This podcast uses government documents to illuminate the workings of the American government, and offer context around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life.
Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor.
N. Rodgers: Hey Aughie?
J. Aughenbaugh: Hey Nia, How are you?
N. Rodgers: I'm good. How are you?
J. Aughenbaugh: I'm particularly excited for today's podcast episode because listeners, we have a guest and Nia, who is that guest?
N. Rodgers: We have a new guest. We have Dr. Chris Burdett with us today. He's new to us. He's not new to the world, he's not an infant. But he's new to being on the podcast with us. Listeners will know that we have had Dr. Newman and Dr. Twigg on before, so we're working our way through political signs but we have specific questions today that only Dr. Burdett can answer for us. Dr. Burdett, is it okay if we call you Chris for the duration of the podcast?
Dr. Chris Burdett: Absolutely, that would be lovely. Thank you.
J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, if you have not worked with, taken class with, had exposure to Chris, Chris has been at VCU for how many years now Chris?
Dr. Chris Burdett: Goodness. Almost as many as our listeners have been alive. If we're talking about the student body, about 17 years, which I think I'm celebrating about my 17th year from either being adjunct to term. It's been a while.
J. Aughenbaugh: Chris joined the then political science program shortly after I did in the Wilder School. Chris has his PhD from the University of Virginia. He teaches a number of courses in the department political theory. He teaches a number of courses related to British politics, in European politics, and European security, and every year you teach at least one section of senior seminar. I think you and I both teach it in the fall.
N. Rodgers: His students speak very highly of him to me at the library, I like Dr. Burdett. They're pretty naked in their opinions about people, so when they tell me they really like somebody or they feel like that person was influential or a good professor for them, it's a compliment. It's a nice thing to hear from them.
Dr. Chris Burdett: Can you ask them the next time? Can I have a request about that though? The next time can you tell them to do it within earshot? I think we [inaudible]
N. Rodgers: Or could you actually fill out the class evaluation? It's great that you'll tell it to me but could you tell it to somebody official who actually has power to do something? Because librarians have no power whatsoever. Well, one library does, the dean, but the rest of us don't.
J. Aughenbaugh: Chris the number of times Nia said hey I had a meeting with one of your students Aughie. They said some really nice things and I'm like that's all? Well and good, but could they maybe drop that into the course evaluations or no.
N. Rodgers: Or just come to class a little more?
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, there is that.
N. Rodgers: There's always that. I want the first question Aughie.
J. Aughenbaugh: Before we get to the questions.
N. Rodgers: Fine.
J. Aughenbaugh: As I'm wont to do in a previous podcast episode, Nia and I talked about British common law and its foundation, or its impact in shaping US Law which got us thinking.
N. Rodgers: There's got to be bigger connections, because really the colonists were really British. They were British citizens, they thought of themselves as British, so they probably didn't stray hugely far. Who would be able to tell us if they strayed and how they strayed and then we're like that sounds like a job for Chris Burdett. That's my first question to start with you is because I know that there are two Houses of Parliament, are they in any way, the two Houses of Congress or is it just that there are two houses near, and that's the only similarity between them? I'm starting small, by the way, in case anybody is worrying.
Dr. Chris Burdett: That's a tough question. I think that we should start by just dispelling the rumors that there're these similarities in structure, which there really aren't, aside from maybe the two houses. You do have the idea of an upper house in a lower house. The House of Lords is their upper house, and the House of Commons is their lower house. But the influence of the House of Lords on legislation is really remote compared to the power of a legislation that is consolidated within the House of Commons. While within the US system, they have division of responsibilities but by and large they're legislating body and they're supposed to come together and achieve that common ground before something becomes a law. Forgive me, because I'm trying to reference those commercials from my youth.
N. Rodgers: Schoolhouse Rock you need to answer.
Dr. Chris Burdett: I almost started singing it, but John told me not to. I don't want to drive away your listeners.
J. Aughenbaugh: No they take a while to come back. Chris, that's quite all right because I've actually attempted to hum some songs.
N. Rodgers: We've tried to sing them too yet and it's all bad.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's all bad.
Dr. Chris Burdett: You told me that this guy was the limit on this that I could only bring things up and I didn't think you were serious. Anyway, so we have then that key difference between these two bodies. That's where I think if we're going to talk about the British system, that's one way for us to start to appreciate the differences between the two. In the US system we have the checks and balances, the division between the executive and the legislative branch. In the British system, that executive and legislative branch are effectively combined into one and that power is wielded within the House of Commons. That's because the British system is a parliamentary system, and that's what's different from our presidential system. That's one of the key differences.
