Representation and Reform

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bourke
Keyword(s):  
Natural Rights ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Political Life ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Public Protest ◽  
British System ◽  
Member Of Parliament

This chapter details Burke's political life from 1774 to 1784. In sitting as a member of parliament for a populous commercial city, Burke was forced to think seriously about his obligations as a representative. In doing so he could draw on his experience in the House of Commons as well as on his efforts in mobilizing opinion out of doors. By 1779, his energies were more deeply absorbed in constitutional reform. By 1780, conflict with the colonies was reaching the apogee of crisis, discontent in Ireland was contributing to popular militancy, and public protest was affecting confidence in the British system of government. Shorter parliaments were advocated along with manhood suffrage. The commitment to a more equal representation spread. Yet for Burke proposals of the kind were merely tokens of innovation often inspired by incoherent ideas about natural rights in politics.

scholarly journals Mechanizm odwoływania członka Izby Gmin w ustroju konstytucyjnym Zjednoczonego Królestwa

2015 ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Pastuszko
Keyword(s):  
Political Life ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Political Accountability ◽  
Legal Institution ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
The Real ◽  
Recall Procedure ◽  
Constitutional System ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Member Of Parliament

The article deals with a new legal institution recall of member of parliament that was established in 2015 in the UK. The aim of this institution is to give voters of a constituency a right to force a by-election, if they are unhappy with their MP. They can use it, however, only if certain conditions are fulfilled. According to the bill it becomes possible to initiate the recall procedure when a member of parliament: 1) is convicted by a UK court of an offence and receives a custodial sentence not more than 12 months, 2) is suspended by the House of Commons for more than 10 sitting days or more than 14 calendar days, 3) is convicted of an offence described in Parliamentary Standards Act 2009. These three restrictive provisions indicate that the recall procedure was not drafted as a mechanism of political accountability of deputies. The real intention of lawmaker was, as may be assumed, protection of ethical standards in the parliamentary life of the UK. As a matter of fact, with recall procedure voters can get rid of a member of parliament who broke some ethic elementary rules while holding his/her mandate. Analyzing the content of the new regulations and their ratio legis, the author tries to answer a question what role the new institution can play in functioning the constitutional system of the UK and following in its political life as well. His general conclusion is that even though we consider the new rules as a kind of revolutionary move in legal dimension (like for example the adjustment of the parliamentary mandate characteristics), we cannot expect any revolution in practice.

Canada

2021 ◽  
pp. 193-213
Author(s):  
Christopher Cochrane ◽  
Jean-François Godbout ◽  
Jason Vandenbeukel
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Dominant Role ◽  
National Level ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Independent Effect ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Lower House ◽  
The Government

Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy with a bicameral legislature at the national level. Members of the upper House, styled the Senate, are appointed by the prime minister, and members of the lower House, the House of Commons, are elected in single-member plurality electoral districts. In practice, the House of Commons is by far the more important of the two chambers. This chapter, therefore, investigates access to the floor in the Canadian House of Commons. We find that the age, gender, and experience of MPs have little independent effect on access to the floor. Consistent with the dominant role of parties in Canadian political life, we find that an MP’s role within a party has by far the most significant impact on their access to the floor. Intriguingly, backbenchers in the government party have the least access of all.

Dr Ada English: patriot and psychiatrist in early 20th century Ireland

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Davoren ◽  
Eugene G Breen ◽  
Brendan D Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Occupational Therapy ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Lunatic Asylum ◽  
Additional Research ◽  
Psychiatric Services ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Easter Rising ◽  
Member Of Parliament

AbstractDr Adeline (Ada) English (1875-1944) was a pioneering Irish psychiatrist. She qualified in medicine in 1903 and spent four decades working at Ballinasloe District Lunatic Asylum, during which time there were significant therapeutic innovations (eg. occupational therapy, convulsive treatment). Dr English was deeply involved in Irish politics. She participated in the Easter Rising (1916); spent six months in Galway jail for possessing nationalistic literature (1921); was elected as a Teachta Dála (member of Parliament; 1921); and participated in the Civil War (1922). She made significant contributions to Irish political life and development of psychiatric services during an exceptionally challenging period of history. Additional research would help contextualise her contributions further.

