General Assembly of the Church of Scotland

The General Assembly of the Church met in a ‘blended’ form, based at the Assembly Hall, from 22 May to 27 May. The Moderator on this occasion was an elder, rather than a minister, but with the distinction of being Lord Wallace of Tankerness PC QC FRSE, a Liberal Democrat life peer since 2007, who served as the Deputy First Minister of Scotland from 1999 to 2005. He was formerly Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 2005 and of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2013 to 2016. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland from 1983 to 2001 and a Member of the Scottish Parliament for Orkney from 1999 to 2007. He was Advocate General for Scotland in the Westminster Government from 2010 to 2015.

Association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions: Cross sectional surveys in England 2015-2020

Background and aims Cigarette smoking takes place within a cultural and social context. Political views and practices are an important part of that context. To gain a better understanding of smoking, it may be helpful to understand its association with voting patterns as an expression of the political views and practices of the population who smoke. This study aimed to assess the association between cigarette smoking and voting intentions and to examine how far any association can be explained by sociodemographic factors and alcohol use. Methods Pooled monthly representative repeat cross-sectional household surveys of adults (16+) in England (N = 55,482) between 2015 and 2020 were used to assess the association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions, and whether this was accounted for by age, occupational grade, gender, region and alcohol use. Voting intention was measured by asking ‘How would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?’ Respondents chose from a list of the major English political parties or indicated their intention not to vote. Results In adjusted multinomial regression, compared with intending to vote Conservative (majority party of government during the period), being undecided (aOR1.22 [1.13-1.33] <0.001), intending to vote Labour (aOR1.27 [1.16-1.36] <0.001), to vote “Other” (aOR1.54 [1.37-1.72] <0.001), or not to vote (aOR1.93 [1.77-2.11] <0.001) was associated with higher odds of current relative to never smoking rates. Intending to vote for the Liberal Democrats was associated with a significant lower odds of current smoking prevalence (aOR0.80 [0.70-0.91] <0.001) compared with intending to vote Conservative. Conclusions Controlling for a range of other factors, current as compared with never-smokers appear more likely to intend not to vote, to be undecided, to vote for Labour or a non-mainstream party, and less likely to vote for the Liberal Democrats, compared with the Conservative party.

The Role of Political Elites in Eliciting Mass-Level Political Anger

Contemporary American politics is notable for its high levels of anger and partisan antipathy. While these developments are attributable in large part to societal-level sociopolitical trends, I argue that they are also the result of politicians’ deliberate and strategic attempts to elicit mass-level anger. In this paper, I analyze over one million tweets sent by members of the 116th Congress to demonstrate that political elites do appeal to anger and that the angriest of these appeals are most likely to come from the most ideologically extreme Members of Congress – that is, the most liberal Democrats and the most conservative Republicans. I further show that this relationship is stronger for Democratic politicians, and that authoring tweets with a greater amount of anger generates more engagement. The results suggest that as long as politicians have an incentive to appeal to mass-level anger, the divisions characterizing American politics are likely to persist.

Dynamics of territorial identity and perception of the status of the region by residents of the Kaliningrad region in 2016–2020

The article deals with the specific of the territorial identity’s perception and status of the region by residents of the Kaliningrad region. Special attention was paid to 2016–2020 as a period characterized by geopolitical instability and militarization in the Baltic Sea region. +e research method is mass surveys of residents of the Kaliningrad region with subsequent statistical analysis of the data. Ideological types of respondents were used as a predictor calculated in accordance with the method of D. Nolan. On this basis two main hypotheses (H1 and H2) and two particular hypotheses were formulated: Liberal Democrats are in favor of giving the region a special economic status (H1a) and feel more like residents of Europe and the planet Earth (H2a); Social Etatist would like to see the region as an ordinary region (H1b), their identification has a pronounced pro-Russian character (H2b). It was found that among residents of the Kaliningrad region the pro-Russian identification options remain the absolute dominant, and there is a distance from the Eurocosmopolitan categories. +e most attractive status for the region for majority of residents is an area with a special economic status within the Russian Federation. The ideological type as a whole did not have a significant impact on the assessment of territorial identity and the perception of the administrative status of the region. The first hypothesis was not supported: only Liberal Democrats prefer to choose the actual area (the rest — the area with a special economic status). +e second hypothesis was partially confirmed: Social Democrats and Social Etatist consider themselves mainly as residents of the city or village where they now live; Liberal Democrats and Liberal Etatist define themselves more as a citizen of the world, a resident of the planet Earth.

How parties compete (1)

This is the first of three chapters that considers how modern parties compete for votes and office. Since most formal models of party competition are based on the strategic use of ideological appeals to electors, it concentrates on describing the ideological stances of the parties in Britain: the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Labour, Greens, UKIP, and the Brexit Party/Reform UK are all covered. (The SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the major parties of Northern Ireland are covered in the course of Chapter 1’s discussion of devolved party systems.) This chapter concludes with a two-dimensional map summarizing the main ideological traditions found in British party politics today.

The United Kingdom: When a Coalition Meets the Westminster Model, Who Wins?

