scholarly journals Introduction: ‘Looking for Trouble?’ Critically Examining the UK Government's Troubled Families Programme

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Crossley ◽  
Michael Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Moral Code ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
The Uk

The Troubled Families Programme (TFP) was launched by the UK Coalition Government in December 2011. Following the riots that took place in towns and cities across England during that summer, the then Prime Minister David Cameron promised to put ‘rocket boosters’ under plans to ‘turn around’ the lives of the country's ‘most troubled families’ by the end of the Coalition's term of office in May 2015. In his ‘fightback’ speech, delivered just a week after the riots had ended, Cameron (2011a) stated that the riots were not about poverty or race or government cuts. Instead, he argued that that the riots were ‘about behaviour: people showing indifference to right and wrong; people with a twisted moral code; people with a complete absence of self-restraint’.

scholarly journals Interview with Guido Rings: “We need intercultural solidarity if we want to survive and prosper in a world hit by ultranationalism”

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Stephen Trinder
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Far Right ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Vice Chair ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Executive Agency ◽  
The Eu

As a master’s and Ph.D. student at Anglia Ruskin University in 2011, I recall the central message in lectures given by my eventual Ph.D. supervisor Professor Guido Rings was that we cannot underestimate the enduring strength of the legacy of colonialism in Europe and its influence on shaping contemporary attitudes towards immigration. Indeed, as I was completing my studies, I became increasingly aware of the negative rhetoric towards migrants in politics and right-wing press. In an attempt to placate the far-right of his party and address a growing threat from the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a discourse of ‘othernising’ migrants on the basis of their supposed rejection of ‘Britishness’ from former UK Prime Minister David Cameron in particular caught my attention. The result of this was tightening of immigration regulations, which culminated of course in the now-infamous Brexit vote of 2016. Almost a decade after my graduation, Professor Rings is currently Vice Chair for the Research Executive Agency of the European Commission and continues to work at Anglia Ruskin University at the level of Ph.D. supervisor. He still publishes widely in the field of Migration Studies and his recent high-profile book The Other in Contemporary Migrant Cinema (Routledge, 2016) and editorships in the fields of culture and identity (iMex Interdisciplinario Mexico) argue for increased intercultural solidarity in Europe as well as a strengthening of supranational organizations like the EU and the UN to offset growing nationalism. I got in touch with Professor Rings to find out where he feels Europe stands today with regard to migration and get his comments on the continued rise of nationalism on the continent.

scholarly journals The performance of power and citizenship: David Cameron meets the people

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 678-690
Author(s):  
Peter Lunt
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Agency ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The People ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Television Studio

How do citizens respond to and engage with the performance of political power in the context of mainstream media? Through an analysis of two television programmes aired during the UK Brexit referendum campaign of 2016, a picture emerges of citizenship as the performative disruption of the performance of power. In the programmes the then UK prime minister, David Cameron, met members of the public for a mediated discussion of key issues in the Brexit referendum. Their interactions are analysed here as a confrontation between the performance of citizenship and power reflecting activist modalities of disruptive citizenship played out in the television studio. The article ends with reflections on questions about political agency as individualistic forms of disruptive political autonomy.

scholarly journals Open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron on food poverty in the UK

The Lancet ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 383 (9929) ◽  
pp. 1631 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R Ashton ◽  
John Middleton ◽  
Tim Lang
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Open Letter ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
The Uk

EU-UK deal allows Cameron to campaign against Brexit

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Transition Period ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Scottish Independence ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Eu

Subject The package of reforms on a new EU-UK relationship. Significance The agreement between the United Kingdom and its EU partners sets the stage for the UK referendum on EU membership, which Prime Minister David Cameron has set for June 23. Cameron said he had negotiated new terms that would allow the United Kingdom to remain in the EU. Impacts The deal bolsters the campaign to remain in the EU, but the referendum outcome is still highly uncertain. The deal will only come into effect if the outcome is for remaining, forestalling a second referendum for better terms. If the outcome is for leaving, a new relationship with the EU would have to be negotiated during a two-year transition period. It would also probably lead to a second Scottish independence referendum and UK break-up.

