"WESTMINSTER STYLE" PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT

For those who are not Canadian, or otherwise informed, the New Democratic party is definitely left-wing, and often described as socialist. It is descended from the CCF--the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, which formed its first government--and the first "socialist" government in North America--under Tommy Douglas in Saskatchewan in 1947. The Tories managed to destroy the CCF by branding them crypto-communists, but in the early 1960's, the NDP was formed from the wreck of the CCF and Labor.

This is a difficult subject to think about. The "Westerminster style" Parliamentary Government is good in maintaining things as they are.

I have no qualms about this system. It seems relatively good and I've heard no complaints. The only problem I have is that we have no decent opposition to the supposedly "left-wing" Labour Party, so our political situation is currently the same as in Canada, except that our ruling party does not need to form a coalition.

A win-all, take-all system is good if you want to bring about change, but in a way, the opposition can be drowned out completely.

We currently have a bizarre situation, where the opposition to the Labour Party comes from within its own ranks... Okay, I've suddenly realised that Tony Blair probably needs help from the Tories if he needs to pass a few of his bills too.

Meh, all politics is a joke.

Re: "WESTMINSTER STYLE" PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT

Ehm .. I have the unsettling feeling that I'm overlooking something really obvious ... but the Westminster system IS (also) a winner take all system, isnt it? Whole country's divided up in districts, and in each district the winner gets voted into Parliament, and everybody who voted something else remains unrepresented. Perhaps the districts are smaller than those in the US House of Representatives, but the principle is the same ... right? Because of that, Westminster actually hasnt had a coalition government ... ever? In a century?

The NDP complaint therefore, unsurprisingly, sounds like the very mirror image of that, in Britain, of the Liberal Democrats (who, interestingly enough, as they have moved left and Labour moves right, have come to approach a similar position in the political spectrum as well, or at least will if Simon Hughes wins the current leadership contest).

To illustrate, the Libdems got 22% of the vote in last year's UK elections - the most they got in twenty years - but only 10% of the seats. Vice versa, Labour got only 35% of the vote, but 55% of the seats (you read that right). Even the US system appears a miracle of representativeness compared to that. In the eighties and early nineties the Conservatives governed for 18 consecutive years, without ever having garnered over 43% of the vote - that is less, in every election, than Clinton got in the three-way presidential elections of '92.

The separate parliament of Scotland works on the basis of proportional representation, however, and therefore includes Greens and Socialists as well, who (George Galloway excepted) do not stand a chance to get into Westminster.

I suppose you are right Habibi, about the winner-take-all nature of the representative system in Westminster style government. However, the Prime Minister is also the head of his party, and the head of the executive--so winning the legislative elections gives him an opportunity to control the executive, but no guarantee. A prime minister may have to give ministry portfolios to members of other parties (this has happened far more often in England's Parliament than times when there was coalition government), and he may have to govern through a coalition. In the United States, taking the most votes in the electoral college, with or without an electoral majority puts the executive power squarely in the hands of the new President, and also without regard to the composition of the legislature. There is absolutely no necessity (and in the constitution, no reference to) for party control of the legislative branch.

I have not described well what Layton was saying--i think he appeals for a percentage award of seats such as is seen in some continental European parliaments. I should ilsten to the interview again, but i'm lazy, and was hoping those reading here would do so. I also have looked for a link to Layton's comments in print, but have come up empty so far.

OK, I see. So the electoral system may be largely similar, but it doesnt necessarily translate into the same executive hold on government because the Prime Minister doesnt have quite the power a US President has. True.

Mind you, the "government Whip" - the person in the majority party whose task it is to keep all (or a sufficient number of) MPs voting the party line - is quite powerful. You only need to look at the furore (or excitement, depending on how you look at it) over the way House of Commons MPs recently slapped Tony Blair's wrist by throwing out his anti-terror legislation to recognize how rare an occurrence exactly this now is: the PM failing to get his proposal through parliament. It was the first time a major piece of government-proposed legislation was blocked in the House in ... well, a long time. Mostly it was up to the House of Lords to create trouble, much like in the US it seems any Bush proposal will only ever get stranded in Senate, never in the more disciplined House).

(In the previous two House of Commons, 1997-2001 and 2001-2005, Labour had such a huge majority that there were always enough Blairite loyalists to push any measure he proposed through. The opposition and critical observers were left merely to keep track of what new record number of dissident Labour MPs voted against in vain this time, it never being quite a large enough number to block anything.)


