FPTP - June/July 2009

The latest articles on First Past the Post - tutor2u’s digital magazine for Politics Teachers and Students - are now available to download:

BNP on the rise?
This article examines the importance of electoral participation.

Brown on the brink
This article looks back at the week which contained the resignation of six cabinet ministers and a disastrous set of local election results for New Labour.

Devolution decade
Here we assess New Labour’s devolution settlement ten years on.

Prospects for electoral reform
Despite Gordon Brown’s promise of a review of the election system, fptp is unlikely to be replaced in the foreseeable future.

Federalism in the Obama era
An update on federal-state relations in 2009.

Synoptic legislatures
The latest in a series of comparative politics articles looks at how well legislatures in the UK and USA control the executive.

USA: people and politics
Before embarking on study of the politics of America, it is useful to have some understanding of its people. Here we look at demographic change in the country.

House of Straw

The front page of the Guardian today reports that the government is backing the introduction of a number of reforms to how we elect MPs.  Principal among them is the idea that the current first past the post voting system will be replaced with the alternative vote