Doelgroep: VWO 3
Welkom!
Waarom zouden we alleen maar uit het boek werken als het ook digitaal kan? Normaal gesproken werk je uit het boek waardoor je aandacht snel wegvalt. Om de lesstof nog interessant te houden heb ik gebruik gemaakt van Wikiwijs, een digitaal platform waardoor de lesstof op een efficiënte en effectieve manier wordt overgebracht. Interactie is belangrijk wanneer de lesstof leuk gemaakt moet worden. Ik heb bewust gekozen voor Wikiwijs, omdat ik hierdoor zeker kan weten dat jullie de benodigde lesstof binnen zullen krijgen.
De afgelopen les hebben wij chapter 9 van Britain afgesloten, hierdoor kunnen we een start maken aan het nieuwe hoofdstuk. Normaal gesproken hebben we per hoofdstuk 4 lesuren nodig, maar door middel van Wikiwijs is de lestijd gehalveerd. Voordat je kan beginnen aan de les is het wel belangrijk dat je weet hoe alles werkt en welke stappen je moet volgen.
Linksboven op je scherm zijn er een aantal kopjes. De kopjes zijn aangemaakt om je stapsgewijs aan te sturen waardoor je gestructureerd alle opdrachten voltooid.
Je begint bij het kopje ‘’pre-reading’’ waarbij je een samenvatting te zien krijgt over het hoofdstuk. De samenvatting zorgt ervoor dat je goed voorbereid wordt op het tentamen. Een aantal woorden zijn dikgedrukt, deze worden ook wel kernwoorden genoemd oftewel ‘’keywords’’ in het Engels. Onder het kopje ‘’pre-reading’’ is er een subkopje waarbij de ‘’keywords’’ zijn beschreven. Na dat je alles hebt gelezen heb je al een algemeen beeld over het onderwerp. Om alles nog duidelijker te maken heb ik ook een kennisclip toegevoegd voor verheldering. Dit heb ik gedaan omdat er wel eens bepaalde aspecten over het hoofd worden gezien. Mocht je een bepaalde termen niet goed begrijpen dan is het altijd nog mogelijk om terug te spoelen.
Om je zo goed mogelijk voor te bereiden op het eindtentamen heb ik een interactieve oefening toegevoegd onder het kopje oefenopdrachten. Als je op het kopje van oefenopdrachten drukt dan heb je twee subkopjes, het eerste subkopje ‘’flipquiz’’ en het tweede subkopje ‘’oefententamen’’. Je begint eerst met Flipquiz, door flipquiz blijf je belangrijke onderdelen goed onthouden en daarom raad ik je ook aan om eerst met de flipquiz te beginnen en vervolgens met de oefententamen van start te gaan. Het oefententamen is gebasseerd op het echte tentamen waar je op beoordeeld wordt, dus neem deze goed door! Nadat je klaar bent met de oefenopdrachten betekent dit dat je klaar bent voor het eindtentamen. Je drukt op het kopje ’’TENTAMEN’’ waardoor je gelijk terecht komt op de juiste pagina om je tentamen te starten, het enige wat je dan nog moet doen is op start drukken om deel te nemen aan het tentamen. Zodra je klaar bent met je tentamen krijg je te zien of je de tentamen behaald hebt of niet. Nadat je klaar bent met het tentamen ga je naar het kopje ‘’Feedback’’ toe. Hierbij is een link toegevoegd waardoor je direct word doorgestuurd naar google forms om feedback te geven over de les. Dit heb ik bewust toegevoegd om te zien wat de deelnemers vinden van de Wikiwijs les en verbeteringen aanbrengen als dat van toepassing is.
Zodra je klaar bent mag je vertekken uit de klas. Aan het einde van de les beschik je over voldoende kennis om vragen over het hoofdstuk te kunnen beantwoorden, hierdoor ben je ook in staat om de tentamen met een voldoende af te sluiten als je actieve deelname hebt getoond. Ook kan je aan het einde van de les uitleg geven over wat hoofdstuk 10 inhoudt en kan je vertellen hoe de verkiezingen worden uitgevoerd in Groot-Britannie.
2005 election
In the 2005 election, the Labour party received only a little more than one-third of all the votes cast but it won more than half of the seats in the House of Commons. It got only 3% more of the total vote than the Conservatives but won 24% more seats. The Liberal Democratic party did very badly out of the system. More than one in every five people voted for it, but it got only a tenth of the seats in the Commons. And yet it was much luckier than it had been in previous elections. In the 1987 election, for instance, it got 23% of the total vote but only 3% of the seats.