Gladstone and Jamaica

1959 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Knaplund
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Political Life ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Old Irish ◽  
Colonial Empire ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Irish Question ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Clear Statement

Early in his political life the famous British statesman, W. E. Gladstone, had close contact with colonial problems. His maiden speech in the House of Commons, June 3, 1833, was a defense of his father against charges that slaves were mistreated on the Gladstone plantations in Demerara; his first government post was that of Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for the Colonies; before the end of the 1830's he had served on many committees which studied questions relating to the colonies; and in 1846 he was Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. In 1835 and again in 1849 he drafted pamphlets on the British colonial empire; by mid-nineteenth century he was a leading advocate of colonial self-government; and his speech “Our Colonies” at Chester, November 12, 1855 (published as a pamphlet), was a clear statement of his creed that “ freedom and voluntaryism ” should govern the relationship between Britain and the overseas portions of the British Empire. While in later years noncolonial issues received most of his attention, he never abandoned his faith in freedom as the basic remedy for intra-imperial problems. In the closing years of his political career he fought magnificently but vainly to apply that principle of freedom (which had stilled colonial discontent) to the age-old Irish question.

Party Cohesion in Westminster Systems: Inducements, Replacement and Discipline in the House of Commons, 1836–1910

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 567-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Eggers ◽  
Arthur Spirling
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Central Tendency ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
New Members ◽  
Left Tail ◽  
Party Cohesion ◽  
Party Voting ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Member Of Parliament

This article considers the historical development of a characteristic crucial for the functioning and normative appeal of Westminster systems: cohesive legislative parties. It gathers the universe of the 20,000 parliamentary divisions that took place between 1836 and 1910 in the British House of Commons, construct a voting record for every Member of Parliament (MP) serving during this time, and conducts analysis that aims to both describe and explain the development of cohesive party voting. In line with previous work, it shows that – with the exception of a chaotic period in the 1840s and 1850s – median discipline was always high and increased throughout the century. The study uses novel methods to demonstrate that much of the rise in cohesion results from the elimination of a rebellious ‘left tail’ from the 1860s onwards, rather than central tendency shifts. In explaining the aggregate trends, the article uses panel data techniques and notes that there is scant evidence for ‘replacement’ explanations that involve new members behaving in more disciplined ways than those leaving the chamber. It offers evidence that more loyal MPs were more likely to obtain ministerial posts, and speculates that this and other ‘inducement’-based accounts offer more promising explanations of increasingly cohesive parties.

The Conservative Member of Parliament as Lobbyist for Constituency Economic Interests

1987 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Policy ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Policy Strategies ◽  
Government Benefits ◽  
Member Of Parliament ◽  
New Jobs

Interviews undertaken in the House of Commons with 70 backbench Conservative MPs in 1983–84 examined the extent to which they pursue their own localized industrial policy strategies as part of their efforts to maintain constituency electoral support. This involves lobbying efforts directed toward ministers in support of local industries, either in defence of jobs, in promotion of new jobs, or in a variety of quests for government benefits or relaxation of restrictions. It was found that 36 of the 70 Conservative MPs could be classified as ‘constituency lobbyists’, reflecting interview evidence that they consider lobbying on behalf of local industries to be a normal and important part of their representative rôle as MPs. The hypothesis that vulnerable constituencies—vulnerable in both political and economic terms—would be represented by constituency lobbyists was tested through the construction of an index of constituency ‘security’. It was found that the more secure the constituency, the less likely is the MP to lobby on behalf of local industrial interests.