N. Rodgers: What's a Parliament?
Dr. Chris Burdett: Oh goodness. Parliament is basically the legislative body. It's directly elected. The House of Commons is the least, the House of Commons is directly elected. That's where the democratic linkage is, that's why it's a parliamentary democracy, it's directly elected. Another important detail when we're conceiving or talking about the British system, is that it's a majoritarian parliamentary democracy. Which means that the way the power structure works, whoever wins the most seats is the governing party and effectively can ignore the opposition.
N. Rodgers: There's no reaching across the aisle.
Dr. Chris Burdett: If you can get past that majority, that 50.1% and I should clarify that, when I said gets the most seats, I mean gets the majority, I should be very clear about that because that's why it's a majoritarian. As long as they get 50% plus one, it doesn't matter that the opposition might have 49.9. That's still suggesting that there's a lot of the British electorate that favors that opposition party, but they didn't make it, they didn't get past that majority. One of the consequences of that is it impacts how Parliament works.
C. Burdett: There's not really a constructive role for the opposition in other words. When you think about what a Legislature is going to do John, I'm going to ask you this question. What is the principal role of a legislator? They are there to make?
J. Aughenbaugh: Laws.
C. Burdett: They're supposed to make policy. You're not as dumb as you look. I should say, I know John in a long time. I wouldn't be saying this stuff if it weren't partly true, but mostly out of love.
N. Rodgers: That's pretty much how politive roles. You guys are always like that. Like you're abusive, like it's their way of loving each other?
C. Burdett: It is. It's a prickly hug. If their role is to make laws then a constructive role for the opposition would involve the opposition in some way in making that law. Like it might require the governing party to reach out and have almost like what happens between the Senate and the house here. States, when they're disagreeing, they put together a committee that works out the differences. Some parliaments have that baked in. Not in the British Parliament. That consolidates a lot of power in the hands of the government, of the executive, which is taken from the majority party because they can basically dictate the entire agenda of the Parliament with respect to legislation and that opposition party is basically there to criticize effectively.
N. Rodgers: Crabby effect the media. Is to go to the media and be crabby?
C. Burdett: Yeah. Because what are you going to do?
N. Rodgers: When you see them on TV being crabby about the majority they are trying to influence in that way. They're saying people write to your what is an MP?
C. Burdett: A member of Parliament.
N. Rodgers: Is just a member of Parliament. So when they're saying, I know I like it when they're saying write to your MP and say I want this thing. They're trying to influence as much as they can but they can't stop the legislation in Parliament if there can be the filibuster?
C. Burdett: There are Parliamentary rules.
N. Rodgers: They're decorative.
C. Burdett: In a sense, a lot of it depends on personalities. That's why, as much as the British system, when people go to the polls, that's another difference between the US and the UK system is you aren't strictly speaking voting for the Prime Minister, you're voting for the party.
J. Aughenbaugh: You're voting for the party.
N. Rodgers: Then they pick for then themselves who fits to be Prime Minister.
J. Aughenbaugh: That was my next question because so Chris, if they don't have a President, the effective leader of British government, the daily leader of government is the Prime Minister, correct?
C. Burdett: That is correct, yes. They are the leader of the majority party or the larger party in a coalition, we can talk a little bit more about that in a moment because I'm sure that's one of the other questions on the way.
J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. I was going to ask you.
N. Rodgers: I was going to ask you what happens when nobody gets a majority?
N. Rodgers: That's the first thing we're going to think of is how can we break this system? What happens when nobody gets 50.1?
C. Burdett: Well, let's just say Edmund Burke is the dominant voice here in this conversation. He's won out on this one. There is no breaking the system, the British system is for good or for bad, even when the public has a chance to make some changes, they're highly resistant to it. Conservatism tends to win the day. What I mean by that is the idea of minimal change tends to win the day, not necessarily the Conservative Party.
J. Aughenbaugh: That would be the case, because listen, Chris is referencing one of the best known British political philosophers of the modern era, Sir Edmund Burke, who is often referenced in the United States as the father of conservatism. But Burke's basic idea was you don't tear down institutions even if they're not performing well. You instead try to modify or change them.