The system
In theory, the House of Commons is simply a gathering of people who each represent a particular place in the kingdom. Originally, it was not the concern of anybody in government as to how each representative was chosen. Not until the nineteenth century were laws passed about how elections were to be conducted (The evolution of the electoral system).
This system was in place before the development of modern political parties. On polling day (the day of the election), voters go to polling stations and are each given a single piece of paper (the ballot paper) with the names of the candidates for that constituency on it. Each voter then puts a cross next to the name of one candidate. After the polls have closed, the ballot papers are counted. The candidate with the largest number of crosses next to his or her name is the winner and becomes the MP for the constituency. And that’s the end of it. There is no preferential voting (if a voter chooses more than one candidate, that ballot paper is ‘spoiled’ and is not counted) there is no counting of the proportion of votes for each party (all votes cast for losing candidates are simply ignored) there is no extra allocation of seats in Parliament according to party strengths. If we add the votes received by each party in these two constituencies together, we find that the Liberal Democrats got many more votes than Conservative or Labour. And yet these two parties each won a seat while the Liberal Democrats did not. This is because they were not first in either constituency. It is coming this that matters. In fact, the system is known as the ‘first-past-the-post’ system (FPTP).
Formal arrangements
In practice, it is the government which decides when to hold an election. The law says that an election has to take place at least every five years. However, the interval between elections is usually a bit shorter than this. A party in power does not normally wait until the last possible moment. After the date of an election has been fixed, people who want to be candidates in a constituency must get their names on the ballot paper for that constituency. To do this, they have to deposit £500 with the Returning Officer (the person responsible for the conduct of the election in each constituency). They get this money back if they get five percent of the votes or more. Candidates are allowed to indicate their political affiliation after their names on the ballot paper.
To be eligible to vote, a person must be at least 18 years old and be on the electoral register. This is compiled every year for each constituency separately. Nobody is obliged to vote.
Canvassing
This is the activity that occupies most of the time of local party workers during an election campaign. Canvassers go from door to door, calling on as many houses as possible and asking people how they intend to vote. The main purpose of canvassing seems to be so that, on election day, transport can be offered to those who claim to be supporters. It also allows party workers to estimate how well they are doing on election day. They stand outside polling stations and record whether people who claim to be supporters have voted.
The campaign reflects the contrast between the formal arrangements and political reality. Formally, a different campaign takes place in each constituency. The candidates hold meetings, there is local newspaper coverage, party supporters stick up posters in their windows and some wear party rosettes and spend their time canvassing (Canvassing).
But the reality is that all these activities and regulations do not usually make much difference. Nearly everybody votes for a candidate on the basis of the party which he or she represents, not because of his or her individual qualities or political opinions. Few people attend candidates’ meetings and most people do not read local newspapers.
It is at a national level that the real campaign takes place. At this level too, party spending is legally controlled. Nevertheless, the big parties spend millions of pounds advertising on hoardings and in newspapers. by agreement, they do not buy time on television as they do in the USA. Instead, they are each given a number of strictly timed ‘party election broadcasts. There are also extended editions of the television news every night and each party holds a daily news conference.
Polling day and election night
Since 1931, general elections have always taken place on a Thursday. They are not public holidays. People have to work as usual, so polling stations keep long hours (seven in the morning until ten at night) to give everybody the opportunity to vote. The only people who get a holiday are those lucky schoolchildren whose schools are being used as polling stations.
After the polls close, the marked ballot papers are taken in boxes to a central place in the constituency somewhere with a really big hall where the boxes are opened and the votes for each candidate are counted. The count is a very public event. Representatives of the candidates are allowed to roam around freely and in many cases, members of the public can watch from a distance. When all the votes have been counted, the Returning Officer, together with the candidates, gets up onto a stage and announces the votes cast for each candidate and who, therefore, the MP for the constituency is.
Both the BBC and ITV start their programmes as soon as voting finishes. With millions watching, they continue right through the night. Certain features of these ‘election specials’, such as the ‘swingometer’, have entered popular folklore (The swingometer).
The first excitement of the night is the race to see which constituency can announce their result first (The race to declare). This usually occurs at around 11.00 pm. By midnight, after only a handful of results have been declared, experts (with the help of computers) will be making predictions about the composition of the newly elected House of Commons. Psephology(the Study of voting habits) has become very sophisticated in Britain so that, although the experts never get it exactly right, they can get pretty close.
