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Drawing on data from four general elections between 2010 and 2019 this note shows that British MPs are increasingly likely to represent constituencies in the region of their birth. By 2019, more than half of British MPs were born in the region in which their constituency sat. We find clear partisan differences, but no overall gender divide. There is also a clear centre-periphery divide. The less local nature of the current older cohort in the Commons – the most likely to retire in the next few years – means that these trends should continue in the same direction in coming elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have used a role-play exercise to help students understand the role of the whips in British parliamentary politics, a subject with which students often struggle. In itself, this proved a valuable learning and teaching tool, but we found it became even more useful when we incorporated a practitioner into the exercise. This overcame some of the problems with role-play exercises but it also overcame some of the problems we have previously encountered with using practitioners in teaching. In this article, we outline our reasons for utilizing a role-play simulation and explain how it functioned. We then discuss the use of practitioners in teaching and learning and how the role-play overcame many of the problems we have previously encountered when using such teaching methods.

Are there electoral consequences or benefits for legislators who deviate from the party line? We answer this question with data from individual-level vote choice and constituency-level electoral results in the UK for the last two decades. Exploring the variations in voting patterns over time with a panel-regression approach, we find results that are most compatible with the null hypothesis, that is, that dissent by legislators is neither rewarded nor punished in elections. These results call into question the degree to which voters know and/or care about legislative dissent in parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]