James Craig and Orangeism, 1903–10

2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (136) ◽  
pp. 431-448
Author(s):  
T. P. Daly
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Effective Leader ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Orange Order ◽  
Member Of Parliament

The importance of the Orange Order to Unionism has long been accepted: J. F. Harbinson referred to ‘the marriage of the Unionist Party and the Orange Institution in the early days of the struggle against Home Rule’, while Alvin Jackson has written: ‘The significance of the Orange Order in terms of the ideological and institutional groundwork for Unionism can hardly be overstated.’ The closeness of this association and its nature can be tested for a crucial period of political mobilisation by examining the relationship of James Craig, a Unionist M.P. from 1906 and effective leader of the Ulster Unionists under Carson from 1910, and the Orange Order. This raises questions such as: What was Craig’s motivation for joining the order? What type of relationship did he have with the order? What role did Craig see the order fulfilling in Unionism?At the opening of a new Orange hall in September 1906 Craig stated that ‘he was an Orangeman first and a Member of Parliament afterwards’ and called ‘for the Protestant community to rally round the lodges, strengthen and support them’. Craig’s biographers, on the other hand, do not consider his Orangeism significant. Hugh Shearman wrote that Craig, in common with other Ulster leaders, ‘had let himself become an occasional emphatic utterer of Protestant sentiments, and he had made great use of the Orange Order’, implying that the order was a tool for Craig. To St John Ervine it was an incidental part of Craig’s Westminster career. Writing of 1919, Ervine noted that Craig ‘started an Orange Lodge in the House of Commons, a surprising society to appear in that assembly’. Patrick Buckland saw it as more of a background influence, in that Craig was a typical product of his society, and while he might have seemed more broad-minded than many Ulster Protestants he ‘had almost unthinkingly absorbed all their conventional notions and had come to share their fears and prejudices’.

VIII An account of the report given by Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham to the joint committee of both Houses, respecting the negotiations for a Spanish marriage

1968 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 207-222
Keyword(s):  
House Of Commons ◽  
Direct Speech ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Formal Relation ◽  
Similar Report ◽  
Bona Fide ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Member Of Parliament ◽  
Formal Session ◽  
Made In

MS 4 consists of eight foolscap folios, five written on both sides, one partly written on one side only, and two blank. It was originally folded, and the endorsement on the back of f. 8 would have been on the outside of the packet so formed. It is the first half of a detailed and circumstantial account of the report made to a joint committee of both Whole Houses by the Duke of Buckingham and Prince Charles on 24 February 1624. The subject of the report was the recent failure of the negotiations for a Spanish marriage, which had been dragging on for about ten years. So great was the interest of members in this report that special precautions were ordered to ensure that no one who was not a bona fide member of parliament should be admitted, and these precautions are hinted at in the opening sentences. Because this meeting was not a formal session of either house, report of the proceedings had to be made in both the Lords and the Commons. The Lord Keeper's report, delivered on Friday, 27 February, is fully recorded in the Lords Journal, The substance is naturally much the same as the contents of this document, but the style is completely different. As befitted a formal relation, the Lord Keeper omitted the circumstantial details which make this account vivid and interesting; the direct speech, and the Prince's interjections and comments. The House of Commons received a similar report on the same day from Sir Richard Weston and Sir Francis Cottington, both of whom had been personally involved in the negotiations. The version of this report printed in the Commons Journal is very sketchy and disjointed, being taken from the hasty jottings of MS Tanner 392.

The London Committee and mobilization of public opinion against the slave trade

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Oldfield
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Political Life ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
African Slave ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Abolitionist Movement ◽  
Late Eighteenth

AbstractDuring the late eighteenth century organized anti-slavery, in the shape of the campaign to end the African slave trade (1787–1807), became an unavoidable feature of political life in Britain. Drawing on previously unpublished material in the Josiah Wedgwood Papers, the following article seeks to reassess this campaign and, in particular, the part played in it by the (London) Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. So far from being a low-level lobby, as historians like Seymour Drescher have suggested, it is argued here that the Committee's activities, both in terms of opinion-building and arranging for petitions to be sent to the house of commons, were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement. Thus while the provinces and public opinion at the grass roots level were undoubtedly important, not least in the industrial north, it was the metropolis and the London Committee which gave political shape and significance to popular abolitionism.

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