Political Ideas

Citation: C N Trueman "Political Ideas"

historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 27 Mar 2015. 18 Jul 2019.

Political ideas are found in every section of British Politics. The most

common political ideas in British politicsare: 

government

democracy

accountability

authority

consensus politics

conservatism

liberalism

radicalism

socialism

Government

This is the formal institutional structure and processes of a society by which

policies are developed and implemented in the form of law, binding on all.

The government has legislative (law making), executive (law enforcing) and

judicial (law interpreting) functions, with decision power exercised by a

majority within Parliament.

Government usually operates under the restrictive nature of a constitution

whether it be written or not. A constitution often puts limitations on

government, telling the incumbent government what it can do but, more

importantly, what it cannot do. Within Britain, the Law Lords in the House of

Lords have the final say in interpreting our unwritten constitution though 

the European Courts are likely to play a more increased role in this aspect as

Europe becomes more integrated.

The word “government” refers to the party in power in the House of

Commons and also to individuals who have specific power within certain

fields – such as the government of transport, the government of education etc.

Another aspect of government in a democracy is that everybody accepts what

a democratically elected government wishes to introduce. As a majority of

the electorate voted in the government, it is accepted convention that its

policies are accepted by the people on whose behalf they run the country. For
the period of time the government is in power, the way the country is run is

effectively handed over to the government by the people. In recent years,

there have been successful challenges to government policy outside of the

law courts : the Poll Tax was abandoned because of actual physical

challenges to it by street demonstrations; the issue of bannig fox hunting in

Britain, may or may not be pushed through because of street demonstrations.

There has been a trend in recent years for unpopular bills to be challenged by

the public – one could argue that this is pure democracy if the number of

people involved represented a majority of the people in the country who

believed that the government had got it wrong.

However, on major issues, such as the declaration of war, the introduction of

a major foreign initiative etc., the public is not involved in the final decision.

That is made by the government in its capacity as the government elected by

the people with its power vested in it by the nature of democracy that

traditionally exists within Britain i.e. decisions are made on our behalf by

those elected into power by the electorate.

In recent years, these functions have become rather blurred because of the

input from the European Unionand the European Court of Human Rights. 

A recent example was the decision by the European Court to condemn as

illegal the sentence of the two youths who murdered Jamie Bulger, the
Liverpool boy. The youths were to be held at “Her Majesty’s Pleasure” a

decision made by the then Home Secretary, the Tory Michael Howard. This

was declared to be illegal by the European Law Lords who stated that the

youths could not have received a fair trial because of all the media coverage

of the murder and that the failure to specify the number of years in prison

denied the youths their basic human rights. The Court also declared that only

a member of the judiciary could pass a sentence and that this was out of the
remit of the Home Secretary. In this example, public support was with the

government but it had to adhere to the decision of Europe’s highest court of

law.

Within Britain, the government has the right to levy taxes, declare war,

initiate both foreign and domestic policies, control the military etc. How far

these will be eroded in the future is difficult to determine. The pro-England

nationalists claim that all these governmental rights will be lost to a federal

Europe and that “Britain’s government” will cease to exist.

Democracy

Democracy is a frequently used word but its meaning is rarely fully

understood. A democratic political system is one in which the ultimate

political authority is vested in the people. The word democracy comes from

the Greek words “demos” which means the people and “kratos” which

means authority.
Democracy may be direct, or indirect and representative. In the modern

pluralistic democratic state, power typically is exercised in groups or

institutions in a complex system of interactions that involves compromises

and bargaining in the decision process. The democratic creed includes the

following four concepts :

Individualism, which holds that the primary task of government is to enable

each individual to achieve the highest potential of development.

Liberty, which allows each individual the greatest amount of freedom

consistent with order.

Equality, which maintains that all persons are created equal and have equal

rights and opportunities.

Fraternity, which postulates that individuals will not misuse their freedom but

will co-operate in creating a wholesome society.

As a political system, democracy starts with the assumption of popular

sovereignty, vesting ultimate power in the people. It presupposes that people

can control their destiny and that they can make moral judgements and

practical decisions in their day lives. In implies a continuing search for truth

in the sense of humanity’s pursuit of improved ways of building social

institutions and ordering human relations. Democracy requires a decision-

making system based on majority rule, with minority rights protected.

Effective guarantees of freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, petition

and of equality before the law are indispensable to a democratic system of

government. Politics, parties and politicians are the catalytic agents that make

democracy workable.

For a number of centuries democracy was regarded as a dangerous and

unworkable doctrine. It took a hold in the western world during the C19 and

C20 and was attacked by both extreme left and right wing political groups.

There are those who condemn it as mob rule that vulgarises society and as a
belief that tolerates mediocrity and incompetence. It has also been criticised

as a sham – a belief that can’t work as it goes against human nature. i.e. a

government will claim to be democratic in name but in practice it will decide

what it will do for the people as an election victory has given it the public

mandate to do this but it will rarely – if at all – use referendums to fully find

out what the public think about potential legislation during the life time of

that government.

Plano and Greenberg believe that for democracy to work in its purest form it

needs to have certain pre-requisites. Society has to be educated and

responsible. The state must have a degree of economic stability. Social

cohesion and social consensus must exist. Above all, it requires the

acceptance of the democratic “rules of the game” :

that there should be frequent and fair elections.

that the losers must accept the verdict of the public and allow the majority to
govern.

that the majority will respect the right of the minority to provide the

government with opposition

if the minority wins a future election, it will be permitted to take over the

reins of government.

Can democracy ever be created in its most perfect form? It is argued that if

governments try to move in the direction of democracy then they have the
right to be labelled democratic. Democracy found in western Europe was

given a huge boost in the 1980s and 1990s when many communist

governments gave way to what were termed democratic ones. The same thing

is occurring in the Third World which is further undermining the hold of

authoritarian regimes but giving a further boost to western style democracy.