Out of curiosity, when was the last time either of these things happened? I dont think it happened in my lifetime, not since the time I became politically aware anyway - neither Thatcher, Major or Blair ever appointed a minister from another party, I dont think?

Re: "WESTMINSTER STYLE" PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT



I suspect it is swings and roundabouts. Also, I do not fully understand your system.




The benefits I think we have is that it is way easier to get rid of a bad, corrupt etc Prime Minister, though this has the possible roundabout that a truly good leader, who is doing things that are necessary and right, but very unpopular, will be taken down by fellow party members fearing for their seats at the next election.


You guys get to have a president choose good brains in the area (ideally!) for cabinet posts, while our PM can only choose fellow politicians...though THEY can always choose good advisers. (Again ideally)


Need to go to work, I will think on it more.


The proportional stuff certainly makes for interesting government, btw! Our state government here has been ruling with a rag, tag and bobtail coalition, with odd results...and federally, a very powerful right government has occasionally been forced to compromise by a maverick of its own, with support from other parties......but overall I think that the system allows more voices to be heard, and I like that, except when the voices that happen to land some balance of power power are anathema to me, but so it goes.

Habibi, i wanted to think about your question regarding coalition government before replying. This will still be off the top of my head, but i wanted to get my thoughts straight in my mind before replying. I believe the last coalition government in England would have been Clement Atlee's ministry in 1945--when the nation had tired of Winston Churchill, and wanted a new government, but neither the Tories nor Labour could muster a majority. I may be entirely wrong about that, though, as i know far less of the history of Parliament in the 20th century than i do in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Winston Churchill is, however, an excellent example of someone who "crossed the aisle" (as is said in the United States, meaning to change party loyalty--i don't know if the expression is used in England) in order to secure office. He was Home Secretary and then First Lord of the Admiralty. He was originally elected in the "Khaki Election" of 1900 (so called because the ministry used support of the Boer War to overcome unpopularity and prolong their term in office) as a Tory (a conservative). However, in 1904, he joined the Liberals--at a time when they represented the interests of Labour, because Labour had never had sufficient electoral support to form a government. Later appointed Home Secretary, he was held responsible by the trades unionist for having striking miners in Wales shot by the Army--although in fact, the incident never occurred. The myth is so pervasive that i've seen it repeated in online bios. When he was out of office (although still in Parliament) in the 1930's, his "wilderness period," he learned brick-laying, and the local bricklayers proposed him for membership as a journeyman. The hostility of the Trades Union Council was so strong that they blocked his application. This despite his having joined Lloyd George's Labour government before the Great War. His father, Randolph Churchill, was a famous Tory politician and public speaker in the House of Commons in his day, and it was always assumed that Winston would therefore be a life-long Tory. But, as was more common in the 19th than in the 20th century, he joined governments of other parties, and changed his party loyalty, in order to further his political career. Once this would not have raised much comment, but the career of Joe Chamberlain changed all of that--however, i get ahead of myself.

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The first Prime Minister on the modern model is usually held to have been Robert Walpole, who held the Treasury portfolio from 1721 to 1742--that office had always traditionally been the portfolio of the government leader, as no concept of a Prime Minister had previously existed. Walpole employed whips informally, but there being no political parties as we recognize them, there was no formal office of whip. I believe the first time that Whips were formally employed was in the American Congress, in which there are Majority and Minority Whips in each house, to support the Majority and Minority Leaders. Without the Prime Ministerial structure of the Westminster model, the sense of Party Leaders and Whips made itself felt among American Congressmen rather early on. There were not really modern political parties in America, either--the Federalists were promoters of the Constitution's ratification, but they did not hang together well after the First Congress sat, and were associated with merchants and money men because of their support for Alexander Hamilton's financial program in Washington's first administration. That program was sensible and quickly put the United States on a sound financial footing, but it was highly unpopular, and would have finished any other man's political career other than George Washington. Thomas Jefferson agreed to serve as Washington's Secretary of State, and then plotted against Hamilton behind Washington's back. He established a Democratic Republican Party to opposed John Adams, and they were generally known as Republicans--but they were not yet a modern political party, and the modern Democratic Party wrongly claims to be directly descended from Jefferson's Republicans, which is disingenuous.

