How healthy is the UK democracy

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 How healthy is representative democracy in the UK?

Representative democracy in the UK fulfils the basic requirements of such a system but is by no means perfect. There has been an increasing level of support for both constitutional reform and a change in the election system in the UK over the last few years.

        Perhaps the main modern concern about democracy in the UK stems from evidence of growing political apathy. Some have seen this as nothing less than a “participation crisis.” A representative democracy can not be healthy if increasing numbers of citizens are uninterested or unwilling to engage in political life. This is more evident in the declining voter turn out at general elections. Until 1992 voter turn out was usually around 75%, with a record of 84% being achieved in 1950, and even by 1997 with the election of Blair on a landslide labour victory 71% of people turned up to voice their opinion. However this started to change with the 2001 election attracting barely 59% of the public, the lowest since 1918. The same is also true of membership of political parties. Now only 1% of the populations is a member of a political party compared to 7% 50 years before. Labour party membership has fallen from 800,000 to 200,000 and conservative membership from 2.5million to 250,000! A representative democracy works on the notion of the public electing representatives to represent them. If this is not happening that the current political system is not representative of the public and so its democratic legitimacy is questionable.

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         Another issue to consider is that of the growing dislike and distrust in politicians by the general public. This not only may be the reason behind dwindling voter turnout but also the rise in the importance and popularity of pressure groups and extreme fringe and single issue parties. Scandals such as the “expenses scandal”, “cash for honours” and “cash for questions” all helped to reduce public trust in parliament, and thus the representative system as people feel those in power do not truly represent them. It is a similar case for the actual representativeness of candidates, which also questionable. There ...

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3 stars - This essay identifies the key issues that contribute towards answering this question, it is logically argued and considers more than one perspective. The points are largely accurate and clearly explained, logical and relevant examples are used. In identified areas the comments were somewhat generalised and needed to be further explained and supported in order to demonstrate greater insight. In terms of structure and balance, greater weight could have been given to the counter argument, or it could have been integrated into the main body of the essay. There were several errors which indicate more thorough proof reading was required.