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'Introduction to British Politics
has established itself as one of the most original and challenging
texts on British politics because it starts from the question
of power and the nature of the British state, and in doing so
offers a fresh and illuminating perspective on many of the problems
and issues of British politics. This new edition builds on its
predecessors. Particular highlights include its analysis of the
challenging constitution, the rise of New Labour, and the impact
of globalization.' Reviews from the Previous Edition 'Definitely worth investing in
a fresh copy... a book to order for the library, for individual
research, and for your own bookshelf.' 'This is both a big book and an
ambitious one, an attempt to break the mould of introductions
to British politics ... the content is refreshingly and directly
presented ... well worth considering by anyone seeking an introduction
to British politics.' 'Adopts a lively and clear style
and significantly cuts a path through the woolly thinking of some
authors.' 'A superior book.' Special features
About the book This is the long-awaited third edition of Dearlove and Saunders' highly acclaimed, bestselling textbook on British politics. The book has been completely rewritten, reorganised and updated, while retaining the distinctive style and approach of the earlier editions. At root, this book is about political power - how it is organised formally within the State and how it is exercised and influenced informally from outside. Written in lively and provocative prose, the volume presents the most systematic and penetrating analysis of who really runs Britain, to what end, and to whose advantage. Fully up to date, this new edition
provides comprehensive coverage of the issues of the day - constitutional
change, welfare reform, New Labour's Third Way, the European common
currency, globalization, and much more. The volume also provides
students with a highly readable and engaging guide to the key
theoretical perspectives that have shaped the study of British
politics. Who will read this book? This outstanding volume will prove invaluable reading for all students of British politics, whether they are studying for A-level or undergraduate university courses. Format:
246 x 171mm, 6.75 x 9.75in, 810 pages |
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John Dearlove and Peter Saunders have written the following article on the election specifically for this website. The election campaign has now been fought and won, but these predictions and issues make invaluable reading for those interested in the electoral process. If you would like to see any further information then please do let us know. Keep visiting the site regularly, as we are committed to keeping this 3rd edition up-to-date - making it the essential textbook in British Politics. |
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A Guide to the General Election These notes have been prepared to point you towards some of the interesting and important questions which you should be asking as the General Election approaches. What will be the date of the election? One of the advantages of being the sitting Prime Minister is that Mr. Blair can choose when he wants to go to the country. He must call an election within five years of the last one - which was in May 1997. That is the only constitutional constraint on his choice. For some time, commentators have been convinced that he will call an election for May 3rd, which is when the county council elections are scheduled. Given that Labour is riding high in the opinion polls, and the economy remains buoyant, May or June look like an opportune time for Labour, in which case it really has to be May 3rd : the electorate will not want to turn out twice in a month and if Labour does badly in the local elections it will not help their general election prospects a month later. Leave it any later than June, and the electors start to go off on their summer holidays, so Mr. Blair's next window of opportunity is October. Governments do not like calling elections in the winter months, for people are less likely to go out into the cold and dark to vote, so after October, it would have to be Spring 2002. Leaving it that late would be risky - who knows what mishaps could occur in the next twelve months? Besides, expectations have built up for an election sooner rather than later. All the smart money, therefore, is on May 3rd - except that the Foot and Mouth outbreak is now threatening Mr. Blair's best-laid plans. With much of the countryside immobilised as a result of the measures taken to try to contain the spread of the disease, can the government really go ahead and call an election? The National Farmers Union has called for the local elections to be postponed, but the government seems to have said 'no', hoping that the outbreak of Foot and Mouth will come under control quickly enough to allow them to go ahead with the local elections (and therefore probably the General election too) as planned. Who will win? It looks like a foregone conclusion. With the exception of a blip last Autumn, at the time of the fuel tax protests, Labour has maintained a hefty opinion poll lead over the Conservatives ever since its resounding triumph in 1997. Given a lead of 15 or even 20 points in the polls (and given an even bigger gap in the approval ratings of the respective party leaders), it would be an astounding result if Labour failed to win with a very comfortable majority whenever the election is eventually called. But prediction is always a somewhat risky business when you are dealing with human beings and the vagaries of electoral choice and if you doubt the truth of this observation then do check out the box on p.169 of Introduction to British Politics, and feel a touch of sympathy for three social scientists who stuck their necks out in 1995. If Labour does cruise home with a substantial majority, we will be on the verge of an historically unprecedented event. Although the party has managed in the past to win two elections in succession (in 1964/66 and again in the two 1974 elections), it has never before served two full terms in