A property-owning democracy?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Lund
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
House Price ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Building Society ◽  
Mortgage Interest ◽  
Tax Relief ◽  
Right To Buy

This chapter explores the political fortunes of the Conservative Party’s quest to create a property-owning democracy. It examines Stanley Baldwin’s support for the owner-occupation dimension of Noel Skelton’s property-owning democracy idea to win the votes of the working class elite and how this was reflected in building society endorsement and suburban values. The politics of homeownership are charted with particular reference to Labour party leadership’s endorsement of homeownership and internal party divisions on the role of tax relief on mortgage interest in supporting owner-occupation. The politics of boom/bust house price fluctuations are charted. Right to Buy politics are examined as are the attempts of the Coalition government and the 2015 Conservative to revive homeownership as private landlordism continued to grow.

The Last Days of the UK Film Council

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Civil Servants ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Key Players ◽  
Political Background ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Considerable Detail ◽  
Film Policy

Based on key players’ testimony and an extensive documented record, this chapter initially discusses the political background to the fraught merger talks between the BFI and the UKFC in 2009-2010, along with the uncertain role of the DCMS. It then turns to consider the shock decision to close the UKFC taken by Conservative ministers in the DCMS serving in the Coalition government elected in May 2010. Various possible reasons for closure are evaluated in considerable detail and the impact on the UKFC is described. The account analyses each of the steps taken by the DCMS to devise a new landscape of film support post-UKFC, with the BFI assuming many functions after extensive negotiation with ministers and civil servants. Next, the BFI’s new turn in film policy is considered. A range of views on the closure decision, both pro and con, is discussed.

Conservative Anti-HRA Rhetoric, the Bill of Rights ‘Solution’ and the Role of the Bill of Rights Commission

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Fenwick
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
European Court ◽  
Human Rights Act ◽  
Advisory Role

This chapter considers proposals for changes that might be made by a British Bill of Rights, as compared with the Human Rights Act, under the Coalition government, or a future Conservative government. It considers views expressed by Conservative spokespersons prior to and after the 2010 general election, and answers given by members of the Bill of Rights Commission to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in 2011. This chapter also touches on the second aspect of the Commission's remit — its advisory role on reform of the European Court of Human Rights. It questions whether adopting a Bill of Rights on the lines favoured by the Conservative leadership, combined with the Strasbourg reforms recently determined on, would be likely to realise Conservative aims of creating divergence from Strasbourg and enhancing parliamentary autonomy.

Popular Imperialism, Democracy, Conservatism and Socialism, 1850–1900

2019 ◽  
pp. 172-202
Author(s):  
Nick Mansfield
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Active Part ◽  
The Political ◽  
Reform Movements ◽  
Officer Corps ◽  
Post Discharge ◽  
Mass Democracy ◽  
First Time

This chapter reviews the political sympathies of soldiers – both officers and rank and file - in the age of high Victorian imperialism and emerging British democracy. It examines the role of the army in growing working class support for popular imperialism, often fuelled by racism. Whilst it acknowledges the overall tendency for officers to support Conservatism, it uncovers tenacious support for Liberalism on the part of some of the officer corps. This extended to many of the rank and file in the post-Chartist period, with post discharge soldiers actively supporting all types of reform movements and taking an active part in the mass democracy brought about by the 1867 and 1884 Reform Acts. With the development of socialism from the 1880s this even extended to a significant number of ‘soldier socialists’, surveyed here for the first time.

scholarly journals Mummifying the Working Class: The Cultural Revolution and the Fates of the Political Parties of the 20th Century

2016 ◽  
Vol 227 ◽  
pp. 653-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Russo
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Working Class ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Chinese Communist Party ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Cultural Revolution

AbstractA number of prolonged political experiments in Chinese factories during the Cultural Revolution proved that, despite any alleged “historical” connection between the Communist Party and the “working class,” the role of the workers, lacking a deep political reinvention, was framed by a regime of subordination that was ultimately not dissimilar from that under capitalist command. This paper argues that one key point of Deng Xiaoping's reforms derived from taking these experimental results into account accurately but redirecting them towards the opposite aim, an even more stringent disciplining of wage labour. The outcome so far is a governmental discourse which plays an important role in upholding the term “working class” among the emblems of power, while at the same time nailing the workers to an unconditional obedience. The paper discusses the assumption that, while this stratagem is one factor behind the stabilization of the Chinese Communist Party, it has nonetheless affected the decline of the party systems inherited from the 20th century.

scholarly journals Political Performance and Leadership Persona: The UK Labour Party Conference of 2012

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Gaffney ◽  
Amarjit Lahel
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
The Political ◽  
Leadership Performance ◽  
Political Performance ◽  
Ed Miliband ◽  
The Uk

This article is a contribution to an emerging scholarship on the role of rhetoric, persona and celebrity, and the effects of performance on the political process. We analyse party leader Ed Miliband at the UK Labour Party Conference in Manchester in 2012. Our analysis identifies how, through performance of ‘himself’ and the beginnings of the deployment of an alternative party narrative centred on ‘One Nation’, Ed Miliband began to revise his ‘received persona’. By using a range of rhetorical and other techniques, Miliband began to adapt the Labour narrative to the ‘personalized political’. The article sets out the theoretical framework for the analysis and returns to the implications for the theory of leadership performance in its conclusion.

