The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats each allow their members to participate in the selection of the party leader. It also examines the consequences of all-member ballots in leadership elections. It looks at how parties remove leaders, showing that each of the major British parties sought to make it harder to evict incumbents.

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Politics and the English Language, the second in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell takes aim at the language used in politics, which, he says, ‘is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’. In an age where the language used in politics is constantly under the microscope, Orwell’s Politics and the English Language is just as relevant today, and gives the reader a vital understanding of the tactics at play. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

By any measure, the story of the Scottish National Party is an extraordinary one. Forced to endure decades of electoral irrelevance since its creation in the 1930s, during which it often found itself grappling with internal debate on strategy, and rebellion from within its own ranks, the SNP virtually swept the board in the 2015 general election, winning all but three of Scotland's fifty-nine seats in Westminster. What's more, under the current leadership of Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP has never been a more important force in the landscape of British politics. The leaders who have stood at its helm during this tumultuous eighty-year history - from Sir Alexander MacEwen to Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond - have steered the SNP vessel with varying degrees of success, but there is no doubt that all have contributed to the shape, purpose and ultimate goal of the party of government we see today. The latest addition to the acclaimed British Political Leaders series, Scottish National Party Leaders examines each of these senior figures for the first time, and is essential reading for anyone curious about how this former fringe party evolved into a political phenomenon, changing not only the face of Scottish politics, but British politics as well.

Social structure may historically have been of primary importance in accounting for the attitudes and behaviour of many citizens, but now changes in social structure have diminished the role played by class and religious affiliation, whilst the significance of personality in political leadership has increased. This volume explores, both theoretically and empirically, the increasingly important role played by the personalisation of leadership. Acknowledging the part played by social cleavages, it focuses on the personal relationships and psychological dimension between citizens and political leaders. It begins by examining the changes which have taken place in the relationship among citizens, the parties which they support and the leaders of these parties in a European context. The authors then assess how far the phenomena of ‘personalised leadership’ differ from country to country, and the forms which these differences take. The book includes comparative case studies on Britain and Northern Ireland, France, Italy, Poland, Japan and Thailand; it concentrates on eleven prominent leaders epitomising personalised political leadership: Thatcher, Blair, Mitterand, Chirac, Le Pen, Berlusconi, Bossi, Walesa, Lepper, Koizumi and Thaksin. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, comparative politics and political leadership.

The Crisis of Conservatism 1880-1914 offers a new interpretation of Conservative politics in the period 1880-1914 and comes to the startling conclusion that, but for the intervention of the First World War, there may well have been a 'Strange Death of Tory England.'

In a democracy, we generally assume that voters know the policies they prefer and elect like-minded officials who are responsible for carrying them out. We also assume that voters consider candidates' competence, honesty, and other performance-related traits. But does this actually happen? Do voters consider candidates’ policy positions when deciding for whom to vote? And how do politicians’ performances in office factor into the voting decision? In Follow the Leader?, Gabriel S. Lenz sheds light on these central questions of democratic thought. Lenz looks at citizens’ views of candidates both before and after periods of political upheaval, including campaigns, wars, natural disasters, and episodes of economic boom and bust. Noting important shifts in voters’ knowledge and preferences as a result of these events, he finds that, while citizens do assess politicians based on their performance, their policy positions actually matter much less. Even when a policy issue becomes highly prominent, voters rarely shift their votes to the politician whose position best agrees with their own. In fact, Lenz shows, the reverse often takes place: citizens first pick a politician and then adopt that politician’s policy views. In other words, they follow the leader. Based on data drawn from multiple countries, Follow the Leader? is the most definitive treatment to date of when and why policy and performance matter at the voting booth, and it will break new ground in the debates about democracy.

The UK’s Changing Democracy presents a uniquely democratic perspective on all aspects of UK politics, at the centre in Westminster and Whitehall, and in all the devolved nations. The 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU marked a turning point in the UK’s political system. In the previous two decades, the country had undergone a series of democratic reforms, during which it seemed to evolve into a more typical European liberal democracy. The establishment of a Supreme Court, adoption of the Human Rights Act, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish devolution, proportional electoral systems, executive mayors and the growth in multi-party competition all marked profound changes to the British political tradition. Brexit may now bring some of these developments to a juddering halt. The UK’s previous ‘exceptionalism’ from European patterns looks certain to continue indefinitely. ‘Taking back control’ of regulations, trade, immigration and much more is the biggest change in UK governance for half a century. It has already produced enduring crises for the party system, Parliament and the core executive, with uniquely contested governance over critical issues, and a rapidly changing political landscape. Other recent trends are no less fast-moving, such as the revival of two-party dominance in England, the re-creation of some mass membership parties and the disruptive challenges of social media. In this context, an in-depth assessment of the quality of the UK’s democracy is essential. Each of the 2018 Democratic Audit’s 37 short chapters starts with clear criteria for what democracy requires in that part of the nation’s political life and outlines key recent developments before a SWOT analysis (of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) crystallises the current situation. A small number of core issues are then explored in more depth. Set against the global rise of debased semi-democracies, the book’s approach returns our focus firmly to the big issues around the quality and sustainability of the UK’s liberal democracy.

This major, authoritative reference work embraces the spectrum of organized political activity in the British Isles. It includes over 2,500 organizations in 1,700 separate entries. Arrangement is in 20 main subject sections, covering the three main p

This new collection of essays, contributed by scholars and former Panthers, is a ground-breaking work that offers thought-provoking and pertinent observations about the many facets of the Party. By placing the perspectives of participants and scholars side by side, Dr. Jones presents an insider view and initiates a vital dialogue that is absent from most historical studies.

Richard Shannon explores the changes in party thinking and organization under the pressures of the newly expanded electorate. In doing so, he traces the growing ascendancy of Salisbury, who, after sharing the dual leadership of the Party from the Lords with Sir Stafford Northcote in the Commons, became sole leader on forming his first cabinet in 1885. Aristocrat, High Church Anglican, and astute diplomat, Salisbury held the unruly party together by his personal authority; and, by offering moderate social reform along with opposition to Irish Home Rule, he was able to forge the alliance between the Conservatives and the Unionists that would dominate British politics for the rest of the century and beyond. But Richard Shannon argues that one of the unforeseen effects of the Unionist alliance was to stifle the emergence of new social elements in the Party at large.