshorter than this Apart y in power does notnorm ally wait

untilthe lastp sible moment.For exam ple,the Labo ur government

called the 2 0 0 1elec tion after only four years.When a party

Formalarr angements 99

iii- The e vo lut ion of th e e le cto ral system

1 32

Th e G reat R eform Bill i s passed.

Very sm all boroughs, w here electors can easily be persuade d who [0 VOle for, arc abolishe d.

S eats are g iven to large new towns such as B irmingham and Manchester which have until now been unreprese n

-ted in Parliament.

The franchise (the right to VOle) is made uniform throug hout t he count ry,

although differe nces between rural and urban areas rem ain II depends on t he

value of p rop erty o wned About 5" % of the a du lt p opulat i on now has the right

to vote in elections.

186 7

T he franchise i s extended [0 include mos t of the male w orkers in towns.

1 8 7 2

The secret ballot is intro duced (Until now, voting has been by a show of han ds.)

1 8 84

T he franc hise is extended to include male rural labourers

19 1

Wo men over [he age of thirty are given

t he right to vote

1 9 2 8

W om en are given the fra nchise on the

sa m e ba sis as m en A ll adu lts ove r

t v · v e m y-one now have { he right to vote.

1969

The m inimum voti ng agc is lo wered to eighteen, and ca ndidates a re now allo wed to e nter a 'po litica l desc ription'

o f t hemselves ne xt to their names o n

t he ballot pa per Until now, t he only

inf orm ation about a candidate that has

b een a llowed on the ba llot paper was

hi s or her ad dress.

100 10Electi on s

Crazycandida t es You don't have t o b elo ng t o an

i m portant p arty [Q be a candida te.

You don' t e ven h ave [Q liv e i n t h e

constit uency A ll )'o u n eed i s

-ates from the 1992 e lectio n fo r t he

cons utucncv of H un tin gdon Miss Deborah B irkhe ad G reen

Lord Buc kcthead G remloids Cha rles Cockc ll Fo rward t o Mar s P any

An d rew D uff Libe ral Dem ocrat Michael Flanaga n Conse rvcrive

T hctchente

Jo hn Major Conse rvcnve

Hu g h Scc klcman l abour David S he pheard Na tural LowPan y

L o rd Dav id Su tch Of ficial M ons t er

Rar ing Loo ny P er ty Pau l Wiggi n Li ber al

Se ven of th ese t en c an d idat e di d

n ot ge l t he ir mo ne y bac k BUI

t he r e rc alw ays s o m e pe ople w h

arc w illing 1 h e and idat es ev en

w hen t hey k now th ey hav e no

c h ance o f winnin g Som etim es they are p eop l e fig h ting for a

S i ngle c ause t hat th ey f e el v er y

si ro ng ly ab out S o m e ti mes the y arc p eo p le w ho ju st li ke 1 b e

c an d ida tes f o r a jo ke I n t his c ase

t hey t end t o be c and ida tes i n co n

-s u t ucncies w her e t he y will get a l o t

o f p ublici t y H u nti ngd on i s whe re

th e P rime Mi ni s t er a t ha t tim e ,

J o hn Ma jor , w as a c andidate s o it

w as a na tu r al c ho ice.

Th e m os t fa mo us o f t h es e 'silly '

ca nd ida tes wa s ' Lord' D avid S utch.

H e w as a c andidate i n t he same con

-s ti t ue ncy as t h e Prime Mi nister i n

every elec tion fro m 1 966 t o 1 997.

Th e in t en tion of th e £ 5"00 depo sit

is 1 d isco urage jo ke ca ndidates

suc h as ' Lord ' Su tch but th ey' ce

r-tai nly a dd colou r a nd amu sement

to t he occ asio n.