N. Rodgers: Incremental change as opposed to hold sale.
J. Aughenbaugh: In one of his best known critiques is what the French attempted to do with the French Revolution. Because he was highly critical of the fact that many of the revolutionaries in France just wanted to go ahead and torch all of the existing institutions associated with the French monarchy, and Burke was just like, that's no way to go ahead and do a revolution. Let's go back to this idea, Chris.
N. Rodgers: Wait, I have a fundamental question that I do not know the answer to. Do not mock both of your words.
J. Aughenbaugh: No mocking. This is mock-free zone.
C. Burdett: I can't promise anything here but go ahead. Look, I'm a worn-off guest. I can behave however I want.
N. Rodgers: That's true. Except we might drag you back for more. Am I correct that the British system does not have just two parties the way, I'm not trying to be ugly to the greens in the United States, but they're not really a party in the sense that Marianne Williamson can run all she wants and she will never be President of the United States. It's Democrat or Republican right now, and it'd be lovely if we had more choices, but we don't. Am I correct that in Britain there are actually more choices, or is it the similar divide of and what are the third parties called?
C. Burdett: That's a great question, and that can take us to that question about what happens if you don't get a majority. That works. I love your flow on that question. There are third parties. That is not uncommon in Parliamentary systems to have multiple parties in fact. But in the British system, if you look back basically since about the First World War, the system has been dominated by two parties. The share of seats that are won, and that's what matters when we're talking about British governments. It's not your percentage of votes, it's how many seats you win, because that's what makes the majority, it's not a majority of the people voting for you, it's the majority of the seats that you win. When we look at the seats that parties have won, it is overwhelmingly conservative first, labor second, and then if you could think about it graphically, you have these little slivers. If you go year by year, election by election, little tiny slivers, sometimes they grow a little bit, but usually they shrink back down and those represent the third parties. Now, examples of them?
J. Aughenbaugh: I was going to say, give us a few examples.
C. Burdett: You have the Liberals and the Liberals have deep historical roots in mainstream English politics. What I mean by that is, the Liberals used to be, in the 19th century, the number 1 party. There was a turn that occurred right around the First World War, as the labor movements in Britain gained traction and began to manifest within the political party, that is, the labor party pulling away that electorate, conservatives pulled away that electorate, and liberals became this third party, but they pull within England. That's an important distinction because when you also look at current third parties, you have green parties that contest elections. You have radical parties like UKAIP, United Kingdom Independence Party, which is that anti a lot of things party. But then you have regional parties.
N. Rodgers: Jeremy Corbyn.
C. Burdett: Party was irritating. But not in the same way that you kept is irritating, I think he probably British. I say that like I know the guy. Excuse me. I'm sorry if you're going to start getting letters from, there's going to be some fan base.
N. Rodgers: From Jeremy Corbyn?
C. Burdett: Who knows? He doesn't have a lot to do right now, but you might end up with some very angry people. I don't know how dare he criticize, but Jeremy Corbyn was the former Labor Party leader.
J. Aughenbaugh: Again, like I'm on the first name basis with them.
C. Burdett: We all are. We idolize the people we hate. I don't hate.
J. Aughenbaugh: No, we saw him at the pub last Friday.
N. Rodgers: But you made a distinction about seats versus the number of voters.
C. Burdett: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Is that because different seats have different numbers of vote, like they represent larger or smaller numbers of voters?
J. Aughenbaugh: Because Chris, maybe a point of reference like in the United States, the districts for the House of Representatives. Since a series of Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s, they got to roughly be the same number of people, one person, one vote. Does Great Britain have that requirement? Where the districts are supposed to be roughly equal in terms of population?
C. Burdett: Population does matter, but the one person one vote still is the same. There are no districts that are weighted heavier than others. But to go back, and I'm glad you asked for clarification about that. Here is actually a similarity between the US and the UK. Both US and the UK operate on a plurality when it comes to who wins an election, it's, I'll get bonus points of what if you can get it first past crickets.
J. Aughenbaugh: First past the Post answered my own question.
C. Burdett: That's all right. I tried, John. I tried to set one up again for you. You told me I had to make you look smart. That was the only way I can get on this.
J. Aughenbaugh: If you're not going to play, I'm going to go home.
C. Burdett: No, I was going to say first pass the finish line, but nevertheless.
J. Aughenbaugh: It would have been wrong.
C. Burdett: First-past-the-post. That just means that it's whoever among the array of candidates. If you look at the districts, you see a lot of candidates contesting elections from third party, and basically made up parties that are just there to make a point, make a statement, no nothing. They're just there. But they're contesting the election.
