Despite leading in six out of 13 regions in the first round of the French regional elections on 6 December, Marine Le Pen’s Front National finished in third place on Sunday. Chris Terry writes that this swing of fortunes is in a large part due to the two round electoral system used, which in many […]
The license fee should and does pay for a ‘digital public space’, rather than just broadcast content. Richard Berry argues this is exactly the right approach for a public service broadcaster in the internet age, and outlines how the vision can be made a reality when it comes to the publication of election results. Similar […]
The UK is currently engaged in a renegotiation of the terms of its membership of the European Union, in advance of an ‘in/out’ referendum which will be held at a to-be-determined date at some point in the next two years. Here, Dr. Chris Gifford argues that the very holding of that referendum represents a victory […]
May’s election results proved to be significantly different from the opinion polls. Since then, the leading polling organisations have devoted considerable energy to determining what went wrong and how their approaches can be improved. Following the publication of YouGov’s diagnosis, Anthony Wells discusses the main issues that were identified, possible solutions and the implications for the polling […]
Different countries select their Members of the European Parliament in different manners, with Britain opting for a party list system based on regional (in the case of England) and national constituencies (in the cases of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland). The European Parliament has better gender representation than most legislatures, however as Jessica Fortin-Rittberger, Berthold Rittberger, […]
In the edited collection Britain Votes 2015, editors Andrew Geddes and Jonathan Tonge present essays analysing the main issues and outcomes of the 2015 UK General Election. Offering a concise and well-rounded account of an election often promoted in the media as one of the most unpredictable of recent times, this book is recommended reading for […]
Devolution – particularly to city regions in the North of England – is currently all the rage, with much of the discourse surrounding this policy area suggesting an inherent link between shifting policymaking power down a level and economic performance. However, Matt Wood and Daniel Bailey suggest here that such a relationship cannot at all be […]
How can the Civil Service measure and improve their performance? Stephanie Anscomb and Jon Wallis review existing international indicators and explain how the Civil Service is performing according to those. But they also explain why it is important to develop a new indicator that would help them measure areas such as openness and innovation. Similar PostsAustralian […]
As Labour’s In campaign gets underway, Isabelle Hertner asks what we can expect from a leader who, despite voting to leave the EEC in 1975 and deploring the austerity demanded of Greece by fellow EU states, has backed a Remain vote. Similar Posts
The government’s decision to scrap tax credit cuts was a welcome move, and (eventually) highlighted the effectiveness of the British political system’s checks and balances. However, Daniel Clegg writes that the abandoned cuts were just one part of a more drawn-out and comprehensive dismantlement of the system of cash support for low-earning households. Tax credit U-turn […]
Democratic Audit's core funding is provided by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. Additional funding is provided by the London School of Economics.
This work by Democratic Audit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 UK: England & Wales.