h saverysm allmajorityin theHo seof Commo ns,or no majority

atall,the int ervalcan bemuch shorte r

Afterthe dateofanelection hasb enfixed.people whowantto

be candidatesin aco nst uency have to deposit£1)00 with the

Return ingOfficer (theperson responsiblefor the conductof the

election in each constituency).Theyg tthis money backif theyget

1)% of the votesormo re The localassociatio s ofthemajor parties

willhavealready chosentheircand idates (sec chapter6)andwill

paythedepositsforthem.Ho wever ,it isnotnecessaryto belong to

apartyto beacand idate.Itisacuriousfeature of the system that,

legallyspeaking,partiesd not exist.That isto say, there isn writte n

law which triestodefinethem or regulatethem Thelaw allows

cand ida tes.ifthey wish.toinclude ash rt'politicaldescript ion 'of

themselveson theballot paper.Inpractice,of course,mostof these

descriptions sim plystate 'Conservative', 'Labour'or 'Libera lDemo

-crat'.Butthey can actually say anything thatac n idate wantsthe m

to say(I>Crazycandidates)

To be eligibletovote a personmustb at e st eighteenyearsold

andb o th electoralregister.Thisis compiledeveryyearforeach

c nst u ncyseparately.People who havemovedh use andhavenot hadtimeto get th ir names o theelectoral register of their new

constituencycan arrangeto vote by post Nobo dy, ho we er, is

obliged to vote

T he campa ign

Britishelectio nsarec mp rativelyqui et affairs.Thereisnotradi tio n

ofl arge ralliesor parad esasthereisin theUSA.Ho wever.because

of theintensecov erage bythe med ia it wouldbe verydifficultto be

inBritainat th timeofac mpaig and no trealizethat an election

wasabo ut totake place

The cam paign reflect sthe contrastbetween theformalarrange

-men tsand thepoliticalreality.Form ally.a differ ent cam paign takes

place ineachconstitu ency Localnew spapersgivecoverage to the

candidates ;thecandi da tes themselvesh ldmeetings;part ysupporters stick up poster sin theirwindow s;localparty workers sp nd the ir time canv assing (I>Canvassing).Th am o unt of moneythatc ndidates

are allow edtospe nd ontheircam paignsis strictly lim ited.The have

to subm it detail edacco unts of theirexp nsesfor inspection An attempt toinfluencevot er s im pro perly is outlawed

But thereality isthatall theseactiviti es and regulationsd no t

usuallymak muchdifference Nearlyeverybodyvotesfora cand id

-ateon thebasis ofthepartywhichhe orsh represents,not becau se

ofhisor herindividualqualitiesor politi cal opinions.Fewpeople attend candidates ' meetings;most peo pled no tread localnewspa -pers.In any case ,the size of const ituenciesmeansthatcandidates

c n ot me t mostvot ers, however energetic allytheyg fromdoor

tod o r

Itis ta nationallevel that the realcampaign takesplace The

partiesspen d millionsof poundsadvertisingonho ardi n gsand in

newspapers.Byagreement, they do not buy time on televisio n as

theydo in the USA.Instead,they are each givena num herof strictly

timed'party electio n broadcasts'.Each party alsoholdsa daily

televised new s con ference All of th isputsthe emphasison the

nationalpartyper sonalitiesrather than on localcandidates.Only

in the 'marginals' - co ns tituen cies where only a smallshiftinvotin g

hehavio ur from last timewouldchangethe result- mig ht the

qualitiesof an individual candid ate, possibly,affect the outcome

Polling day

Generalelectionsalwaystake place on a Thursday They arenot public

holid ays People have to workin thenormalway, so polling statio ns

are openfro mseveninthe morningtillten at night to giveeverybody

theopportunitytovot e.The only peoplewho getaho lid ayare

scho olch ild ren whosesch oolsare being used a po llin g stations

Eachvoter hastovoteat apart icu lar pollingstatio n After being

tcked offontheelectoral register, the voteris givena ballo tpaper

Electio nsonth eBritishmainland are always very fairly conducted

Northe rn Irelan d,how ever, is a rather different story There,the

political ten sions ofsolll an yyearshavehad a negativeeffecton

democratic procedures.Mattershave improvedsincethe 19605.but

thetradition al, albeit joking,slogan in Ulster on polling dayis 'vo te

early andvote often' - that is,try to voteas many tim es as you can

b impersonatingother people

After th epollsclose ,themarkedballot papers are taken to acent ral

placein theconstituencyand counted.The Return ing Officer then

makesa publicannouncement of the votescast foreach candidate

anddeclaresthe winnerto be the MP for the constituency.This

declaration is on e of the few occasionsduringtheelectio process

whensho u tin g andcheering may be heard

An electionresultbeing declared

Ii> Can vass ing

This is the activity that occupies most

on e lection day They stand outside

1 0 2 1 E lections

s ho w!