In England, after the civil wars, and the Protestant Settlement of the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, when James II was turned out in favor of his daughter Mary and his nephew and son-in-law William, those who had been cavaliers in the time of Cromwell, and who represented the "county interests" (i.e., the agricultural interests and the landed estates) were called Tories, after the name of gangs of reactionary bully boys in Ireland at the time of the first civil War. Those who supported the Protestant Settlement and who represented the mercantile interests, the interests of "the City," and were, if not the direct descendants, certainly the political descendants of the Puritans who had opposed and executed Charles I in 1649 were known as Whigs. Whiggamore was a name given to a band of raiders who marched on Edinburgh in 1648, to oppose the Duke of Hamilton and Royalist forces in the second civil War--i have read various derivations of the name, so i'll let that go.

In the succeeding reigns of the German Kings (the Georges, 1714 to 1830), Tories and Whigs came to resemble modern political parties, but were far more fluid, and feeble, than their modern counterparts. Basically, Tories means conservatives who represent landed and aristocratic interests, and Whigs means conservatives (don't let Liberal propaganda fool you--they were conservative) who represented mercantile and banking interests, as well as Parliamentary power over royal power. The modern terms conservative and liberal derive from the era between 1819 and 1832, the time when revolution nearly threatened England, and when the reform of Parliament was finally undertaken--the Whigs were called liberals, although still basically conservative, because they supported electoral reform and the extension of the franchise--the Tories were called conservative because they resisted the changes. Still, the modern, regimented political parties with which we are familiar did not arise yet in England. For example, Lord Grey, whose ministry eventually pushed through the first Reform Act, handed the task to a committee in the House of Commons, which Grey packed with Tories. With no party organization to oppose the move, the Tories fell for it hook, line and sinker. Basically honest men, even if ideologically opposed to Grey's Whigs, the Tories on the committee shocked their fellow conservatives by the heavy slashes they made in "rotten boroughs" and "pocket boroughs," and the wide creation of new municipal boroughs which they (reluctantly) recommended. The same trick would never work today with the more disciplined party structures. Grey not only had his Reform Act, but he prevented the Tories form organizing to prevent it in the House of Lords (William IV reluctantly agreed to a creation of Peers if necessary) nor to publicly oppose measures they had themselves written.

In the United States, the Federalist continued to be a political party in name only, hung together on the basis of what was then the big divide in American politics--the tariff. Southerners wanted no tariff, in order to have cheap European goods, and get favorable treatment with regard to tariffs in Europe where they sold their cotton and tobacco. New Englanders, and to a lesser extent, politicians from the middle Atlantic states, favored a high tariff to protect domestic industry. The Federalists generally represented the latter interest. The Jeffersonian Republicans had much broader support, and almost universal support in the South, both because of Jefferson, and because of their opposition to the tariff. But this was also the dawn of what would be later called the "Era of the Common Man," and the Republicans were also popular in the Northwest Ordinance states (what is now the midwest) because they represented the interests of settlers, who also wanted a low tariff and cheap European manufactured goods. It was not to be called the Era of the Common Man, however until the late 1820's. Before that time, the Republicans held the White House almost unchallenged from 1800 to 1824, and the prosperity enjoyed after the War of 1812 with England ushered in a period known as the Era of Good Feelings. So good, in fact, that James Monroe was unopposed when he ran for re-election in 1820. John Quincy Adams, whose father John Adams had been Washington's Vice President, and the Second President, regained the White House for the rump of the Federalists, who were disintegrating as a party. But the Republicans had had too broad an electoral base, and the tensions over slavery were beginning to emerge. The party fragmented, and Andrew Jackson was embarrassed when many Republicans deserted him. So, when he ran for the second time in 1828, he built upon the several state factions who had supported him in 1824--disaffected Republicans from a dying party, and he created the first modern political party--the Democratic Party. In Tennessee, he had become governor by taking his loyal followers from the Creek War and the War of 1812, and using the local militia organizations, had built a party from the ground up. In each precinct, loyalist elected a committeeman who represented their interests in the county committee. The country committees sent representatives to the state convention. Jackson had this organization spread throughout the states, and in 1828, he not only buried Adams in the election, he buried the Federalist Party forever. Adams tried to organize a party he wanted to call the National Republicans, but he was clueless on how to proceed, and it was not until American capitalist conservatives organized as Jackson's populist Democrats had done that the Republican Party was created. Abraham Lincoln was their first President.