government. With a safe majority this time, there is no reason why we should not now witness a period of unbroken Labour government stretching from 1997 through to 2005 - or even beyond. Could anything go wrong?: Worries about a low turnout Labour election strategists are worried about complacency among their supporters. If it seems impossible for Labour to lose, then many Labour supporters may not bother to vote. The same logic, however, applies to the Conservatives. If their supporters believe their party is doomed to another crushing defeat, then they may not bother voting either! We could be about to see the lowest turnout in a General Election in modern history. In Introduction to British Politics (pages 158-60), we discussed the puzzle of why anybody votes. Applying 'rational choice' theory to voting behaviour, we saw that the 'cost' of voting (time lost, effort, etc.) far outweighs the likely benefit, for there is only the tiniest of possibilities that any one person's vote will make a difference to the final outcome. In a situation where the result already seems cut and dried, this calculus will be even more compelling - why bother voting if the election result is already predetermined? Not everybody, of course, will think like this. Some people enjoy voting; others see it as their civic duty. But outside of their core supporters, there does not seem to be much enthusiasm among the electors this time around. Back in 1997, following eighteen unbroken years of Conservative government and with economic crises and ministerial 'sleaze' scandals still fresh in people's minds, there was an enthusiasm among many Labour voters, and for many electors, the fresh-faced Tony Blair seemed to represent the chance for a real change. Today, however, 'New' Labour is no longer so new. The government has had its own scandals (one minister, Peter Mandelson, has made history by having to resign from the Cabinet twice in the space of one parliament), and some of Labour's more traditional supporters seem to have become somewhat disillusioned by what they see as the failure to push ahead with a distinctively socialist programme. Meanwhile, on the Conservative side, there is still widespread despondency. Membership of the party has now fallen to just 300,000 (it stood at one million when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979), and there are rumblings of discontent with William Hague's leadership. The fact that the election result seems to be in the bag, and that neither of the two main parties seems capable of enthusing their supporters, means that the election strategists are probably right to be worried about the possibility of a low turnout. Turnout in 1997 was itself the lowest since 1935 - which meant that, despite its thumping majority of seats, Labour only won the support of 31 per cent of the electorate. This time round, an even lower turnout could result in Labour returning to power with fewer than 3 in every 10 electors having voted for it, hardly the stuff of a popular mandate and a bit of a worry for those who see democracy as all about popular participation. Could anything else go wrong?: Tactical voting One reason why Labour won so many (419) seats in 1997 was that anti-Conservative electors became skilled at voting tactically. Labour supporters in Conservative/Liberal Democrat marginal seats voted Lib Dem, and Liberal Democrats in Conservative/Labour marginal seats voted Labour. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats benefited from this - Labour won just 44 per cent of the votes cast but took 63 per cent of the seats, while the Liberal Democrats won 46 seats (their best performance since 1929) even though their share of the vote actually fell to 17 per cent. One of the big questions at the next election is whether Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters will continue to vote tactically. As it did in 1997, the Daily Mirror will again publish a guide to constituencies where anti-Conservatives should vote tactically, but will the constituency activists go along with this, and will the voters be interested for a second time? Liberal Democrat supporters and activists may well feel that they have been let down by the Blair government, for Proportional Representation seems to have been quietly forgotten, and the policies followed since 1997 have been nowhere near as radical as many Liberal Democrats would have wished. Labour, for its part, seems to have become somewhat contemptuous of the Liberal Democrats, and little is heard nowadays from Tony Blair about building a new Centre-Left political alignment. Nor is there the same hostility towards the Conservatives that there was in 1997. Then, many voters were simply determined to kick the Tories out of office. This time, the impetus is different. The Conservatives do not look like a threat, and it may be that many Labour and Liberal Democrat voters will feel it is safe to return to their true allegiances. There is little doubt that Labour will win the most votes at the next election, but there is still considerable doubt about how this will translate into seats. Will economic policy be a key issue? In Introduction to British Politics, we showed that the state of the economy has often been a key indicator of election results. When the economy is booming, governments normally win because they are rewarded with votes from electors whose incomes are rising and who feel cheery about their prospects. This was not the case in 1997, however, when a wave of dissatisfaction with the Conservatives swept John Major out of office despite a record from 1993 onwards of rising real incomes, low inflation, falling interest rates and a significant drop in the numbers of people out of work. Of course, the Major government never really recovered from the calamity of 1992 when Britain crashed out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (see pages 537-41 of Introduction to British Politics), so perhaps it was the electorate's memory of bad economic times that prevailed over its experience of rising prosperity. In any event, the economy has continued to prosper under Labour, and it seems likely that the association between economic wellbeing and