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Edexcel Politics - 23rd May 2013

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Wait, "assess the strengths of the UK Constitution" wanted strengths and weaknesses? I thought it meant just strengths...crap! Could I still get an A?

Reply 21

A14M04I19A95

Original post by Josh567

Wait, "assess the strengths of the UK Constitution" wanted strengths and weaknesses? I thought it meant just strengths...crap! Could I still get an A?

omggggg ! i also thought it was just the strengths of the constitution :confused:

Reply 22

R.P.Everything.

I did Q3 on whether the coalition had strengthened or weakened the Pm.

However, in retrospect, I'm worried that I haven't included any strengths - I mentioned 'non-weaknesses'. My essay structure was as follows:

-Intro about the PM powers coming from dominating cabinet, parliament, and using prerogative powers. No clear constitutional role for the PM so power of the PM differs depending on situation.

-PM weakened by his dependance on Lib Dem cabinet ministers. Requires their support for policy.
-PM weakened by reduced power of patronage to backbench conservative MPs.
-PM weakened by greater divide between the governing majority parties. Lead to opposition exploitation and gov defeats, eg. Boundary changes, EU budget tax freeze.

-However, Cameron has still been able to pass important legislation such as Health and Social Care Act + never failed to pass a budget.
-However, PMs have always been dependent on cabinet members Eg. Blair needed Prescott for Trade Union support, Thatcher same with Whitelaw.
-However, Divide between governing majority is no more divided that John Major's conservative majority.
-However, Blair suffered from reduced power of patronage due to 179 seat majority. Faced rebellion of 65 soon after he entered power on incapacity benefits.

-Conclusion, PM still has the same prerogative powers as Commander in chief etc. Dominance over parliament and cabinet arguably no different than that of Major, although not as powerful as Blair. Not weakened by coalition
-Then I quickly mentioned something about a greater mandate, due to the bipartisanship of the coalition.

I'm guessing that 'non-weaknesses' do not count as strengths, so how many marks would I be losing due to that?

Reply 23

thegoon

crap, for the 40 marker i defined what a coalition is by accident, is that wrong?????

Reply 24

catandmoon

What would people have said for prime ministerial power being strengthened by the coalition? Honestly, when I saw the question I almost laughed. The wording on 40 markers is horrendous...

Reply 25

catandmoon

Original post by thegoon

crap, for the 40 marker i defined what a coalition is by accident, is that wrong?????

I don't think there's anything wrong with that- I mean, surely having an idea of what a coalition actually is couldn't be a negative thing. You could write a whole essay on Cameron without having understanding of the coalition, definitely. My teacher always tells us to pick out key words of the question and define it :smile:

Reply 26

Digsy

Original post by R.P.Everything.

I did Q3 on whether the coalition had strengthened or weakened the Pm.

However, in retrospect, I'm worried that I haven't included any strengths - I mentioned 'non-weaknesses'.

I wrote my essay in the same way and I am sure that will be fine seeing as there are no points in the politics resources that I read which suggest that the coalition government has increased David Cameron's prime ministerial power.

Reply 27

Digsy

Original post by A14M04I19A95

omggggg ! i also thought it was just the strengths of the constitution :confused:

To get reasonably high marks for the essay you must have evaluated the strengths of the UK constitution. Giving the strengths is not enough, you have to give the arguments against within the same paragraph, or if not, in separate paragraphs at the least.

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