Bulgaria

2019 ◽  
pp. 86-128
Author(s):  
Rumyana Kolarova ◽  
Maria Spirova
Keyword(s):  
Coalition Formation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Central Eastern Europe ◽  
Party Building ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Coalition Formation Process ◽  
Communist Countries

Democracy in Bulgaria came as a result of a pact that preserved the role of the communist successor party to a larger degree than in many other post-communist countries in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). That had an impact on the nature of coalition government as well as an important but rarely noted aspect of the legacy of the successor party, the Bulgarian Socialist party (BSP). Because of the dominant position of the BSP, its personalized and centralized vision and practice of governing have remained characteristic of the political system. Coalition government is the dominant pattern in Bulgarian democratic politics: of the eleven party-based cabinets since 1990, only four were single-party ones. There are several major features of coalition government in Bulgaria: one is that party-building and coalition-making have been deeply intertwined over the entire period. Further, coalitions have been based on the understanding that parties divide the power and accompanying privileges, rather than that they share responsibility for government. Thus, in contrast to some longer-standing democracies the coalition formation process rarely involves detailed agreements on policy, and has mostly revolved around personalities and portfolios. As a result, coalition agreements have been minimal and the periods of coalition bargaining have been relatively short. Conflict resolution mechanisms are centralized and personalized, and coalitions have broken down because of narrow party political interests rather than because of principled conflicts over public policy.

Britain: Labour’s Long Apprenticeship

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-40
Author(s):  
Isser Woloch
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
Civil Defense ◽  
The Political ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
British People

This chapter discusses the Labour Party's contribution to the British people at war and the promise they offered for a postwar future. The roots of the Labour Party go back to 1900, when Britain's labor federation, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), sought to increase the political influence of the working class in Parliament. A conference convened by the TUC launched the Labour Representation Committee, which changed its name to the Labour Party in 1906 after it had established a toehold in the House of Commons. In Winston Churchill's coalition, the Prime Minister himself ran the war and personally made important military and diplomatic decisions. The chapter then looks at Labour's wartime presence, focusing on the development of the civil defense and the mobilization of workers. It also considers the Beveridge Report.

PROGRESSIVE PIONEERS: MANCHESTER LIBERALISM, THE INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY, AND LOCAL POLITICS IN THE 1890s

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 989-1013 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES ROBERT MOORE
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
General Election ◽  
Gradual Transition ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Liberal Approach ◽  
Liberal Trade

The Manchester Progressive Municipal Programme of 1894 has been viewed as indicative of a new Liberal approach to labour and social questions, heralding the New Liberalism of the Edwardian era and marking a gradual transition to class-based politics. Rather than focus on the role of senior individuals, such as Manchester Guardian editor C. P. Scott, in fostering the change, this article explores the practical problems of grass-roots party co-operation and the problems that Progressive approaches brought to Liberals. Progressive ideas had already permeated much Liberal thinking before 1890 and the Progressive Programme was less of a departure than might be imagined. Progressive policies may have helped consolidate Liberal working-class support but they did little to encourage co-operation with the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Where senior Liberals attempted to forge alliances they were invariably rebuffed. When Liberal candidates stepped down in deference to the ILP, Irish and working-class Liberal trade unionists revolted and split the party. The 1895 general election demonstrated the dangers of being too closely associated with the ILP and the limitations of Progressivism as a political strategy.

The Knights and Politics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Parfitt
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Labour Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Movements ◽  
British Labour ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Class Representation

This chapter explores the political ventures of British and Irish Knights at a municipal and national level, and compares them with the great working-class political mobilisation that American Knights led in in the mid-1880s. It categorises the various political stances held by leading figures in the British and Irish assemblies and then charts their attempts to elect councillors and MPs, build political movements at a local level, and join political organisations set up by trade unionists to support independent labour representation. In England, and in Scotland, Knights were part of the different political traditions and ideas - working-class Liberalism, socialism, and the desire for working-class representation – that coalesced in time in the form of the British Labour Party.

Working Verse in Victorian Scotland

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirstie Blair
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
The Political ◽  
Popular Press ◽  
Poetry And Poetics ◽  
Scottish Literature ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
Victorian Period ◽  
The City

This monograph reassesses working-class poetry and poetics in Victorian Britain, using Scotland as a focus and with particular attention to the role of the popular press in fostering and disseminating working-class verse cultures. It studies a very wide variety of writers who are unknown to scholarship, and assesses the political, social and cultural work which their poetry performed. During the Victorian period, Scotland underwent unprecedented changes in terms of industrialization, the rise of the city, migration and emigration. This study shows how poets who defined themselves as part of a specifically Scottish tradition responded to these changes. It substantially revises our understanding of Scottish literature in this period, while contributing to wider investigations of the role of popular verse in national and international cultures.

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