electoral success will be re-established at this election. With opinion polls suggesting that more people now trust Labour's economic management than trust that of the Conservatives, and with prudent Gordon Brown's March budget having received a favourable reception across much of the media, Labour has clearly succeeded in shedding its long-standing image as the 'spend and tax' party, and it stands to gain votes as a result. Indeed, Labour currently seems to have squared the tax-versus-spending circle. Despite Conservative protestations that taxes have increased 'by stealth', Labour is successfully presenting itself as the party that can deliver increased expenditure on public services without increasing the taxes that people have to pay. Conservative promises to cut taxes while maintaining the public services are dismissed by Labour as 'irresponsible' and 'dishonest' - and most electors seem to agree with this. Mr. Hague is, therefore, going to find it a struggle to pick his battleground with Labour. He will continue to argue that taxation has risen and should be reduced, but this message does not seem to be striking a chord in the British electorate in the way that George Bush's promise to introduce massive tax cuts won the support of middle America at last November's presidential election. What are the other issues? In 1997, Tony Blair famously identified his three priorities as 'education, education, education'. Not much is likely to change this time around, although ministers are tweaking the message slightly by declaring at every opportunity that 'schools and hospitals' are their main priorities for a second term in government. The Conservatives will try to argue that, in four years, Labour has not achieved very much in the way of improvements in either education or health. Chris Woodhead, the former head of Ofsted (the agency responsible for monitoring standards in schools) has recently criticised the government for its failure to raise standards, and ministers themselves admit that there are still major shortcomings in the National Health Service. The problem for the Conservatives, however, is that few people seem to think that they would do much better. The other significant issue at the election is likely to be Europe, and specifically the question of whether Britain should abandon its own currency in favour of the euro. Mr. Blair, who would like us to join Europe's new common currency, has promised to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the euro within the first two years of a new Parliament, while Mr. Hague has ruled out British membership throughout the term of the next Parliament. Two-thirds of the electorate currently oppose British membership of the new currency, but this is not an issue on which large numbers of people will base their vote at the General Election. In 1997, 800,000 people (most of them probably Conservative defectors) voted for the Referendum Party, and this time round, the United Kingdom Independence Party may well attract significant numbers of votes across the country (but will fail to win any seats). This could hit the Conservatives' chances of regaining marginal seats lost in 1997, for although the Conservatives have taken a harder line on the euro than Labour, most of the potential UKIP voters who care passionately about 'saving the pound' are Conservatives. Labour will hope that the controversy over the euro can be managed (or 'spun') and contained during the election campaign, for it is the issue where the party is massively out-of-step with the electorate. The Conservatives, by contrast, will probably try to push this issue. They will emphasise the threat to British sovereignty, and they may link this to other popular nationalist concerns including the growing unease surrounding the influx of economic migrants from Eastern Europe and elsewhere. There are few other issues on which the Labour and Conservative Parties differ radically. On the key issues of taxation and expenditure, Labour does not intend significantly to increase personal taxation and the Conservatives have promised to match Labour's planned spending on public services. There really is not much between them. In Introduction to British Politics, we discussed the 'median voter theory' which holds that, in a two party system, both parties will converge in their policies in an attempt to win the centre ground. After the Second World War, and then again in the 1980s, Labour and the Conservatives diverged (and in the 80s the Liberals and Social Democrats scooped up a lot of support in the middle as a result). That time is now long passed. At the next election, and aside from the issue of Europe, we shall see Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats all scrabbling around in the middle ground, and it will be difficult to see much daylight between any of them: issues will matter less than personalities and presentation during the campaign. Has Labour delivered of its 'mandate'? Elections are supposed to be all about us choosing a party with a programme of policies which we like, with the winning party then having a mandate to implement those policies. If the party in government fails to deliver of its mandate then we have the opportunity to turn them out, choosing a party with a more popular programme of policies. We discussed this mandate theory of responsible party government in Introduction to British Politics. On p 77 we set down New Labour's first 'five election pledges', inviting you (on p. 78) 'to judge for yourselves whether a New Labour government actually delivered the five election pledges', seeing this as 'not a bad test of the reality of the mandate.' In order to see how well New Labour has done with respect to its pledges why not check out what Polly Toynbee and David Walker say about New Labour in government in their book Did Things Get Better? An Audit of Labour's Successes and Failures (Penguin, 2001). How will the regions and the countryside vote? In 1997, the Conservatives failed to win any seats in Scotland or Wales, and their support in England was squashed into the party's traditional heartlands in the south and in the countryside. Will the party win back some support in