This chapter examines the United Kingdom’s sole post-war coalition government and how it interacted with the Westminster Model’s assumption of single-party government. It looks at the issue from two perspectives: firstly, how much the usual processes of single-party government changed to accommodate two parties in government, and secondly, how David Cameron’s Conservatives and Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats worked together as parties in government in ways that fitted with the expectations of the Westminster Model. It examines this single example of coalition government in its political and historical contexts, exploring why a coalition occurred in 2010 and how it managed to continue in office for a full parliamentary term. The chapter begins with the comparatively swift process of negotiation through which the coalition was formed, then proceeds to look at how the expectations of that negotiation survived contact with the actual processes of government. It concludes by examining what the procedural and political impacts of the coalition on the UK have been, including the role of the coalition’s Fixed-Term Parliament Act on the stability of it and future governments.

Tactical Voting and Electoral Pacts in the 2019 UK General Election

The Brexit cleavage continued to define politics in the 2019 general election. This posed a challenge for parties and voters on each side of the debate: how to coordinate in favour of their side in each seat. In this note, I examine the extent to which party (electoral pacts) and voter (tactical voting) coordination affected the outcome of the 2019 general election. On the voter side, I find that tactical voting was only slightly more prevalent than in previous election cycles. On the party side, I find that neither the Unite to Remain pact nor the Brexit Party’s withdrawal of candidates against incumbent Conservatives noticeably affected the results. Holding the structure of preferences in 2019 constant, Labour would probably have won a handful of additional seats in England and Wales (three on average but only one clear gain) by joining the Unite to Remain pact. The effect of the pact is limited because Labour successfully won over many Remain supporters from the other parties during the campaign. This meant that voters of the other Remain parties were only modestly more likely to prefer Labour over the Conservatives by the end of the campaign, and the pool of minor party voters was generally small in Labour’s target seats. The Liberal Democrats would have received around eight additional seats if Labour had joined the pact (again holding preferences constant).

Conservative Revival and the Rise of ‘Others’

This chapter examines the closely fought elections of 2010 and 2015, the first of which produced the first British coalition government since 1945 in a period which saw the continued fragmentation of the party system and the rise of United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and the Scottish National Party (SNP).Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister in 2007, and initially impressions were favourable. However, almost as soon as Brown had decided against a ‘snap’ election to exploit his popularity, events turned against him and his party. The worldwide global financial crisis, which began in 2007, hit Britain particularly hard, and like Major’s Conservatives in the previous decade New Labour lost its reputation for economic competence. The Conservatives, under David Cameron who proclaimed himself ‘the heir to Blair’, won the largest number of seats in the 2010 election, which was particularly noteworthy for the introduction of televised leader debates. However, the 2010 contest resulted in a ‘hung parliament’ and a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. The key events of the ensuing five years are examined, including the introduction of a Fixed-Term Parliaments Act which purportedly deprived Prime Ministers of the right to call elections at times of their own choosing. There were also referendums of Electoral Reform (2011) and Scottish independence (2014), in which the status quo was upheld without seeming to put an end to either question. In particular, the SNP continued to prosper despite the 2014 result, and in the 2015 general election it won almost all of the Scottish parliamentary seats. In England, UKIP had become a very serious threat both to Labour and the Conservatives, who had imposed unpopular cuts in public expenditure (‘austerity’) in response to the financial crisis. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats had lost much of their electoral appeal during their ill-fated alliance with Cameron’s Conservatives. The overall result of the 2015 election was an overall victory for the Conservatives, but by a margin which left Cameron vulnerable to Eurosceptics within his party.

Association Between Cigarette Smoking Status And Voting Intentions: Cross Sectional Surveys In England 2015-2020

Background and aims: Cigarette smoking takes place within a cultural and social context. Political views and practices are an important part of that context. To gain a better understanding of smoking, it may be helpful to understand its association with voting patterns as an expression of the political views and practices of the population who smoke. This study aimed to assess the association between cigarette smoking and voting intentions and to examine how far any association can be explained by sociodemographic factors and alcohol use.Methods: Pooled monthly representative repeat cross-sectional household surveys of adults (16+) in England (N = 55,482) between 2015-2020 were used to assess the association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions, and whether this was accounted for by age, occupational grade, gender, region and alcohol use. Voting intention was measured by asking ‘How would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?’ Respondents chose from a list of the major English political parties or indicated their intention not to vote.Results: In adjusted multinomial regression, compared with intending to vote Conservative (majority party of government during the period), being undecided (aOR1.22 [1.13-1.33] <0.001), intending to vote Labour (aOR1.27 [1.16-1.36] <0.001), to vote “Other” (aOR1.54 [1.37-1.72] <0.001), or not to vote (aOR1.93 [1.77-2.11] <0.001) was associated with higher odds of current relative to never smoking rates. Intending to vote for the Liberal Democrats was associated with a significant lower odds of current smoking prevalence (aOR0.80 [0.70-0.91] <0.001) compared with intending to vote Conservative.Conclusions: Controlling for a range of other factors, current as compared with never-smokers appear more likely to intend not to vote, to be undecided, to vote for Labour or a non-mainstream party, and less likely to vote for the Liberal Democrats, compared with the Conservative party.