Recent results and the future
Since the middle of the twentieth century, the contest to form the government has effectively been a straight fight between the Labour and Conservative parties. As a general rule, the north of England and most of the inner areas of English cities have returned mostly Labour ‘MPs to Westminster, while the south of England and most areas. outside the inner cities have had mostly Conservative MPs. Which of these two parties forms the government depends on which one does better in the suburbs and large towns of England?
The Lib Dems have won a large proportion of the rest of their seats in Parliament in the south west of England, although they have won some all over England. (Northern Ireland has followed a completely different pattern, with always about the same proportion of Protestant Unionist MPs and Catholic Nationalist MPs slightly more for the former.)
In the fourteen elections from 1945 to 1992, the Conservatives were generally more successful than Labour. Although Labour won a majority of the seats in Parliament five times, on three of these occasions the majority was so small that it was in constant danger of disappearing as a result of by-election defeats (By-elections). In the same period, the Conservatives won a majority eight times, nearly always comfortably. Indeed, when in 1992 they won for the fourth time in a row the first time this had happened for more than 160 years it looked as if the swingometer’s pendulum had stuck on the right. Sociologists suggest this situation was inevitable because Britain had developed a middle-class majority (as opposed to its former working-class majority).
Modern issues
It is important for the health of a democracy that people feel they can take part in the democratic process and that their participation is effective and fair. But the results of recent British elections have caused some people to worry in this respect. For one thing, fewer people, especially younger people, seem to be bothering to vote (Turnout). For another, there has been an increase in Support for smaller parties. However, because of the first-past-the-post system, this is not reflected in parliamentary representation (The other votes). the combined result of these two trends is that in 2005 the Labour party was able to form a government even though less than a quarter of the adult population voted for it. It is natural that some people should question whether a party has the right to govern at all in such circumstances.
There have even been experiments at local elections with all-postal voting and voting by phone and internet. As for the second matter, it seems unlikely that the way in which seats are won at British general elections will change to a more proportional system, as used elsewhere in Europe, for the simple reason that there are vested interests. It would not be to the advantage. The big two parties and they have the decision-making power. However various forms of more proportional representation are used for the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish' parliament, the Welsh assembly elections to the European Parliament and some local government elections. As a result, the British people may gradually become more accustomed to such systems and if support for smaller parties increase public demand for a change may be difficult to resist. ‘
However, both types of change, but especially postal and Other forms ‘remote’ voting, detract from the system’s biggest advantage. Britain by a rightly deserved reputation for freely and fairly conducted elections. A major reason for this is the system’s primitive simplicity. Voting, the counting of votes and the declaration of results are all done by human beings in each other’s physical presence, without the mediation of anything more technological than pencil and paper. It is notable that the advent of widespread postal voting has led to a dramatic increase in cases of electoral fraud. Similarly, the advantage of the first-past-the-post system is that its simplicity reduces even further the opportunity for cheating during the counting process.
Whenever a sitting MP can no longer fulfill his or her duties, there has to be a special election in the constituency which he or she represents. (There is no system of ready substitutes.) These are called by-elections and can take place at any time. They do not affect who runs the government, but they are watched closely by the media and the parties as indicators of the present level of popularity (or unpopularity) of the government. A by-election provides the parties with an opportunity to find a seat in Parliament for one of their important people. if a sitting MP dies, the opportunity presents itself. if not, an MP of the same party must be persuaded to resign. 'The procedure of resignation offers a fascinating example of the importance attached to tradition. It is considered wrong for an MP simply to resign MPs represent their constituents and have no right to deprive them of this representation. So what happens is that the MP who wishes to resign applies fora post with the title ‘Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds’. This is a job with no duties and no salary. Technically, however, it is ‘an office of profit under the Crown’(i.e. a job given by the monarch with rewards attached to it). According to ancient practice, a person cannot be both an MP and hold a post of this nature at the same time because Parliament must be independent of the monarch. (This is why high-ranking civil servants and army officers are not allowed to be MPs.) As a result, the holder of' this ancient post is automatically disqualified from the House of Commons and the by-election can go ahead.
Turnout
Voting is not obligatory in Britain. Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, the turnout (that is, the proportion of people entitled to vote who actually vote) varied from 71% to 84%. But in the two eIections this century, it dropped sharply to around '60%. Moreover, it appeared to be the youngest age group who voted the least, causing fears that the trend will continue.
However, others argue that the figures are misleading. They say that turnout is only high when people believe that (a) the result is going to be close and (b) there is a real chance of the government changing hands. The last time both these conditions were fulfilled was in the 1992 election, and the turnout was 78%. In the three elections since then, opinion polls have predicted, correctly, an easy win for one party (Labour).
