POLITICAL LIFE & ELECTION_BRITAIN CULTURE

Vietnam University of Commerce  DISCUSSION BRITAIN CULTURE TOPIC GROUP POLITICAL LIFE & ELECTION Lecturer: Phan Tu Lan Class: 21129ENTI0411 NAME RESPONSIBILITY Le Thi Mai Huong Public attitude to politics (Leader) The style of democracy SECTION MARK POLITICAL LIFE A+ POLITICAL LIFE B+ POLITICAL LIFE A ELECTION B+ ELECTION B+ WORD + POWERPOINT Nguyen Thi Hai The constitution The style of the politics Pham Thi Ha The party system The modern situation Le Thi Hang The system Formal arrangements The campaign Nguyen Phuong Hao Polling day Election night Recent results and the future M EMBERS OF GROUP 11 12 13 14 15 Pham Thi Ha Nguyen Thi Hai Le Thi Hang Nguyen Phuong Hao Le Thi Mai Huong |T able of Content POLITICAL LIFE PUBLIC ATTITUDE TO POLITICS ……………………………………… Attitude to the politicians……………………………………………….3 Attitude to the politics………………………………………………… THE STYLE OF DEMOCRACY…………………………………………… British’s attitudes to the laws……………………………………………6 Two unique aspects of British life………………………………………6 UK’s democracy protects human rights and civil liberties……….7 THE CONSTITUTION……………………………………………………… Feartures of the britain system of government…………………… Feartures of unwritten constitution………………………………… 10 THE STYLE OF THE POLITICS …………………………………………….11 Relationship between the politicians of different parties……….11 Some main parties in Britain………………………………………… 11 THE PARTY SYSTEM……………………………………………………….12 Two-party system……………………………………………………… 12 Single-party system…………………………………………………… 16 The party system in Vietnam………………………………………… 18 THE MODERN SITUATION……………………………………………… 19 ELECTION THE SYSTEM…………………………………………………………………25 How does the electional system work? 26 The evolution of the electoral system ……………………………… 27 FORMAL ARRANGEMENTS……………………………………………….27 THE CAMPAIGN……………………………………………………… .28 POLLING DAY …………………………………………………………… 29 ELECTION NIGHT………………………………………………………… 29 RECENT RESULTS AND THE FUTURE ………………………………………30 COMPARE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VIETNAM & BRITAIN ELECTION 32 |Polical life PUBLIC ATTITUDE TO POLITICS Attitude to the politicians “ Trust in politicians has never been high Figure: Trust in Government from 1986-2012 British politicians not have a good reputation due to their lack of trustworthiness This does not mean people hate their politicians They just have a high degree of suspicion with them And politicians are supposed to be frequently dishonest There are no shocks when the government is caught lying, but this did happen when the government was doing anything actually illegal In fact, trust in politicians to tell the truth when in a tight corner has never been particularly high in Britain, and is consistently below levels of trust in government as a whole British Social Attitudes first asked this question in 1994 when 49 per cent “almost never” trusted politicians; in 2009, when the expenses scandal broke, we saw the highest ever reading in distrust, with 60 per cent of the public “almost never” trusting politicians to tell the truth Since then there has been some recovery, with the latest reading at 54 per cent, and an increase in the proportion saying they trust politicians “only some of the time” to 40 per cent The United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal was a major political scandal that emerged in 2009, concerning expenses claims made by members of the British Parliament in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords over the previous years The disclosure of widespread misuse of allowances and expenses permitted to Members of Parliament (MPs) aroused widespread anger among the UK public and resulted in a large number of resignations, sackings, de-selections and retirement announcements together with public apologies and the repayment of expenses Several members or former members of both the House of Commons, and members of the House of Lords, were prosecuted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment 3|Page According to Britain Uncovered survey results in 2015, trust in politicians is at rock bottom; 69% of the population distrust politicians, while just 9% trust them, giving politicians a trust score of -60 The government does not fare much better, with a trust score of -40 There is a predictable split along party lines here: 37% of those intending to vote Conservative in May trust the government, while 22% distrust the government This gives likely Tory voters a government trust score of +15 Those intending to vote Liberal Democrats give the government a negative trust score (-6) This level of negativity is dwarfed by Labour supporters (-60) and is higher still among those intending to vote for Ukip (-65) Source: Britain Uncovered Survey 2015 There is a big lack of enthusiasm for politicians In fact, a lot of surveys have been made, and it show a general ignorance of politicians More than half of the adults in Britain not know the name of their local Members of Parliament (MPs) Attitude to the politics “ The majority of the British public has never been very interested in politics The majority of the British public has never reported being very interested in politics In 1986, three in ten people (29 per cent) said they were interested “a great deal” or “quite a lot”, and the pattern was very similar through the 1990s and 2000s Recently, there are signs of slightly more people being interested in politics than before (although still only a minority): in 2012, 36 per cent of people say they are interested While this has fluctuated over time (data not shown), our latest reading is seven percentage points up on our 1986 results So, the fact that fewer people have been voting in recent general elections does not appear to be simply a function of reduced levels of interest in politics That said there certainly is an association between someone being interested in politics and whether they vote in a general election (Clarke et al., 2004) and the recent increase in turnout occurred mainly among the interested (Curtice, 2010) In the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey 86 per cent