Scotland and Wales? This is a difficult question to answer, partly because nobody knows what the impact of the new devolved assemblies will be on the way people vote for the Westminster parliament. For example, in Scotland, health and education policies are now in the hands of the Edinburgh parliament, so it makes little sense for the parties and their candidates in Scotland to campaign on these issues at the General Election. But will Scottish voters understand this? Will the key issues in Scotland and Wales be different from those in England? And will this help or hinder Conservative attempts to engineer a revival in their fortunes? Another question which cannot easily be answered in advance is how the countryside will vote. Labour's attempt to ban foxhunting seems to have antagonised many rural voters who already suspected that Labour was an 'urban' party with little understanding or sympathy for rural communities. An umbrella body calling itself the 'Countryside Alliance' organised the biggest demonstration of the last parliament when it brought thousands of people to London in 1999, and it would have assembled up to half a million demonstrators in March this year had it not been forced by the Foot and Mouth outbreak to cancel its plans. The anti-hunting bill, coupled with the worrying erosion of agricultural incomes, the repeated food crises afflicting British farming, and the draining away of the rural population as facilities like village schools and post offices continue to close, have all combined to produce widespread anger and concern in parts of rural Britain. How and whether this will translate into votes remains to be seen. What role will the media play? It used to be the case that the British press was heavily slanted towards the Conservatives. Not any more! In 1997, Labour dramatically won the endorsement of both of Britain's top-selling tabloids, the traditionally Conservative Sun as well as the traditionally Labour-inclined Daily Mirror, and following the March budget, The Sun has again announced that it is backing Mr. Blair. The Mail and the Telegraph will remain resolutely in the Conservative camp, but it remains to be seen how papers like the Express and The Times will line up come the election. It is quite likely that Labour will end up with more press support than the Conservatives for the second election in succession. As for television, it seemed for a time that British viewers might be treated to American-style live debates between the main party leaders, but this idea was finally rejected by Labour a few months ago. Meanwhile, use of the internet has expanded dramatically since 1997, and this could be the first election where we begin to see canvassing by email and political advertising on web sites. What will happen after the election? Assuming a comfortable Labour victory, questions will be raised about the future of both of the principal party leaders. William Hague is unlikely to survive for long as leader of the Conservatives, and Michael Portillo seems well-positioned to replace him. Mr. Portillo has been transforming his public image of late from hard hawk to 'one nation' Tory with a caring side, and while this has upset many on the right of his party, this strategy has clearly been aimed at making him more electable as a future Prime Minister. Whether Hague, Portillo or any other candidate leads the party over the next few years, the crucial problem will be how to build a Conservative political agenda which appeals to the middle ground while at the same time remaining distinctive from Labour. Since replacing John Major in 1997, William Hague has failed to find a fresh identity for his party, and it could be that a new leader such as Michael Portillo would take a chance on pushing the party in a more 'libertarian' direction, decriminalising soft drugs and embracing alternative lifestyles. This would be a risky strategy, for it would alienate the older and more traditional party stalwarts, but it could prove attractive to young people who would see it as a contrast with Labour's rather stern authoritarianism on such matters. As for Labour's future, some commentators expect Mr. Blair to step aside at some point in the next parliament, allowing Gordon Brown to take his place. Whether or not this happens, the big question is whether the party in its second term will revert to its traditional instincts or will stick by its 'New Labour' agenda. Having followed the Conservatives' spending plans in the first two years, the government has begun to spend more freely of late, and it also seems to be back-pedalling on its commitment to reforming the welfare system. In the years following 2001, we may see increased faction fighting within the ranks of the Labour MPs as the traditional left tires of Blairism and tries to reassert an older politics of egalitarian redistribution. Finally, there is Europe - the great unresolved issue of British politics over the last thirty years. The promised referendum on British membership of the euro will be the critical event of the next parliament. If we join up, there will be no going back - the pound will disappear, the Bank of England will lose its powers (and its gold and currency reserves) to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, and the issue will have been settled, once and for all. Sharing a common currency, Britain will be a permanent part of a more united Europe. But will we join? Mr. Blair knows that two-thirds of British electors currently oppose British membership. He also knows, however, that public opinion on this issue is flaky. Six months before the 1975 referendum on continued British membership of the EEC, two-thirds of the population wanted us to get out, but by the time the referendum was held, two-thirds voted to stay in. Following the next election, we will be bombarded with propaganda about the advantages of joining the euro, and gradually, opinion will shift. Whether it will shift far enough or fast enough for Mr. Blair to win his referendum in 2003 will be the main talking point in British politics throughout the first half of the next Labour government's term in office. |
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