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The general election of May 2015 brought an end to five years of coalition government in Britain. The Cameron-Clegg coalition, between 2010 and 2015, prompted much comment and speculation about the future of the British party system and the two party politics which had seemed to dominate the period since 1945. A long historical perspective, however, I think throws an interesting light on such questions.

The post Party games: coalitions in British politics appeared first on OUPblog.

By Laura Williamson

Early in 2011 the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published guidance intended to improve treatment for alcohol dependence and harmful use in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The guideline focuses on identifying the clinical interventions best suited to supporting recovery. However, given the influence social factors have on drinking behaviours, NICE also emphasises the need to cultivate environments and attitudes which help to ensure those with alcohol problems feel no “apprehension” about seeking treatment and discussing their alcohol misuse. It does this by identifying principles that should form the basis of treatment: a trusting, respectful relationship between healthcare providers and patients, which acknowledges and seeks to overcome “stigma and discrimination” is crucial, as is the need to support families and carers.

It is vital that individuals can expect to be treated with respect when seeking treatment because only around 5.6% of people in England and 8.2% of people in Scotland who need specialist treatment for dependence actually receive it. Part of the reason for this is that stigma acts as an obstacle for individuals in admitting their alcohol problem and opting to receive therapy. As Schomerus and colleagues stated in their systematic review of stigma and dependence published in the March-April (2011) edition of Alcohol and Alcoholism:

“People suffering from alcohol dependence (and from other addictions) are particularly severely stigmatized. They are less frequently regarded as mentally ill, they are held much more responsible for their condition, they provoke more social rejection and more negative emotions and they are at a particular risk of being structurally discriminated against.”

In the United Kingdom, and internationally, public policy on alcohol has done little to improve attitudes towards dependence. In England, for example, alcohol policy under the New Labour government prioritised the need to persuade people to drink ‘sensibly’. A key aim of the 2004 Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy for England was to secure “long term change in attitudes to irresponsible drinking”. In his ‘Foreword to the Strategy’, then Prime Minister Tony Blair stated that individuals are expected to make “informed and responsible decisions about their own levels of alcohol consumption.” This focus on “sensible” drinking makes no allowance for the “difficulties in controlling substance-taking” or the “strong desire or sense of compulsion” that are used to diagnose dependence. As a result, it risks implicitly stigmatising the dependent by promoting in the public consciousness the notion that all heavy drinkers, even the alcohol-dependent, are simply “irresponsible.”

Under the coalition government, the stigmatisation of alcohol dependence has worsened and become increasingly explicit in England. In 2010 the government published its new Drug Strategy. The strategy enforces “sanctions” on benefit claimants who are dependent on alcohol (and drugs) if they do not engage with treatment services. This policy sits uncomfortably with the emphasis of the NICE Guidance on the importance of “supportive, empathic

By Julie MacLeavy In recent years, governments of both the right and left have been involved in debates over the best way to deliver public services. Whereas during the post-war period it was widely accepted that state provisioning of infrastructure, health, education and social services was the best way to ensure the well being of citizens, in the latter decades of the twentieth century the market was claimed to be a better way of delivering public goods and services because it was associated with competition, economic efficiency and consumer choice. Commitment to the market entailed a qualitative shift in welfare provision, whereby welfare was based less on a model in which the state counters the market and more on a model where the state serves the market.

Parliament and Congress: Representation and Scrutiny in the Twenty-First Century offers an insiders’ comparative account of the procedures and practices of the British Parliament and the US Congress. In this original post, the authors – William McKay, who spent many years working at the House of Commons and is now an observer on the Council of the Law Society of Scotland, and Charles W. Johnson, who is a Consultant to the Parliamentarian of the US House of Representatives - discuss procedural and institutional developments in both countries over the last few months: in the UK, the new Parliament and coalition government, and in the US, the procedural complexities of the heath care reform bill.

Though the expenses scandal which dominated the parliamentary scene in the UK during 2009 is out of the headlines, it has not gone away.  Some of the consequences of the public’s loss of confidence in Parliament are still to be worked out. The new coalition government has brought forward fresh ideas, and parliamentary reform is one of them. Some of these notions are interesting, others more worrying.

