Author Archives: politicsteaching

About politicsteaching

A Politics Teacher based in Surrey.

Why did Citizens Juries never take off in the UK?

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In September 2007 Gordon Brown announced that his New Labour Government would undertake a number of ‘citizens juries’ on key social issues such as crime and punishment and the future of the NHS. He said that this was party of a process of “reaching out, of doing the business of government differently”. However, despite this pledge, the concept of Citizens Juries in the UK has never really taken hold as a conventional political practice. So, what is a Citizens Jury and why have they never had a significant impact on the UK political process?

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How did Boris Johnson (eventually) ‘Get Brexit Done’?

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Boris Johnson became Prime Minister on the 24th July 2019.

The travails of Theresa May in trying to achieve Brexit have been well documented, including in this article here! However, it is easy to forger now that when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, he faced his own significant challenges.

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What is sovereignty and where does it reside in the British political system?

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What is sovereignty?

Parliament is legally sovereign in the UK system.

Sovereignty refers to ‘supreme authority’ or ‘ultimate legal power’. In Britain, the notion of parliamentary sovereignty – that sovereignty is held by the institution of Parliament – is one of the most important principles of the British constitution. Indeed, the constitutional scholar A.V Dicey called parliamentary sovereignty one of the ‘twin pillars of the constitution’, the other being the Rule of Law:

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What are the best examples of Judicial Review in the Supreme Court since 2009?

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White men still dominate judiciary, says Justice report | Judiciary | The Guardian
The justices of the Supreme Court make the final judicial decisions on key issues bought before it.

Since the Supreme Court was established in 2009, there have been a number of significant examples of judicial review that have taken place. As the UK’s final court of appeal for both civil and criminal cases, the Supreme Court is the final judicial adjudicator on key legal and constitutional issues bought before it. Cases come to the Supreme Court after they have previously been handled by the lower courts:

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