Edexcel Government & Politics - Unit 1 06/06/16

Timing was awful did you run out of time of your last 25 marker?

For the pressure groups question I wrote about New social movements and gave examples: I.e the Anti Poll tax federation and The Fuel Lobby

E petitions and how they give access to the centre of government

Pressure groups are becoming more important due to Partisan de alignment and the need to represent minority interests (John Stuart Mill - political philosopher) 'tyranny of majority'


Media campaigns give rise to large numbers being mobilised and media campaigns are often emotive to capture public attention, RSPCA etc


However if the policies do not fit govt agenda, irrespective of celebrity involvement or public support, they met fail, Stop the War campaign and NUS

New social media advances may alienate the elderly


Does this sound goo anyone? Thought the paper was really nice.

Power/Influence has changed in recent years:

- Membership of pressure groups increasing, thus representing a larger group of society. (E.g. RSPB has twice as many members as the Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems combined)

- Pressure groups taking a more prominent role in democratic & policy issues. (E.g. Vote Leave & Britain Stronger in Europe leading the EU Referendum debate)

- New forms of democratic participation like E-Petitions (Government set up a page for petitions due to the increasing popularity)

Power/Influence hasn't changed/has declined:

- Some pressure groups have been ineffective in achieving their objectives. (E.g. Stop the War Coalition, UK Uncut, NUS)

- Political parties still dominant/important in elections, as they are the ones seeking to gain office/government, whereas pressure groups aren't.

One I didn't mention but I should've because I'm silly: The fall of corporatism meaning that trade unions are no longer as powerful as they once were.

I didn't write as much as I'd wanted to, nor in as much depth, mainly due to the timing of the exam and my own bad organisation (getting bogged down with others)

Yeah! I wrote the introduction and that was it.
I answered election and pressure group.

I started the election question and for (b) answered the democracy question without realising it, and went back to election (c). The democracy B and election B question had overlapping points, I think, like participation, engagement, more informed, legitimacy, so I think that's why I accidentally answered the wrong one! I only realised when I went onto Prssdure groups, got to question B and realised - so I went back to fix the election B question.

Then I rant out of time for pressure group 25 marker. I managed to write an intro paragraph referring to elitism; lack of insider status, connections and financial resources (example: CBI); resorting to illegal activity to get media attention in order to gain awareness of their cause (example: fathers4justice + that their costumes + paint throwing in House of Commons is clearly for media visuals), and that as pressure groups aren't seeking office, some of them care more about the cause than gaining influence with ministers as they'd never get it anyway - like animal rights ones (should have explicitly said PETA). I've almost written out my answer - there's no depth, analysis, or evaluation.

I'm not sure if it's for pressure group B (can't remember the question) or C, but I also said how trade unions are an example and how their influence led to Ed Miliband being elected leader, while Thatcher tried to diminish unions.

I managed to get 3 points and a very brief intro and conclusion down but looking at the question now i would have answered it so differently oh well, can only wait to see what we did was credited now i guess! good luck for unit 2!

Oops, looking back on it those are all the things I wrote for the B question with the exception of trade unions which was for the C question. So I literally made ONE point for question C!!

I cant even remember what the questions were now let alone what i wrote

Thought we had 90 minutes not 80!! Can anyone fathom a guess as to how many marks not writing a conclusion may get me? Was the pressure group question.
Overall though, not so bad I thought Which is good because Unit 2 is gonna be the end of me.

A) two functions of pressure groups
B) why do pressure groups resort to violence
C) are pressure groups gaining or losing their power and influence (or something similar)

I did the parties 10 marker on Conservatives a little differently to others, it appears. Either a bad thing or a good thing. The question was on how different ideological traditions have influenced the policies of the Conservative Party. My first paragraph was on how one-nation conservatism influenced Conservative policies during the social democratic consensus. My second paragraph was on how classical liberalism influenced Conservative policies during the Thatcher era, creating Thatcherism. My third paragraph was on how both one-nation conservatism and classical liberalism have influenced current Conservative policies under David Cameron. May still get marks, just a different approach and layout.

We should move on to Unit 2 guys
We can't change our answers now....it's done

Looks like most of you guys did well which is good. Let's just hope for others we can make up for a potential bad grade on Unit 2

I did it in a similar way but didn't finish my third point really. First para was about conservation and how they opposed Parliament Act 1911 as well as constitutional reform, devolution, etc. Second para I talked about criminal justice, tough on crime then Ken Clarke's reform to concentrate on rehabilitation rather than capital punishment. Third not really done 😥

True say, what's done is done.

hoping to get 25 or 40 markers on constitutional reforms post 1997 or something on prime ministerial power/effectiveness of parliament.

Awful questions - democracy screwed me - hopefully low grades boundaires

Don't do pressure groups my friend :P

also, I was 99 per cent subre participation crisis would come up today as it hasnt in five years.. and referendums hasnt in 3 years. I planned for both a lot..

oh well, I hope you all do well guys, don't stress out now as you cant change much and prepare for unit 2. im sure everyone here will do well