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This paper argues that long-serving governments suffer from degenerative tendencies. As New Labour seeks to secure its fourth successive mandate to govern, this paper will advocate a model for analysing those symptoms of degeneration. It will attempt to situate the current circumstances of New Labour within a comparative historical context. It will assess the exhaustion of one-nation Conservatism in the 1960s, the implosion of post-Thatcherite Conservatism in the 1990s and the challenge that New Labour is facing in constructing a post-Blair narrative, against identifiable symptoms of governing degeneration. It will conclude that, although the endgame of the Blair era suggested that there were embryonic signs of governing degeneration, New Labour has not matched the scale of governing degeneration that afflicted the Conservatives in 1963 and 1996. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publication of a White Paper, Recall of MPs, and a draft Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny, by the UK Government in December 2011 was greeted with almost universal antipathy. In bringing forward the draft Bill Cabinet Office ministers declared their intention to ‘trigger a debate on what would be the best model for a recall mechanism’ and they expressed a willingness ‘to consider alternative models’ or even to contemplate ‘adopting a completely different approach’. Yet, they made it clear any such proposals ‘must work within our unique constitutional framework’ and be ‘suitable for our system of representative democracy’. The objective of this article, therefore, is to do precisely what Cabinet Office ministers asked: to examine comparative experience and to apply lessons from that experience to the UK's ‘unique constitutional framework’. Three questions guide the analysis: first, what is the problem to be addressed in introducing recall?; secondly, what does comparative experience reveal about the operation of recall? and thirdly how unique is the UK's constitutional framework? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the aftermath of the parliamentary expenses scandal, 232 new MPs were elected to the Westminster Parliament in May 2010: the largest turnover of Members since the Second World War.1 The unique nature of the election and its aftermath presented both great opportunities and real challenges for the orientation, induction and continuous professional development of new Members.2 This paper explores how the House of Commons sought to respond to those challenges and opportunities. It examines what support was made available to new Members by House of Commons officials, the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, as well as outside bodies, including the Hansard Society, in the months immediately after the election. It assesses the success of this provision and what lessons can be learnt from Westminster's experience for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Westminster Parliament has been prompted to develop an e-Petitions system in light of the fact that similar tools are now well established in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. The Number Ten e-Petitions site, too, has proved inspirational although discussions within Westminster about the development of a comparable system have focused on the risks associated with it. This paper describes the momentum towards a Westminster-based e-Petitions system, highlighting the dilemmas that have emerged during discussions about the form it should take: should Westminster try to replicate the popular style of the Number Ten website and risk inundation with Parliamentary graffiti? Or would it be better to develop a system that ties in with Parliamentary processes-and do these processes themselves need to change? We discuss the move towards e-Petitions in the context of broader debates about e-Democracy and its role in revitalising political engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are we to interpret judicial reform under New Labour? What are its implications for democracy? This paper argues that the reforms are part of a broader process of juridification. The Westminster model, as derived from Dicey, upheld a concept of parliamentary sovereignty that gives a misleading account of the role of the judiciary. Juridification has arisen along with new theories and new worlds of governance that both highlight and intensify the limitations of the Westminster model so conceived. New Labour's judicial reforms are attempts to address problems associated with the new governance. Ironically, however, the reforms are themselves constrained by a lingering commitment to an increasingly out-dated Westminster model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]