The mainspring of the UK constitution is parliamentary democracy. Some recent suggestions seem to diminish the ‘parliamentary’ aspect. One of them, a hangover from the expenses affair, would permit 100 constituents to bring forward a petition which, if signed by 10 percent of a constituency electorate, would vacate the seat of a Member found guilty of wrongdoing, so precipitating a by-election. No one wishes corrupt legislators to retain their seats but existing law already provides that Members of the Commons who are imprisoned for more than a year – those guilty of really serious offences – lose their seats. Secondly, the appropriate way for a parliamentary democracy to deal with offending Members is not for their constituents to punish them but for the House in which the Member sits to do so. The Commons has ample power to expel a Member (the Lords is a more complex matter) though it would be wise to devise more even-handed machinery for doing so than presently exists. Finally, if such a change is to be made, the legislation will have to distinguish very clearly recall on grounds of proven misdoings from opportunist political attacks. It will not be easy.

A further diminution of the standing of Parliament is the proposal for fixed-term Parliaments. It is intended that a Prime Minister may seek a dissolution only when 55 percent of the Commons vote for one. Politically, such a provision would prevent a senior partner bolting a coalition to secure a mandate for itself alone. Constitutionally there are serious disadvantages. A successful vote of no-confidence where the majority against the government was less than 55 percent would not be enough to turn out a government. It might simply lead to frenzied coalition-building, out of sight of the electorate. Governments which had lost the confidence of the Commons could stagger on if they were skilful enough to build a new coalition – for which the country had not voted. During the latest election campaign, concern was expressed that every change of Prime Minister should trigger a General Election. The idea was not particularly well thought-out – how would Churchill have become Prime Minister in 1940? – but nothing could be more at odds with the proposed threshold. Untimely dissolutions happen in two circumstances – when a Prime Minister thinks he can improve his majority and when a government loses a vote of confidence. This proposal tries to restrict the first (which may be a good thing) but does so by interfering with the second, which certainly is not.

In America, the House Committee on Rules drew much attention during the prolonged health care debates in Congress. An understanding of its composition, authority and function

John Welshman is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History at Lancaster University. His book, Churchill’s Children: The Evacuee Experience in Wartime Britain, tells the moving real-life stories of British schoolchildren evacuated out of major cities during the Second World War. In the below post, he gives us a bird’s-eye view from the fringes of the first day of the new UK coalition government while in London for a radio interview. You can read his previous OUPblog posts here.

It’s the morning of Wednesday 12 May, and I’m in London to be interviewed by Laurie Taylor on the Radio 4 programme ‘Thinking Allowed’.  Selina Todd, from Manchester University, has been asked to contribute her assessment of my book, and so will also be on the show.  I know of her work, but haven’t met her previously.  The researchers have assured me that Selina likes the book, but she has a formidable reputation, and I worry what she might say.

I’m not due at Broadcasting House until 4pm, so head for WH Smith, and after a quick glance through Time Out, decide to go to the Henry Moore exhibition at Tate Britain.  The exhibition has been critically received, but Moore’s work is interesting, especially the early wood and stone carvings of the 1920s and 1930s, and the wartime underground shelter drawings.  He made a point of using native materials, such as elm and Hornton stone; elm has a very big and broad grain which makes it suitable for large sculptures.  But the later work is less interesting, reclining forms being repeated endlessly, familiar from every New Town park or university campus.

By 1pm, I have had enough, and walk up Millbank towards the London Eye.  Maybe the media will still be camped outside the Labour Party headquarters?  There is a van with a satellite dish on top, but not a single journalist.  Better luck as I round the corner into Parliament Square.  Simon Hughes is high up on a gantry being interviewed, and next minute Malcolm Rifkind is walking straight towards me.  The mood is infectious; perhaps if I hang around long enough someone will interview me?  But perhaps what I could offer is not quite what they’re looking for.  I double back and spot a large crowd, so large that I can’t see who’s being interviewed.  Soon the reason for the crowd is clear: it’s Ken Clarke.  They seem to have a special aura around them, these people familiar from television.

Further up Whitehall there is a large crowd outside Downing Street, spilling over the pavements on to the road itself – policemen, tourists, protesters, schoolchildren, bystanders.  Most people’s attention is focused on the main gates, which the police open from time to time to let cars through.  But most have no passengers, or the windows are blacked out.  The pedestrian entrance to the left seems more promising, and I am rewarded – a constant stream of politicians, photographers, politicians, advisors.  If you are quick enough, you can spot them as they go in.  BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson arrives, and jokes with a crowd of schoolchildren.  ‘Who am I?’  ‘You’re Nick’.  Then, ‘are you Nick Clegg’?

I spot the MP for Lancaster and Fleetwood, Eric Ollerenshaw – what can he be doing here?  He’s newly elected, so perhaps he’s simply enjoying