Briti sh people are genera lly not v ery

enthusiasti cabou t poli tics.But t hat

doe s not S lO p them enjoyi ng a goo d

politi calfight Notice the images o f

s po n and of g eneral s p lanning a m il-itar y c am paig n in this extract from

t he Rad io Ti mes from just bef o re the

19 92 general ele ction.

What a nig ht it's going to be! As in all the besthorserecesthere is no clear favourite Not since 1974

havethetwomain parties been so closely matched We may even

k eepyou up all nig ht without being able to tell you wh o 's

wa ll.

On BBCI's 'E lect io n 92', I' ll have a whole array of e le ctronic wizardry - including ourBattl

e-grou nd -lO he lp explain an d

Il lu str atewhat is sha pi ng t he new Parliament

Over30 m illionpeoplew ill

h ave voted by 1 p m on t he Thursday, b ut t he decisi ve v erdict

w ill be p rono unced by t he five mill ion peo ple who vote in th e

m arginal sea ts - and t hese a re t he

on es w e feature i n ou rBatt le

-ground.

Lab o ur's aim i s t o co lou r the seats on the Bauleground red The

Co nservatives' task is to keep them blue .

So sit back in yourarmcha irand enjoy the excitement

Radio T imes April 1 9 9 2

The p eriod a fter vot ing has bec ome a television ex travaganza Bot h

BBC and l TV start theirpr o gramm es as soo n a s voti ng finis hes W ith

f eatures of these'e lection s pec ials', s uch a s t he 'swingome rer' have

ente red pop ular folklore (e- TheSlVingometer)

Thefirst exciteme n tofthe nightistherace to declare.Itis a matter

o flocal prid e f or some cons tituencies to be the first to announce the ir

r esult Doi ng so w ill g uarantee that t he cameras will be t here to

w itness t he eve nt If t he cou nt has go ne smooth ly , thi s usua lly occurs

at justafter 11.00 p.m.By midn ight,afteronly a handfu lof results havebeendeclared expe rts(withthe helpof computers) willbe

b ecome ve ry so phisticated in B ritain so th at, although t he ex perts

nevergetitexactly right theycan get prettyclose

B y two in t he m orning at least ha lf of the cons tituencieswill h ave

declaredtheirresult sand unless the electionis a very close one (as for example ,in 1 74and 1992),the expertso thetelevisio nwill now beableto predi ctwith confiden ce whichparty willhave a

majorit y in the Ho useofCommons a nd th erefore which p arty l eader

i s g oing t o be the Prim e Mini ste r.

Som e con sti tu encies, however , ar e not abl e to d eclaretheirr esults until we ll into Friday afternoon Thi s is either bec ausetheyar e v e y

rural (mostlyin Scotland or Northern Ireland) andsoit takesa long time to bringalltheballotpapers together or becausetherace has

been so clo se that o ne or m ore 're count s' ha ve b een n ecessary Th e phenomenon of r ecounts i s a clear dem on stration of t he i ronies o f the Briti sh s ystem I n mo st c onstituencies it w ould n o t m ake a ny

differen cetothe result ifseveralthousand ballot papers were lost But in a few the resultdependson a handfulofvotes In these cases,

candidat es ar e e ntitled to d emand a s man y r eco unts as th ey wantuntil

th e r esult i s b eyond d oubt The re cord numb er of r eco unts is seve n

(and therecord margin ofvictory isjust one vote r)

Rec ent result s and the future Since themiddl e ofthetwentieth century.thecontesttoform the govern me nt has effectively been astraigh t figh t betweenthe

LabourandConservative parties As a general rule thenorth of Englandand most of theinnerareas of Englishcitiesreturn Labour MPs to Westmins ter.while the southof Englandand mostareas

o utside th e i nner cit ies have a Conservative Mil Which of t hese tw o

parti es f orm s th e g overnm ent dep end s on whic h one does be tter in

Scotland usedto be goodterritoryfortheConserva tives This changed however.during the I980sandthevast majori ty ofMPs

Swingometers from '970and 1992

Labour MPs Since the I 9 70 s, the respective nationalist parties in

both countries(seechapter 6) haveregularly wona few seatsin

P arliament.