N. Rodgers: [inaudible] party.
C. Burdett: Basically. Amongst that field of candidates, it's whoever wins the most votes wins the seat. If you say you had five candidates or three of them poll 20%, one polls 19, and one polls 21, it's hard to look at that and say one person represents a mandate or represents the voice of the district. But guess who wins that? The person who is about 20% plus 1, 21.
N. Rodgers: You only have to eke it out, basically. You don't have to have most of the district, you just have to get enough.
J. Aughenbaugh: Chris, do the parties have regional strongholds like we try to see here in the United States? For instance, in the United States, if you take a look at the deep South, the Republican Party since, and in particular, the Reagan years, the Republican Party has dominated. Whereas, the Democratic Party dominates today on the coast. Do you see that party dominance at a regional level in Great Britain, or is it more mixed?
C. Burdett: No. We have two regions where you do see. This goes back to the nuances of talking about third parties, and why I was drawing a distinction between the Liberals at UK, which try to poll nationally. Third parties, while they may be irrelevant across the United Kingdom when they go to Westminster and sit in Parliament, Westminster being the nickname, when we talk about Westminster, we were talking about the House of Commons in British Parliament. When they go to Westminster, they may be irrelevant, but they can actually be quite influential in their regions. Over the last 20 years or so, we've seen the Scottish National Party emerge as the dominant party in Scotland. When they go to Westminster, they don't have nearly enough votes to be consequential for legislation that's going to be passed, governing all of the United Kingdom, but within Scotland, they're winning most of the seats. You still have the Conservatives of Labor contesting seats there, but up until about the last 20 years, where you had the Traditional Labor Conservative back and forth, then you had parity and now you have the Scottish National Party doing better by and large over these parties. Then you have these regional strongholds, and the other one would be in Northern Ireland, where you have Northern Irish parties contesting those elections and sending those representatives, but because their constituencies are still fairly small, where they don't send a lot of MP's over to Westminster, a bulk of what happens in Parliament is decided by the elections that occur in districts in England. That is a big source of tension between the regions which have some devolved authority. They have their own parliaments. They're able to impact and create legislation in certain areas without having to go hat-in-hand to Westminster and get the okay, but big legislation. The real power is still exercised in Westminster, so those disparities matter a lot. Will you indulge me for a moment, because I want to come back to this first-past-the-post consequence, because it's not really a story. But I want to point out some figures so you can see what some would say is the tragedy of first-past-the-post, especially if you are a third party. We can see this example in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I know that's reaching way far back for us here.
J. Aughenbaugh: Is this pre-Maggie Thatcher being Prime Minister?
C. Burdett: No. The mid 1970's elections, that's where, first off, she gains her position as leader of the Conservatives after 1975. Then in 1979 where you coincidentally have the most recent vote of no confidence that led to a collapse of government in the UK. I know that's something you want to talk about. Then the Conservatives come in, but the Liberals are contesting elections with Thatcher leading the Conservatives. But the whole point of this first-past-the-post is it seems nice if you actually have votes that are trending toward or eclipsing the majority, because then you can turn around and say, "I do have a mandate. At least in the idea of a democratic system, a majority of people support me." But it's when you have parity that things get really sticky because somebody is going to come out on top, but only represent a fraction. This is what happened at the expense of the labor during the elections of the 1983, 1987 in particular. I'm looking at these figures, I'm going to talk about the 1983 election. In that election, the share of the vote nationwide was 42% Conservative, 27.6% Labor, and 25.4% Liberal. Now, my question to the two of you is, do you think that would lead to a fairly divided parliament and even a coalition? Because when you don't have a majority, you've got to govern some way. You're either in a minority government or you form a coalition. What do you think? Would this be a coalition? Is that a recipe for a coalition? Nia, what do you think?
N. Rodgers: That's what I would try to do is get somebody on board with me, at least for the bigger things. Even though you're not going to get them on board for everything.
J. Aughenbaugh: With the percentages you gave where Labor and Liberal fall on the ideological spectrum, I would go ahead and claim, particularly if I was an MP from Labor, I would go ahead and say, "Well, the country's decidedly Liberal, so we should be the ones dictating what is going on in parliament."