scholarly journals Constructing a new conservatism? Ideology and values

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hayton
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Political Capital ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Extensive Review ◽  
Comfort Zone ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Gay Couples ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Right

Following three severe election defeats, the Conservatives elected David Cameron as leader on an explicitly modernising platform. His agenda for change encompassed revitalising the party image through a concerted effort to rebrand the party, an extensive review of policy, and ideological repositioning towards the centre-ground. While these three strands are of course intertwined this chapter will focus on the latter, namely the attempt to distance the Conservatives from the legacy of Thatcherism and cultivate a new form of conservatism with wider electoral appeal. This is examined in relation to the period of opposition under Cameron’s leadership (2005-10) and during his tenure as Prime Minister as leader of the Coalition government between 2010 and 2015. The chapter argues that despite some rhetorical distancing from the Thatcher era, Cameron largely failed to alter the trajectory of contemporary conservatism, which remains essentially neo-Thatcherite. Ultimately this has undermined the modernisation project that he hoped would define his leadership, limiting the effectiveness of his rebranding strategy and shaping the policy agenda that his government has been able to pursue. While forming the Coalition provided the Conservative leader with significant freedom of manoeuvre in statecraft terms (Hayton, 2014) it conversely limited his scope to radically alter his party’s ideological core, as he increasingly needed to balance the demands of his Coalition partners with those of the right of his own party. While significant political capital was expended on the totemic issue of equal marriage for gay couples, few other issues have pushed the boundaries of conservatism beyond its Thatcherite comfort zone. In short, after a decade of Cameronite leadership the construction of a coherent new conservatism remains largely unfulfilled.

scholarly journals “Let me now answer, very directly, Marie’s question”

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Bull ◽  
Maurice Waddle
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Moral Order ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Public ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn

Abstract Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the UK attracts much criticism for the adversarial and occasional aggressive language on display. During his successful campaign for the leadership of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn called for a “new kind of politics” (ITV 2015). One feature of his “new” approach, apparent during his early sessions as Leader of the Opposition, was to include questions to Prime Minister David Cameron sourced from members of the public. Although, subsequently, these “public questions” became less frequent, they provided an opportunity to compare their interactional effects with standard “non-public questions”. Arguably, the aim of this salient feature of corbyn’s approach to questioning Cameron was to redress the moral order of PMQs. We test this proposal via two measures of the PM’s responses: reply rate and personalisation. Results showed that Corbyn’s public questions did not enhance Cameron’s reply rate. However, whereas Cameron used significantly more personal attacks than Corbyn in response to non-public questions, the level of such attacks by the PM for public questions was as low as Corbyn’s, with no significant difference between them. In this latter regard, such an approach showed the potential to mitigate the ritualistic and customary verbal aggression of PMQs.

scholarly journals Multipartidismo en el Parlamento británico y reforma del modelo Westminster ¿un ejemplo (una solución) para nuestro futuro sistema de partidos con representación parlamentaria? = Multiparty system in the british parliamen and the reform of the westminster

2015 ◽  
pp. 617
Author(s):  
Federico de Montalvo Jääskeläinen
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
British Government ◽  
Liberal Democrats ◽  
The Uk

In 2011 the British Parliament approved, within the context of the coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, what can be seen as the most significant constitutional reform that the British government has undertaken in recent decades. This reform, called Fixed-term Parliament Act, 2011, restricts what was one of the main rights of the Prime Minister; dissolving the chamber in order to be able to call early elections. The reform is not motivated by an attempt to overcome the political crisis, similar to other European countries, that the UK is experiencing, but rather by the new demands that seem to derive from the current coalition government. It is certainly a reform that merits analysis by other nations, such as our own, in which fragmented parliaments are growing ever more likely, lacking strong majorities and posing problems that go beyond politics to the heart of the system.En 2011 el Parlamento británico aprobó, al amparo del acuerdo de coalición entre los conservadores y liberal-demócratas, la que puede considerarse la principal reforma constitucional a la que se ha visto sometido la forma de gobierno británica en las últimas décadas. Dicha reforma, bajo el nombre de Fixed-term Parliaments Act, 2011, supuso la supresión de una de las principales facultades del Primer Ministro, la de disolver la Cámara y convocar anticipadamente elecciones generales. Dicha reforma responde no tanto a la pretensión de superar la crisis política que vive el Reino Unido, similar a la que viven otros Estados europeos, sino a las nuevas exigencias que parecen derivarse del actual gobierno de coalición. En todo caso, se trata ciertamente de una reforma que merece la pena ser analizada desde otros Estados, como el nuestro, en los que se presagia un nuevo Parlamento muy fragmentado, sin mayorías de gobierno, con las consecuencias no sólo políticas que ello va seguramente a conllevar.

