Tag: Sarah Birch
‘Post-truth’ politics are a debasement of standards in public life
Verbal dexterity, inconsistency and ‘spin’ are part and parcel of normal politics but the exaggerations and distortions of the EU referendum campaign has led to concerns about ‘post-truth’ politics. Nicholas Allen and Sarah Birch write there is a need for someone to provide a moral lead, and argue the Committee for Standards in Public Life […]
A boundary allocation entailing more competitive results would not necessarily be more ‘political’, but it would be more democratic.
A recent post by Ron Johnston, Charles Pattie and David Rossiter objected to an idea published in the IPPR Democracy Commission which suggested that the UK Boundary Commission should take a more active role in creating ‘competitive’ constituencies on the grounds that it would politicise the neutral process by which boundaries are decided. Here, the […]
It would be neither feasible nor sensible to instruct the Boundary Commission to create ‘competitive’ constituencies
In a recent report by Mathew Lawrence and Sarah Birch the Institute for Public Policy Research has made several proposals for improving the quality of British democracy. One of them involves politicising the traditionally fiercely independent and neutral Boundary Commissions, by requiring them to gerrymander constituency boundaries to produce fewer safe and more marginal seats. […]
If the divide between politicians and the public is to be bridged, we need better understanding on both sides
Over recent years, the relationship between members of the public and the democratic process has fallen into serious disrepair. To an extent, this is to do with perceptions of the ethics of politicians, but it is also to do with politicians communications techniques, particularly in interviews. Sarah Birch and Nicholas Allen argue that a greater degree of understanding […]
Tackling political inequality requires a “carrot and stick” approach
The UK’s political and democratic system are under severe strain, with declining turnout and increased apathy threatening the legitimacy of the current constitutional settlement. Mathew Lawrence and Glenn Gottfried argues that in order to do something about it, new deliberative and experimental institutional forms of democratic life must be combined with the introduction of first time compulsory voting. Similar […]
The Rochester by-election highlights a pervasive ‘anti-politics’ mood in the UK
The result in the Rochester and Strood by-election makes clear that many are looking to Westminster and venting their dissatisfaction with what they perceive to be a distant, unresponsive and dishonest political class. The anger underpinning UKIP support is a product of the particular performance of the governing and opposition parties’ in the current economic climate […]
Expert voices: is it time to lower the voting age to 16?
The question of whether the UK should lower the minimum voting age from 18 to 16 has been on the agenda recently, with Ed Miliband making it explicit Labour policy, and the SNP enfranchising 16 and 17 year olds to good effect during the Scottish independence referendum. As part of the LSE’s ‘Expert Voices’ series, […]
First-time compulsory voting is designed to get politicians to engage with young voters’ concerns
This week on Democratic Audit, Matt Henn and Nick Foard argued that introducing compulsory voting would risk increasing the resentment of young people toward politics. In this post we feature a response from Glenn Gottfried and Sarah Birch, who have proposed compulsory voting for first-time voters. They argue this could be an effective tool to […]
Ending the vicious cycle: compulsory turn-out for first time voters
Democratic disengagement amongst young people in on the rise, with research in a new Democratic Audit publication showing the scale of the problem. Here, Guy Lodge, Glenn Gottfried, and Sarah Birch make the case for compulsory turnout amongst first-time eligible voters, which would help to redress the power gap between younger and older citizens. Similar PostsTackling political inequality requires a “carrot […]
A vicious cycle of apathy and neglect: young citizens and the power gap
It is well known that the number of people neglecting to turn out at elections is on the increase. It is also firmly established that non-voters tend, on the whole, to be younger than the population at large. This non-participation in electoral life increasingly problematic for representative democracy as a whole. In an extract from […]
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