of those with a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of interest in politics reported voting in the May general election, compared with only 53 per cent of those with “not very much” interest or “none at all” 4|Page “ The gap between young and old has widened in terms of political interest In the past, it was a maxim of gentlement’s clubs that nobody should mention politics or religion in polite conversation If anybody did, there was a danger that the conversation would become too heated and that people would become violent However, this stability is taken for granted Most people rarely become passionate about politics and nobody regards it as a ‘dangerous’ topic of conversation They are more likely to regard it as a boring topic of conversation This lack of enthusiasm is not the same as complete disenchantment Three-quarters of the adult population are interested enough in politics to vote at national elections, even though voting is not obligatory There is a general feeling of confidence in the statibility and workability of the system It is noted earlier that, while levels of public interest in politics have fluctuated over the past 25 years or so, they are higher now than in 1986 (36 per cent and 29 per cent respectively) Given the link between interest in politics and voting, what is happening here in terms of the younger and older electorate, and what can that tell us about the young and future electorates? Table 3.9 shows the proportions saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of interest in politics We can see that young people are less likely to be interested in politics than older people: in 2012, 23 per cent of 23 to 32 year olds are interested, compared with 39 per cent of those aged 73 to 82, and 51 per cent of those aged 63 to 72 We can see that this gap between young and old has widened: in 1986 the gap between the proportions of our interested youngest and oldest groups was seven percentage points, while our latest reading is more than double this at 16 percentage points Most of the increased interest in politics overall (seven percentage points up on 1986) can be attributed to the older electorate – becoming more interested in politics over their lifetime (shown by the percentage point differences in the right hand column) In Britain, it is generally accepted that politics is a dirty business, a necessary evil Therefore, politicians make sure that they not appear too keen to the job They see themselves as being politicians out of public duty 5|Page THE STYLE OF DEMOCRACY “ British highly respect the LAW ” British’s attitudes to the laws The British are said to have a high respect for the law Even though they may not have much respect for the present institutions of the law, this reputation is more or less true with respect to the principle of law There will still have a lot of crimes, of course But only a little systematic law-breaking by large sections of the population For instance, tax evation is not the national pastime that is said to be in some coutries While “the law” as a concept is largely respected, the British are comparatively unenthusiastic about making new laws Generally, they feel that instead of having to have laws sometimes, it is the best to without them In many aspects of life, the country has comparatively few rules and regulations Two unique aspects of British life First, British citizens not have identity cards Britain is one of the very few European countries that British people are not obliged to carry identification with them They even not have to have their license with them in their car If the police request that, they have 24 hours to take it to them Second, it does not have a Freedom of Information Act There is no law which obliges a government authority or agency to show what information it has collected about a person In fact, it goes further than that There is a law (called the Official Secrets Act) which obliges many government employees not to tell anyone about the details of their work It seems that in Britain, both your own identity and the information which the government has about your identity are regarded as, in a sense, private matters 6|Page “ PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS & CIVIL LIBERTIES” Those two aspects show the relationship in Britain between the individual and the state The duties of the individual towards the state are confined to not breaking the law and paying taxes There is no national service (military or otherwise); British citizens are not obliged to vote at elections if they can’t be bothered; they also not have to register their change of address when they move house Similarly, the government in Britain has a comparatively free hand There would be no mistakes if you call the country “a democracy” in the generally accepted sense of this word But in Britain, this democracy involves less participation by ordinary citizens in governing and lawmaking than it does in many other countries There is no concept of those things being done “by the people” Some things such as the electoral system or power of the Prime Minister, if the government want to make an important change, it does not have to ask the people It does not even have to have a special vote in Parliament with an especially high proportion of MPs in favour It just needs to get the Parliament to agree in the same way as for any new law In Britain democracy has never meant that people have a hand in the running of the country; rather it means that people choose who is to govern the country and finally let them get on with it! How well does the UK’s democracy protect human rights and civil liberties? A foundational principle of liberal democracy is that all citizens are equal, and so the protection of fundamental human rights is of critical importance for democratic effectiveness In many countries a statement of citizens’ rights forms part of the constitution, and is especially enshrined in law and enforced by the courts This has not happened in the UK, which has no codified constitution Instead, in an article from The UK’s Changing