C. Burdett: You would expect then, either power sharing or a fairly even distribution of seats with the Conservatives may be eking out a little bit. Well, here's how first-past-the-post actually changes things. Those percentages roughly 40, 27, 26. The number of seats. Well, the Conservatives did have the highest number, that 42.4% translated into 397 seats. Now, here's where the kicker comes in and how third parties struggle within the British system with first-past-the-post. Labor remember, 27.6%, 209 seats. The Liberals. Wait till you hear how many seats the Liberals won. Remember, their percentage was 25.4, 23 seats.
N. Rodgers: No. It should have been closer to 200. Wait, I don't understand the math. Your math is broken, Chris. I declare your math broken. You're doing some British math, which is real math. Because if they were that close in percentage, how could they be that far off in seats? I don't understand.
C. Burdett: That's the first-past-the-post consequence. The most votes wins the seats, it doesn't matter by how much. That's where, if you look at a point where there's a bit of a revival for the liberals. Because the Liberals after the '30s, they were in the woodshed. They were holding less than 10%, so they were not an influential third-party at all. They start to do better in the '70s and into the early '80s for a lot of reasons which you don't need to go into, but you would have expected them to do better. A lot of people actually came out of this frustrated, including the Liberals. I mean, here they are, polling 25%. Instead of being able to lay a claim to 25% of the seats, they only had 23.
J. Aughenbaugh: It's not exactly equivalent, but we have something similar in the United States in regards to the influence of the Electoral College. Because if you look in 2016, Hillary Clinton, the candidate for the Democratic Party, won the popular vote in the entire country. But because so many of her votes were in states that she won pretty handily, because she wasn't first past the post for instance, in the normal number of battleground states, Donald Trump ends up winning the presidency even though he doesn't have a majority of the votes. His votes in some ways actually had greater weight than did Hillary Clinton's. It's comparable because we've seen that at various times in US presidential elections where a party's candidate may win the majority of all the votes cast, but because they didn't win enough large states to actually have a majority in the Electoral College, they don't end up as president.
N. Rodgers: You know that neither one of you is convincing me that math is good. This is the political science department, basically, declaring math as crap. I see where you're going with this.
C. Burdett: Well, give us a seat over in the stem building and we might change our mind.
N. Rodgers: That's a fair point.
J. Aughenbaugh: I can't believe I am really just letting my guard down here.
N. Rodgers: That's a fair point.
J. Aughenbaugh: Hold on Nia. Chris Burdett just waited into campus politics.
N. Rodgers: Which he is waiting. I back out, he's waiting. I'm going to give him some cover before he backs out.
C. Burdett: No, we are the same.
N. Rodgers: That would frustrate me to a point where I would just be unbelievably angry at the fact that we had pulled at such a high percentage nationally and ended up with such a small.
J. Aughenbaugh: It calls into question the legitimacy of the regime. Because Chris, you keep on coming back to something that I think, many voters struggle with. Because when you have somebody who barely wins an election and then they basically run around for the next 2, 4, 6, how many years saying they have a mandate, well, really, do you have a mandate? Because that's part of what an election in a democracy is supposed to do, is supposed to give those in those government positions the legitimacy to go ahead and use the authority of those positions. Go ahead Nia.
N. Rodgers: How often do they have elections, Chris?
C. Burdett: That's a great question. Let me say one thing in response to your point though, Nia, because you raise an important point about legitimacy. Interestingly enough, and John, this actually touches upon the example you gave a moment ago with the Electoral College going against the popular vote. In British election history since 1918, I think it's only happened twice, where the governing party did not command a plurality of the votes. Ash 20 some elections, two times, I'm pretty confident it's two times that that's happened every other time. Even with the distortions that are created by first past the post relative to percentages and seats, the party that comes out on top is the party that had the plurality. But where the discomfort can come in, and this is where I hear your point Nia, and I think you raise a good one, is that the majoritarian system invests control over legislation in the hands of the winning party. That means that party could represent just 40%, like in that election I gave, the election I pointed out. These winning parties typically poll between 30 and 40%. They're not polling 50-60%, so their mandate comes from less than a majority of the population, but they have a more than the majority of the seats. Then they're able to command legislation while they're in office. Now, that discomfort, being upset certainly is a moment in time. It's certainly exasperated like when these elections that I've pointed out with the liberal Democrats where they were polling so heavily and failing to win seats, yes, there were a lot of people wore saying, we need election reform, this is clearly unfair. But then you see the liberal Democrats bottom out at the polls and are not polling the same degree, so they're no longer relevant, and the people are just defaulting back. But I will say this right, the last coalition government, there have been two coalition governments since 1918, and the last one was in 2010. That's where the Conservatives were coming in out of the cold following the Blair Brown years where you had the incredible popularity of Tony Blair and they hung on to power for Blair was the second longest prime minister since 1918. They were in power a long time. The Conservatives poll better than labor at the polls, but the only way that they were able to get into office finally, after being shut off for a long time, was to enter into a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. One of the trade offs. The Liberal Democrats made the conservatives promise to have a referendum on reforms to the voting system. Now admittedly, the system that they proposed was not to get rid of or like to maybe have a system that weighted according to proportions, the proportional representation. It didn't go that far, but it was a vote on some change that would conceivably benefit third parties, and the British electorate pretty convincingly rejected it.
