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hey Chloe2111,
I think I'm in the same boat as you... Lib/Soc/Con/Nat in the UK, yeah?
It's all a bit vague - our teacher is obsessed with 1980s politics so we have nothing really relevant and up to date.
all I've got is a stack of newspaper articles that I still haven't read (and lets face it....I'm not likely to) from the week surrounding the budget ("death of new labour etc)
For Nationalism, there are prob a few good articles in today's papers after BNP won a seat in the EU elections.
For liberalism, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8073863.stm haven't read it but it's only a week old. It's on whether the Uk is still a liberal democracy.
I'll have a look for a few more things. Hope your revision is going well. :tongue:imp:
Reply 2
Basically you need to compare the political ideologies to real life politics in the UK.

Conservatism usually asks something along the lines of "to what extent does Cameron follow New Right principles/traditional conservatism" etc. You would need to explain New Right principles or traditional conservatism principles (depending on what the question says obviously) and then compare Cameron's current policies with it. So for example, the New Right emphasises (on the neoliberal side) that the government should not intervene in the economy, there should be no welfare, low taxes and privatisation. You could say that to a certain extent, Cameron has adopted these New Right views, because he often discusses low taxes. However, to a certain extent he does not follow New Right principles, because he does back the NHS and places considerable importance on it, which would be against the neoliberalism side of the New Right. On the neoconservative side of the New Right, socially authoritarian ideas are important, such as harsh law and order and a strong police force. You again would say that Cameron has followed neoconservative policies to a certain extent. He has in the sense that he has pledged to increase the number of police and increase the number of prison spaces, which both tie into the idea of harsh law and order. However, he has not followed neoconservative ideas because he opposes identity cards (which are authoritarian, therefore the New Right neoconservatism would agree with them) and 42 day pre-charge detention, both Labour policies.
Have a look at this as well: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/2400823.stm

For socialism, it's a similar concept. You would often find questions such as "how socialist is New Labour?". For a question like that, you would outline a few socialist ideas (collective ownership, nationalisation, strong trade union power, redistribution of wealth and so on). You could then mention how Old Labour used to be very socialist, especially in the 80s. However, since then Old Labour no longer exists and now New Labour exists - New Labour is very much a centre-right party which has arguably abandoned socialism. In the main bulk of the essay you would say how New Labour has abandoned socialism. For example, I would say that New Labour actually continued to privatise certain industries, which contradicts the socialist principle of nationalisation. New Labour also has lessened trade union power, which contradicts the socialist principle of strong unions. New Labour has also lessened the emphasis on high taxes and redistribution of wealth - it now aims to appeal not only to the working class but to the middle classes as well. After outlining how New Labour has indeed abandoned all socialist principles, you would then do the other side of the argument. Has New Labour kept some socialist principles? Yes - in the past year they have nationalised some banks - nationalisation is a socialist principle. They have also increased taxes for the rich - in the April 2009 budget, those earning over £150,000 a year are now faced with a 50% income tax. So therefore to a certain extent New Labour has kept a few socialist principles within the party.
Have a look at this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/2400843.stm

And for liberalism, you will often get a question about liberalism and how all three main parties are liberal. You must start by outlining liberal principles, such as constitutionalism, devolution and so forth. Then discuss how each party has adhered to liberalism: Lib Dems are the most liberal, supporting electoral reform, constitutional reform and devolution. Labur are also liberal in the sense that they devolved power to Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland, and also brought about House of Lords reform (reducing the number of hereditory peers by a significant amount in 2007). You don't need to speak as much about the Conservative Party as the other two, but perhaps mention how it is opposed to the implementation of identity cards or something. And on the other side, discuss how New Labour does not adhere to liberal policies. For example, devolution is good but it did not go far enough: Westminster still holds ultimate sovereignty and can revoke the powers of Scottish/Welsh/Irish parliament whenever it wants to. House of Lords reform also did not go far enough, as it is still a completely unelected house which contradicts liberal democracy. So basically to a certain extent, the parties all adhere to liberal principles, but they also contradict them in some ways.
See this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/2400807.stm

I can't help you on nationalism as I am not studying it. You only need to answer two questions, so if you learn three ideologies (in my case socialism, conservatism and liberalism) you will be fine because you will still have a choice.

Remember, in all questions, when comparing current policies, LINK IT BACK TO THE THEORY. So if you were discussing how New Right the Conservative Party is, don't just list their policies such as "low taxes, privatisation, less emphasis on welfare than Labour" etc. Make sure you bring each policy back to the theory - eg "the Conservative Party support low taxes, therefore this can be said to be a neoliberal (New Right) policy as neoliberalism advocates a laissez-faire, non-interventionist economy. The party also emphasises the importance of privatisation, which adheres to the ideas of the New Right because the New Right believes in privatisation as state owned industries are inefficient". If you just list the policies without linking it to the theory you will not be able to get the high marks.