Democracy: the 2018 Democratic Audit, Colm O’Cinneide evaluates the more diffuse and eclectic ways in which the UK’s political system protects fundamental human rights through the Human Rights Act and other legislation, and the courts and Parliament 7|Page The party system in Vietnam Vietnam is a one-party socialist republic The current Vietnamese state traces its direct lineage back to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the 1945 August Revolution led by Hồ Chí Minh The current constitution was adopted on 28 November 2013 by the National Assembly of Vietnam There have been four other constitutions in Vietnamese history: the 1946, 1959, 1980, and 1992 constitutions The Communist Party of Vietnam, the leading non-State organ, operates in accordance with the laws Government powers in Vietnam are divided into legislative, executive and judiciary powers Vietnam's legal system is based upon socialist legality according to Article 12 of the constitution The reform process that took place between the early 1980s and 1990s was crucial for examining the interplay between the single party-state and the society as a whole in contemporary Vietnam A most intriguing question still is whether a civil society in Vietnam is emerging outside or inside the one-party state The question is especially intriguing because Vietnam seems to refute Western wishful thinking that a steady rise of a middle class will lead to political pluralism that preserves governmental virtue and guarantees a fine distinction between state and society Empirical evidence reveals no place for such a development where the expanding new rich class is closely linked with the one-party state.The CPV is organized on the basis of democratic centralism, a principle conceived by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin The highest institution of the CPV is the party's National Congress, which elects the Central Committee In between party congresses, the Central Committee is the supreme organ on party affairs After a party congress, the Central Committee elects the Politburo and Secretariat, and appoints the First Secretary, the highest party office In between sessions of the Central Committee, the Politburo is the supreme organ on party affairs However, it can only implement decisions based upon the policies which have been approved in advance by either the Central Committee or the party's National Congress As of 2017, the 12th Politburo comprises of 19 members The current party leader is Nguyễn Phú Trọng, who holds the titles of General Secretary of the Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Military Commission 18 | P a g e THE MODERN SITUATION At the time of writing, the coronavirus pandemic has claimed almost million lives globally In the UK alone, at least 140,000 lives were lost If the crisis is primarily a health crisis, it has also proved to be a political one Indeed, the urgent and global nature of the pandemic has forced governments worldwide to take action and impose a wide range of measures on their population, often impeding constitutional rights and individual freedoms under the State of Emergency The pandemic has hence tested the relationships between citizens and governments, sometimes exacerbating political and social tensions Changes in political trust in Britain during the COVID-19 pandemic In this context, political trust has emerged as a key factor in people’s relation to the state, their acceptance of governmental measures, and ultimately their compliance with many restrictions In the past year, a considerable amount of research has shown that political trust was positively associated with compliance with COVID-19 government restrictions (see e.g., Devine et al., 2020, for an early review of the literature) Most of this research has focused on measures of political trust at single points in time, providing snapshots of the situation but not addressing how political trust might have changed throughout the crisis Moreover, research tracking changes in political trust often relies on yearly or even less-frequent surveys (e.g., Pew Research Center, General Social Survey, European Social Survey; see Citrin and Stoker, 2018) These can identify trends over the years and decades, but they not capture more granular, shorter-term, changes in trust Given that political trust can move quite quickly in times of crisis (Hasel, 2013; Hetherington and Nelson, 2003; Hunt et al., 1999), and given the rapid political responses to changing COVID-19 rates, it is valuable to understand how political trust is affected in a more compressed and dynamic timeframe 19 | P a g e The year of changes for the UK, and potentially for the government 2021 is a year of changes for the UK, and potentially for the government As the first year fully outside the EU and its regulatory arrangements, 2021 is when the real impact of the Brexit vote in 2016, and the political decisions taken since then, will be felt It is also – the country will be hoping – the year when the UK, along with the rest of the world, turns the corner on the coronavirus pandemic that has caused so much hardship for the past 12 months The decisions that ministers take in the coming months present an opportunity for the government to shape the future of the UK domestically and on the international stage At the same time, as ministers put most of their original plans for 2020 on hold to deal with the pandemic, 2021 is in some ways like the first year of a new administration, when the government will want to focus on setting out more detail on, and then delivering priorities from, its manifesto The UK has spent much of the past four years looking inwards as it sought to decide how to put Brexit into practice Now the transition period has ended with an agreement on the UK–EU future relationship in place, the formal Brexit process is over The UK’s relationship with the EU will, however, continue to be a force in government and politics, particularly as the government works out how to manage the new Trade and Cooperation Agreement This is just one of many international issues