N. Rodgers: They basically said, this stuff is broken. Well, here's the chance to fix it. No, I don't want to fix it, I just want to complain about it being broken. I misunderstood what we were doing.
C. Burdett: Then Edmund Burke sailing down and say, you have validated my treatise. But that's I think an interesting point. Now, to be fair, that election about reform, it could have been interpreted as we want reform, but we don't like this plan. But the thing about the referendums and use of referendums in the UK is they are not common. They're typically pitched as a once in a generation phenomena. They're not going to go back to this in five years and say, well, let's try again.
J. Aughenbaugh: We're going to touch upon this before the end of the episode. But one of the more recent referendums was about Brexit. Chris knew that we were going to get around to it and we will later, listeners. Chris, I want to bring you back to something that I know Nia is really fascinated by, is this vote of no confidence..
N. Rodgers: Wait, we didn't answer my question of how often do they vote.
C. Burdett: No. You did ask, I'm sorry. That's a great question that leads us into it.
J. Aughenbaugh: I did have a path there.
N. Rodgers: Sorry.
N. Rodgers: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off but I was worried we weren't going to get, it's going to be four years. Is it every six years? Is it every 200 years? Do they have regular voting? First Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Every four years you will elect a president of the United States. The US is pretty predictable in that sense. Are they predictable in the same way?
C. Burdett: Yes and no.
N. Rodgers: Well done. That's often an answer Aughie gives on this podcast.
J. Aughenbaugh: I was about to say Nia, you should be entirely comfortable with what Chris just said.
N. Rodgers: That's right. Nia, it's arbitrary and capricious.
C. Burdett: Capricious. Well, I didn't say that. No. You're right. It is frustrating. Actually, let me get the date right in this. For a time, elections were held whenever the ruling party decided to hold them.
J. Aughenbaugh: That would be strategic.
N. Rodgers: That's never gone wrong..
J. Aughenbaugh: But that would be done for strategic reasons, right, Chris?
C. Burdett: Very much.
J. Aughenbaugh: If you want to go ahead and go support, you go ahead and call an election. You don't wait until you're polling poorly. No, you go ahead and pick when you are doing really well so you can go ahead and buy yourself a significantly more years.
C. Burdett: That's right.
N. Rodgers: Goodwill because if you wait till you're tanking and then ask people if they love you, you're not going to like the answer.
C. Burdett: You have a very interesting logic in that way. You can either call an election when you were riding high in the polls, figuring that you might actually win more seats, or you call an election at a point where you're seeing yourself slip just to sustain the seat you got. In 2011, they passed what they called the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, and that try to introduce regularity but also reduce the power of the ruling government to set the terms of the elections like when it's going to be called. The fixed term election basically said, you can have off term elections, general elections, that's what they called the election where you go to the polls and elect a new parliament. You can have a general election in between that five year window. The fixed term was five years. You can have a general election within, but the threshold of that is pretty high. You have to have an act of parliament. That means everybody has to agree that now is the time. The logic of that hurdle is high because you have to have the opposition thinking that the time is good for them. That's a weird thing. You've got the majority thinking the time is good for us, let's have an election now and the opposition saying the time is good for us, so somebody's wrong. That's why it's not really something that happens very often. Now, following Boris Johnson's landside victory in the last general election, they reformed this law and they passed what's called the dissolution in calling a parliament act. What a catchy name. That was in 2022. For 11 years they were on this fixed term system which said five years is the norm anything else is unusual. Well, the dissolution in calling a parliament act reverted back to the style which invested a lot of that power in the hands of the government where the government, remember the majority party, can say now's the time and now with the ceremonial aspect, they go to the king, then it was the queen. Now, they go to the king and they say, we want to have an election and the king is going to sign off on that and that means the Prime Minister is really the one who can play the election maker in that way. But they have that five years clock, so either you have the parliament sits for five years and then has to call an election, or they call an election in that five year window and then the clock restarts for five years, and they can stay in until five years is up. Am I explaining that right?