Reform and Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-200
Author(s):  
Lucy Atkinson ◽  
Andrew Blick ◽  
Matt Qvortrup
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
The Uk

No referendums took place between 1979 and 1997. During much of the 1980s the idea of using this device failed to attract the level of interest it had in some earlier periods. But, in the following decade, the referendum began to gain currency once more. After Labour returned to office in 1997, the Tony Blair administration became the most extensive utilizer of the mechanism to date, holding five in total (though none at UK level). Reflecting the establishment of the referendum as a firmer part of the UK constitution, a more consistent framework for this practice was introduced. After 2004, the Labour governments did not use referendums again. However, the device returned from 2011. During the tenure of David Cameron, as Prime Minister in a coalition (2010–2015) and then a Conservative administration (2015–2016), four referendums were held.

The role of adversarial discourse in political opposition

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Bull
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Political Opposition ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Political Dialogue ◽  
Ed Miliband ◽  
The Uk

The focus of this study is on the role played by adversarial questioning in political opposition. As an illustrative example, a detailed analysis is presented of two sessions of Prime Minister’s Questions in the UK House of Commons (6 and13 July, 2011), in which the Leader of the Opposition (Ed Miliband) challenged the Prime Minister (David Cameron) regarding his handling of the British phone-hacking scandal. The study is conceptualized in terms of theories of politeness (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987) and impoliteness (Culpeper 1996), also in terms of the concept of follow-ups (Sinclair and Coulthard 1975). It is argued that this analysis has implications for all three linguistic conceptualizations, furthermore that PMQs, despite its many detractors and deficiencies, can play an important role in sustaining political dialogue and political accountability through adversarial questioning.

The Brexit Elections, 2017–19

2021 ◽  
pp. 189-239
Author(s):  
David Denver ◽  
Mark Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
General Election ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Jeremy Corbyn ◽  
Theresa May ◽  
The Eu

The years immediately after the 2015 general election were dominated by another vote, held in 2016. In 2013, the electoral challenge from UKIP had forced David Cameron to promise an in–out referendum on the EU should his party win the next general election. Cameron fulfilled his promise, after negotiations with the EU which only partially addressed the grievances of Eurosceptics in UKIP and within his own party. The chapter discusses the narrow victory for ‘Leave’ in the 2016 referendum, arising from divisions within the UK which cut across previous party allegiances and introduced a new element of volatility in an electorate which was already barely recognizable from that of 1964. The situation was complicated further by the election of the radical left-wing MP Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader after his party’s 2015 defeat. By contrast, when David Cameron resigned as Conservative leader and Prime Minister after the referendum he was succeeded by Theresa May, who was regarded as a pragmatic centre-right politician who could negotiate a compromise ‘Brexit’ deal with the EU. The chapter examines May’s failure to carry out this promise, marked in particular by her inept attempt to secure a convincing parliamentary majority in the 2017 general election. When May was forced from office in 2019 she was succeeded by Boris Johnson, a far more controversial and divisive character who nevertheless was able to lead the Conservatives to a comfortable electoral victory, not least because their pro-European opponents were hopelessly divided. However, the victorious Conservatives had no reason to feel complacent; even if Johnson’s government could deliver the favourable Brexit deal which it had promised, over the years since 1964 the British electorate had become far more fickle and parties were increasingly vulnerable to events outside their control. Within a few months of the 2019 election, party competition in Britain, which had seemed so stable back in 1964, was exposed to a new and deadly source of disturbance—the outbreak in China of the Covid-19 virus—which presented the most serious challenge faced by any UK government since 1945.

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