Elections in Britain - is it fair?

Elections in Britain - is it fair?

After the 2005 election this was the result:

Party	UK share of vote	Share of seats in the House of Commons
Labour	35.3%	55%
Conservative	32.3%	30.7%
Liberal Democrats	22.1%	9.6%

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The Labour party only got 35,3% of the total votes in the UK. This means that 64,7% of the voters didn’t vote for the Labour party and still they got majority rule in the House of Commons. This is possible in Great Britain because the voters elect one representative from their constituencies. The representative represent his ore here constituencies in The house of commons. The house of commons is almost like the Norwegian Stortinge. They are both their countries budgetary and legislative assembly.

The elected representatives are called Members of Parliament (MPs). When the constituencies elect there Mp the winner takes it all. The votes which the losing parties may get are turn down. That’s why it is possible for parties in Great Britain to get many votes and still get little influence in The House of Commons. Because of the huge difference between the parties’ votes in the national scale and their influence in the House of Commons some people think that Great Britain is undemocratic.

A way to make Great Britain more democratic can be to induce direct democracy. Another solution can be to exchange the voting system with constituencies to one national voting system. However, then it is more likely that the power would be divided onto more parties and it is also likely that parties would be forced to form a coalition government. It is harder for a coalition government to form a clear policy.

The American goverment - A lecture by Lee Ann Potter

Today Lee Ann Potter visited our class and had a lecture about how the government in America is build up. Lee Ann potter is a director of education and volunteer programs at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, DC. Thanks to the Fulbright Commission Potter is working in Norway this year as a Roving Scholar of American Studies. Click here to see here blog. This is my summary of Potters lecture:

The American form of government was written down in a Constitution which was adopted in 1787. The American Constitution is the oldest Constitution still in use and it has only been emended 17 times. The Constitution establishes some main points. They are as follow. The united states of America have a representative democracy to make sure that the powers are in the hands of the people. Every states have only given certain specific powers to a central government. This is known as Federal System ore Federalism. The power in the central government ore the federal government have been divided in three. All the branches keeps track of the other two so none of them grow to powerful ore abuse there power. This system is known as the Seperation of powers. The term Separation of powers is known as Maktfordelingsprinsippet in Norway and was inspired by the French philosopher Charles-Louis Montesquieu (1680 - 1755). Montesquieu’s theory about the Separation of powers was not only a inspiration in the making of the American Constitution , but also in the making of the Norwegian Constitution in 1814. Today, all the modern democratic societies have divided there power in different branches. In America the congress is the legislative power, the president is the executive power and the Supreme Court is judicial power.