J. Aughenbaugh: Yes.
N. Rodgers: If your government was doing well, you could essentially call an election every year and move that five year window continuously. You could just keep get out five years. No, five years from today, no, five years from tomorrow, no, five years from. I see.
C. Burdett: You can choose your moment.
N. Rodgers: That seems sketchy to me, Chris. Not to slam the British, but that seems a little sketchy. Actually, what it feels is that it is the favors the party in charge.
C. Burdett: Absolutely, and that's why they reform the act because you have a significant conservative majority that had the votes to pass that legislation. It's certainly in their interest because they're at a point where they've got incredible popularity, and they can ride out for five years or call an election and reset that clock if they feel they're at advantage at the polls. That change certainly advantages the government in power, as long as they can find an opportunity to either maintain the status quo or enlarge their seats within those five years. Otherwise, then it's really just about the clock that's ticking and the five year, they just hope they've got enough support to continue in government. Right now, that's where things are at, is you have the conservatives who are riding high after Brexit, and then public opinion has started to erode. Right now, the polls can change very quickly, but labor is polling well ahead of the conservatives. It's highly unlikely that you'll see the current Prime Minister Sunak, turn around and call a snap election anytime soon. More than likely, you're going to see the next election will be this year, actually. The last election being 2019.
N. Rodgers: He has no choice.
C. Burdett: He has no choice. It's going to be imminent, and it'll be very interesting to see that happen, but that's something we will talk about later.
N. Rodgers: On that note. Chris, can we ask you back for another episode so that we can continue on because we have many more questions?
C. Burdett: Without a doubt.
N. Rodgers: Do you want to come back for part 2 and talk to us about this?
C. Burdett: If you'll need like guest host, you need me to sit in for John if he's mysteriously ill for a period of time, I'm happy to do that. Absolutely, you might want to change the dates.
N. Rodgers: When he come sup with mysterious illness, I'll think about that.
C. Burdett: Can we change the name though?
J. Aughenbaugh: We're listening.
C. Burdett: I'm not real savvy on that name, like the Chris Burdett Show, can we adjust the session?
N. Rodgers: We want to go away from civil discourse into maybe uncivil discourse in civil discourse?
C. Burdett: Or just a Chris Burdett Show, I thought that was catchy. I don't need to.
J. Aughenbaugh: Well, listeners, you are witness to a coup that's transpiring.
N. Rodgers: I know.
J. Aughenbaugh: Right on the air.
N. Rodgers: I don't know quite what to do about that. We'll be back for part 2.
C. Burdett: It was so much fun.
N. Rodgers: In another week. Thank you so much, Chris.
C. Burdett: It's been my pleasure. You all have so much fun. This is great. Thank you for the service that you do for our students and for the broader community. I know your audience is far reaching, which is great to see that grow and to see the accolades pour in. I'm really proud of you both for that, whatever that's worth. But I do hope our students are listening to this, because we need to see these as important educational tools. As John would say, a hat tip to both of you for the outstanding work that you're doing and the wise decisions that you make with your guests. I would expect nothing less.
C. Burdett: I was about to go ahead and say.
N. Rodgers: That was awesome into the self service. That was great. I love it.
J. Aughenbaugh: It was like, I could not have planned that better myself.
C. Burdett: It's so much fun. I'm definitely coming back. Thank you both so much.
J. Aughenbaugh: Thank you, Chris. We really enjoyed it.
N. Rodgers: Thank you.
C. Burdett: Excellent.
You've been listening to civil discourse brought to you by VCU Libraries. Opinions expressed are solely the speaker's own and do not reflect the views or opinions of VCU or VCU Libraries. Special thanks to the Workshop for technical assistance. Music by Isaak Hopson. Find more information at guides.library.vcu.edu/discourse. As always, no documents were harmed in the making of this podcast.