Traditionally,the Liberalpart y was alsorelativelystro ng inScot

-landand Wales(andwas so metimescalledthe partyofthe'Celtic

fringe') Itsmod ern successor, theLiber alDem ocratpart y(see

chapter 6), isno t so geographically restric ted and has managed to

w in some seats all over Britain, wi th a co ncent ration in the sou

th-west of Englan d

[970S,abo ut two-th irds the former ,thethird the latter) The only

element o f unce rtainty is how many seats the more extremist (as

thisinvariantp litical divide (see chap ter 12)

Re ce nt re sults an d the fut ure [03

This is a device used by television presenters on election night It

indic ates the percentage change of support from one party to another party since the previous election -the 'sw ing' Individual constituen-cies can be placed at certain points

how much sw ing is necessary to change the party affiliationof their

MPs Thesw ingomctcr w as first made popular by Professor Raben McKenzie on the BBC 's coverage of

the 1964 election Over the years, it has become more colourful and com plicated Most people enjoy it but saythey are confused by it!

104 10 Elections

Si ze of o vera ll m ajori ty in the H o use o f Com mo ns ( wit h n am e o f l eade r o f winn ing p a rty)

Thatcher (48)

Thatcher (144) Macmillan (100)

Thatch er (89)

W ilson (5)I

Att lee (6) I

Eden (60)

(Feb)Wi lson '" I

( Oct)W ilson (3) I

Wi lson (96)

Bl air (167)

1945

19 50

1 5

19 55

19 59

1964

19 66

19 70

1 974

1 974

1 979

1 983

198 7

19 92

1 997 2001

In thethirt een electionsfrom 1945 to 1987 ,the Conser vatives were generallymore successfulthan Labour.(I>Party performance in

five occasions, on only two ofthesewas the majoritycomfortable

On the otherth reeoccasions it was so smallthat it was in constant

danger of disappearingasa resultof by-electiond feats (I> By-ejections).Inthesam e period,theConser vativeswon a majori ty seven tim es,nearly always com fortably

fourth tim e inarow- th first time this hadbeen achievedfor morethan 160 years.Moreover, heyachieved it in the middle of

Labour could everwinagain Itloo ked asifthe sw in gom eter's

had generally decreasedin the previousfour decade swhile sup

-port for the thirdparty had grown sincethe early 1970 s.Many

sociolo gists believed thistrend to be inevitablebecau seBritain

haddevelop ed a middle-class majority (as opposed to itsformer

working-clas smajor ity).Many political obser vers were worried about thissituat ion.It is considered tobe basictotheBritish

Therewas mu ch talkabouta possiblereorganization of

Whenever a sitting MP can no longer fulfil his or her du ties, there has to

be a special new electio n in the con-stituency which he or she

represents (There is no system of ready substitures.) These are called by-elections and can take place at any time They do not affect who runs the government, btu they are watched closely by the media and the parties as indicators of the current level of popularity (or unpopularity) of the govern me nt.

A by-election provides the parties with an opportunity to find a seat in Parliament for one of their important people If a sitt ing MP dies, the opportunity presents itself;

if not, an MP of the same part y mu st

be persuaded to res ign

Th e way an MP resigns offers a fascinati ng example of the i m por

-tance attached to traditio n It is considered wrong for an MP sim ply

to resign; MPs represent their con

-stituents and have no righ t to deprive th em of this representat i on.

So the MP who wishes to resign app lies for the post ofStewa rd of the Chiltern Hundreds' Thi s is a job with no dut ies and no salary.T ech -nically, howeve r, i t is ' an office of pro fit u nde r the Crow n' {i.e a job given by the monarch with rewar ds attached to i t) Acco rding to anci ent practice, a perso n cannot be both an

MP and ho ld a post of thi s n atu re at the same time beca use Par li am ent

m ust be independent of the

m onarch (This is why high rank in g civil servants and army o fficer s are not allowed to be MPs.) As a result , the holder of this ancient post is automatically disqua lified fro m the House of Commons and the b

-election can go ahead!

*L abour w as t he l a rge st p arty b ut had fewer th an h alf th e sea ts.