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In England, the Whigs had become Liberals, and the Tories had become Conservatives. But there really was not the disciplined party structure with which we are familiar. Robert Peel was the son of a successful cotton mill owner, and ought to have been a Whig. His father bought him a seat in Parliament (somewhere in Ireland) and he entered the House, immediately impressing older politicians, and taking office in the Tory governments of the Duke of Portland and then Lord Liverpool. But Peel, who was immensely popular, and advocated social reforms (he created the Municipal Police force in London--hence "Bobbies" there, and "Peelers" in Ireland, and advocated public education), remained a Tory, and had many followers, who called themselves Peelites, and espoused his reforming policies after he was out of office, and even after he had died. After Liverpool died, he was succeeded by George Canning, who represented another faction of Tories--and even though he died four months later. Canning represented a moderate wing of Tories, but opposed parliamentary reform. He therefore formed a government with Whigs in his cabinet. Long after his death, moderate Tories were known as Canningites. Rather than go into too much detail, i recommend looking up Robert Peel and Peelite Tories, and George Canning and Canningite Tories. Both factions frequently broke ranks to support Liberal ministries over specific issues of policy throughout the nineteenth century, and members of the Tories from both factions took office in Whig governments, or formed coalitions into which they invited other party members to take office. Benjamin Disraeli, who promoted a liberal (? ! ? ! ?) One Nation Conservatism program, considered Canning his political ancestor, and bitterly attacked the Peelites, who were actually more conservative than the Canningites. The party lines were very fluid.

Enter Joe Chamberlain. (To put it in perspective for you, he was the father of Austen and Neville Chamberlain, and i'm sure you've heard of the latter.) He has the dubious distinction of being the only man to bring down two governments in which he held office, and of destroying two political parties (the Liberals temporarily), the second being the Liberal-Tory "Union" coalition he had created in the fall of the first government.

Chamberlains family were successful cobblers in Southwark (the portion of London on the south bank of the Thames), making high quality shoes from Italian leather for generations. (I discussed this a few weeks back with Steve, and went back to read up on him again.) He was allowed to pursue a liberal education when he was a boy, rather than being apprenticed as a cobbler, but when he turned 18, he was told that his education was ended and that he had to work for the family. They had become so successful that they had begun to diversify, and he was given the management of a machine tool factory which the family had purchased in the midlands near Birmingham. In a little more than 15 years, he had made the family fabulously wealthy, had made himself a millionaire, and had retired. He entered politics as a Liberal (Labour then did not exist as a political party), and quickly became very popular for his support of reforming policies. He became mayor of Birmingham, and in 1876 was elected to Parliament. There, William Gladstone appointed him to be President of the Board of Trade. He was always seen as the leader of the radicals in the House of Commons.

But deep inside, Joe Chamberlain was a bigot. He despised Catholics, he despised the Irish, and he was an imperialist. Gladstone wanted to create a "political legacy," and put his efforts into Home Rule for the Irish. In about 1885 or -86, he resigned from Gladstone's government over the issue of Home Rule, and took many imperialist and anti-Catholic liberals with him, forming the Liberal Unionists with many Peelite and Canningite Tories. The Tories handily won the election, and Lord Salisbury gave him the Colonial Office. Chamberlain had become a national figure, and it was widely believed that no government could do without him. He had two pet ideas (other than keeping the Irish and Catholics in general down), which were the end of the tariff and an alliance with Imperial Germany. But free trade was a Liberal policy, and the Tories were deeply suspicious of Germany. He resigned in 1903 to publicly promote his free trade plan, and the Tories were fatally split. The Peelite and Canningite Tories disappeared from the political landscape, and the Liberals won the 1906 election in a landslide. When Winston Churchill "crossed the aisle" in 1904, because of the strife Joe Chamberlain had inflicted on both parties, Churchill was ever after distrusted by the Tories, and never fully trusted by the Liberals. Lloyd George and Labour gave Winston his best political opportunities, until Hitler came along and started World War Two--and, of course, Winston replaced Joe Chamberlain's son Neville when he became Prime Minister in 1940.

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In America, thanks to Andy Jackson, the political Parties were organized from the ground up, but have gradually drifted into elitism, with control exercised from the top down. It seems that in Westminster style governments, the rank and file increasingly call for control of their parties on behalf of their constituents, despite the political tradition of factions and party controlled by powerful and charismatic men--or so it seems to me.

Ironic, no?