that the country will need to deal with over the coming year The government has two particular foreign policy opportunities in 2021: this year the UK holds the G7 presidency and is host of the COP26 UN climate conference Boris Johnson’s government has still yet to set out its overarching strategy for foreign affairs In February 2020 the prime minister said that the government was undertaking an ‘integrated review’ into the UK’s security, defence, development and foreign policy, described as the biggest review of these issues “since the end of the Cold War” The findings of the review, which was delayed by the pandemic, have yet to be published 20 | P a g e But the prime minister has already made several moves that hint at his approach, including creating the FCDO, increasing the defence budget and cutting the development budget The government now needs to show how these decisions tell a coherent story about what role the UK will play in the world in the third decade of the 21st century When he became prime minister, Johnson appointed himself ‘minister for the union’ Since then, he has spoken many times about the importance of the union between the four nations of the UK But while this theme has been a notable aspect of Johnson’s approach to governing, the practical challenges of the pandemic and Brexit have put extra pressure on the current devolution settlements The question of the union could become one of the biggest challenges the government faces in 2021 The coronavirus pandemic has shown to many people for the first time the practical implications of the devolved settlements Governments in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast all took different approaches at times, leading to differences in the lockdown restrictions in each part of the UK The UK government’s insistence on a ‘sovereignty first’ Brexit has further damaged already difficult relationships with its Scottish and Welsh counterparts, particularly the former given that a clear majority of Scots voted to stay in the EU The UK government’s introduction of new legislation to prevent the emergence of new trade barriers between the four parts of the UK – the UK Internal Market Act – also provoked a strong backlash from both Edinburgh and Cardiff Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland executive – sitting only since January 2020 after collapsing three years previously – has been working to implement the protocol that will see new checks and processes on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland The practical implications of the Northern Ireland protocol are already being felt, with reports of disruption to supermarket supply chains because of new paperwork required on GB–NI trade and uncertainty among businesses in Great Britain about how to comply with new requirements from January The way the UK government has approached Brexit since 2016 has also brought to the fore underlying questions about the longer-term status of Northern Ireland within the union 21 | P a g e A 2020 Vision of Britain in a new decade The UK finds itself with a newly-elected government and poised to begin a new decade by leaving the EU This will have inevitable repercussions for its global standing The nature of those repercussions will be determined by how it projects itself on an increasingly competitive world stage It has many things going for it With the right approaches, these could support a renaissance in its global attractiveness But it will have to tread very carefully if its influence is to thrive As it lifts its eyes to the world after years of often-fractious navel-gazing over Brexit, the UK will again face the force of Dean Acheson’s famous observation that Britain had ‘lost an empire but failed to find a role’ The answer of British governments since Acheson’s time was simple: to join the EEC (later the EU) As it prepares to leave that organisation against a very different international backdrop, the nation must again face the question – and this time produce a different answer One possible role is as a global hub of culture and ideas The new government faces the same challenges as its predecessors when it comes to nurturing and harnessing that ecosystem, without the sort of overt control that might risk undermining the very things which make it attractive As it celebrates 85 years as the UK’s leading cultural relations and soft power body, the British Council aims to its bit for exploring international cultural engagement and for helping to coordinate the UK’s independent soft power organisations, through its education, arts, youth, and English language work, and by partnering in new and expanding initiatives such as the International Cultural Relations Research Alliance and the Soft Power Group According to the recent ‘Audit of Geopolitical Capability’ by the Henry Jackson Society, the UK has more diplomatic leverage than France (with a broadly similar economic and diplomatic footprint), because of its larger international development budget Yes, there is some evidence that not enough people realise the scale of the UK’s commitment It may have to a better job of explaining its development contribution if it wishes to make the most of the soft power side-effect of its altruism Democracy may be in retreat as political freedoms and civil rights are eroded by governments, including more assertive authoritarian powers, but the ‘march of the strong men’ is in many respects despite rather than because of changes in societies 22 | P a g e ... Public attitude to politics (Leader) The style of democracy SECTION MARK POLITICAL LIFE A+ POLITICAL LIFE B+ POLITICAL LIFE A ELECTION B+ ELECTION B+ WORD + POWERPOINT Nguyen Thi Hai The constitution... Boris Johnson has no real political beliefs This gives him a very significant political advantage If you believe in nothing, then you are not bound by any moral or political framework That cuts... and governments, sometimes exacerbating political and social tensions Changes in political trust in Britain during the COVID-19 pandemic In this context, political trust has emerged as a key factor