Hope this helps. Quote me if you need any more help.
Reply 3
Hi there,

Regarding Nationalism in the UK; I'm not planning to do this question if I can help it, but the main places you might want to do some research on are:

Scottish Nationalism - SNP - Have a think about who has Sovereignity, it's relation to the nation state etc. Remember back to your AS studies on Devolution - potentially lots of stuff you can use for this! Scottish Nationalism in particular has the most stuff you can write about.

Welsh Nationalism - Plaid Cymru - Nationalism is more concerned with preserving heritage and culture - in particular the Welsh Language. Again, your AS studies into Devolution will also help here.

Northern Ireland - Republicans / Protestants - One question I've seen in the past ask's to which extent each type of Nationalism is Reactionary or Progressive. While I can't think of too much to write on this aspect of Nationalism, but the Reactionary/Progressive debate is something nice to talk about here.

English Nationalism - Bit more of a grey area to me, but you may want to talk about the English Democrats here, and going back to your AS studies again - the West Lothian question. Is it also fair the Scottish and Welsh have their own designated "Parliaments" while the English do not?

British Nationalism - To what extent have the various types of Nationalism, and in particular, Devolution, undermined British Nationalism? Does it undermine the desire for a United Kingdom? Another area to consider is the EU. Does it take soverignty away from the UK? Again, just make sure to link back to Nationalism.

Hopefully this should give some direction to where to start looking if you want to talk about Nationalism. Even if you find small amounts of information to talk about for each type of nationalism, you'll have enough for a decent length essay, as well as demonstrating knowledge on Nationalism in the UK. As Frontier said, LINK IT BACK TO THE THEORY!
Reply 4
jbates
Hi there,

Regarding Nationalism in the UK; I'm not planning to do this question if I can help it, but the main places you might want to do some research on are:

Scottish Nationalism - SNP - Have a think about who has Sovereignity, it's relation to the nation state etc. Remember back to your AS studies on Devolution - potentially lots of stuff you can use for this! Scottish Nationalism in particular has the most stuff you can write about.

Welsh Nationalism - Plaid Cymru - Nationalism is more concerned with preserving heritage and culture - in particular the Welsh Language. Again, your AS studies into Devolution will also help here.

Northern Ireland - Republicans / Protestants - One question I've seen in the past ask's to which extent each type of Nationalism is Reactionary or Progressive. While I can't think of too much to write on this aspect of Nationalism, but the Reactionary/Progressive debate is something nice to talk about here.

English Nationalism - Bit more of a grey area to me, but you may want to talk about the English Democrats here, and going back to your AS studies again - the West Lothian question. Is it also fair the Scottish and Welsh have their own designated "Parliaments" while the English do not?

British Nationalism - To what extent have the various types of Nationalism, and in particular, Devolution, undermined British Nationalism? Does it undermine the desire for a United Kingdom? Another area to consider is the EU. Does it take soverignty away from the UK? Again, just make sure to link back to Nationalism.

Hopefully this should give some direction to where to start looking if you want to talk about Nationalism. Even if you find small amounts of information to talk about for each type of nationalism, you'll have enough for a decent length essay, as well as demonstrating knowledge on Nationalism in the UK. As Frontier said, LINK IT BACK TO THE THEORY!


I know you said that you were not planning to answer on nationalism, but if you are revising it then this may be of use to you: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/2400861.stm :smile:
Reply 5
Thanks for the help above.. I'm taking this exam next week too, and was searching for some advice! I'm just wondering how "recent" the recent examples have to be.. up to 1 month, 1 year, 10 years old? For example, would discussing Blair's policies on the NHS and education etc be too far back when discussing New Labour?
Reply 6
missemma91
Thanks for the help above.. I'm taking this exam next week too, and was searching for some advice! I'm just wondering how "recent" the recent examples have to be.. up to 1 month, 1 year, 10 years old? For example, would discussing Blair's policies on the NHS and education etc be too far back when discussing New Labour?


I think that the more recent they are, the better. :smile:
Reply 7
missemma91
Thanks for the help above.. I'm taking this exam next week too, and was searching for some advice! I'm just wondering how "recent" the recent examples have to be.. up to 1 month, 1 year, 10 years old? For example, would discussing Blair's policies on the NHS and education etc be too far back when discussing New Labour?


Regarding examples, the more recent is the better, but having some older examples helps for discussion in comparing old and new policy making.

For example, one question you may get may be on Old Labour vs New Labour. Some examples of Old Labour (Attlee [sp?] - nationalization of commanding highs late 1940s) may be an example of when the Labour Party could be described as "Socialist" in comparison with the Labour Party we have today. Although this seems a bit way back, as long as it's relevant and valid to the question its good to use.

Websites such as the BBC and newspapers are good places to start looking for examples. A good source of actual "policy" examples and not rhetoric could possibly be found in the Budgets (such as this year's Spring one - theres some potential socialist stuff you can use in there!). Most major news websites should have an indepth analysis of this in their archives. Oh, and be wary of quoting examples from party websites - all is not what is always seems!

Frontier
I know you said that you were not planning to answer on nationalism, but if you are revising it then this may be of use to you: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...nt/2400861.stm


Oh and Frontier, thanks for the website link - can use a bit of that for sure - plus rep!
Reply 8
Party slogans (e.g. "education, education, education", "not a hand out, a hand up" - both Labour) really enhance your essays too. Check out the policies on the three main party websites.
Reply 9
Yes but the party slogan "education education education" was by Blair can you include that as it may not seem up to date...with a question is like to what extent has Labour left his socialist policies can you include that quote when it's from a previous leader now.
Reply 10
Thanks for all the help here guys. Really useful, I'm quite nervous about this exam now, definitely more so than Introducing Political Ideologies and Other Political Traditions.
Reply 11
jstar357
Yes but the party slogan "education education education" was by Blair can you include that as it may not seem up to date...with a question is like to what extent has Labour left his socialist policies can you include that quote when it's from a previous leader now.


I plan to focus more on Brown when discussing the current Labour party, but there's no harm in discussing Blair a little bit too. Many of the "catchier" slogans were under his eye.
Reply 12
Yes same, but could you use Blair in argument strongly to say Labour party still has these principles this is shown by blairs support for education education education. Since Blair is gone and it's Browns policies that would be the focus?
Reply 13
jstar357
Yes same, but could you use Blair in argument strongly to say Labour party still has these principles this is shown by blairs support for education education education. Since Blair is gone and it's Browns policies that would be the focus?


I would personally still use Blair's focus on education to emphasise Labour's keenness on education as a whole :smile:
Reply 14
Hey guys, for Unit 5 does anybody have a plan for Liberal Nationalism?
esp for the question, "In what ways is nationalism compatible with liberalism". (short answer essay)
I understand the principles of Liberal nationalism, but struggle to come up with a coherent explanation of it all and to be able write enough about it!
The points I'm reading in the my textbook and classnotes just all really seem to be the same points but kinda repeated in a different way, e.g. when talking about self determination surely you've covered the points about the nations being sovereign entities and having equality of opportunity etc? :confused:

any help appreciated, thanks!
Reply 15
consider this a bump

I'm revising just socialism and nationalism, what's everyone else doing?

And unit 5, people doing that too?
Reply 16
Yeah I'm doing 4, 5 and 6 route b. For 5 I'm doing nationalism, fascism, anarchism and Marxism. =)
Reply 17
Whose worried and finding it hard now!lol what's everyone revising.
Does anyone know if questions that come up are relatively similar
is the notion of british nationalism any longer meaningful?
how would you plan this question like what what you include in the argument, the question has got me puzzling
Reply 18
This unit 6 exam may well finish me off... I don't know where to start and it's on Friday!
Reply 19
Frontier

And for liberalism, you will often get a question about liberalism and how all three main parties are liberal. You must start by outlining liberal principles, such as constitutionalism, devolution and so forth. Then discuss how each party has adhered to liberalism: Lib Dems are the most liberal, supporting electoral reform, constitutional reform and devolution. Labur are also liberal in the sense that they devolved power to Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland, and also brought about House of Lords reform (reducing the number of hereditory peers by a significant amount in 2007). You don't need to speak as much about the Conservative Party as the other two, but perhaps mention how it is opposed to the implementation of identity cards or something. And on the other side, discuss how New Labour does not adhere to liberal policies. For example, devolution is good but it did not go far enough: Westminster still holds ultimate sovereignty and can revoke the powers of Scottish/Welsh/Irish parliament whenever it wants to. House of Lords reform also did not go far enough, as it is still a completely unelected house which contradicts liberal democracy. So basically to a certain extent, the parties all adhere to liberal principles, but they also contradict them in some ways.
See this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/2400807.stm


For how all parties are liberal you can talk about their economic stances too. Since Thatcherism they more or less all embrace the free market to a greater or lesser extent.

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