Political Parties in the UK

What Political Parties in the UK covers

What parties are for, the ideas and internal structures of the three main parties, where their money comes from and the controversies that follow, and the rise of the minor parties.

The 7 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Party Functions and the Conservative PartyRecall questions on what parties and ideology are and the functions parties perform, and on the Conservative Party from the Tamworth Manifesto through one-nation and New Right thinking to its leadership rules and the 1922 Committee.Open →
• Labour: Origins, Clause IV and StructureRecall questions on Labour's origins and the original Clause IV, the 1945 government, social democracy and revisionism, New Labour and the Third Way, the party since 2015, and how Labour is organised and chooses its leader.Open →
• The Liberal DemocratsRecall questions on how the Liberal Democrats were formed from the Liberals and the SDP, their classical and modern liberal strands, core policies, the effect of the 2010 to 2015 coalition, their 2024 recovery and their federal structure.Open →
• Party Funding and Short MoneyRecall questions on what party funding covers, the main sources of party income, and how Short and Cranborne Money are allocated.Open →
• Funding Controversies, the Media and Electoral OutcomesRecall questions on how parties are funded and the controversies around donors, loans and state funding, parties and the press and social media, and the factors that decide the outcome of a general election.Open →
• Two-Party, Multi-Party and Dominant-Party SystemsRecall questions on what a party system is and on how two-party, multi-party and dominant-party systems differ.Open →
• Minor Parties in UK PoliticsRecall questions on the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, UKIP, Reform UK and the Northern Ireland parties, how minor parties shape the agenda, the barriers they face and the effect of multi-party politics on government.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Political Parties in the UK further

The same content, four other ways.

Commonly confused

Pairs that lose marks when they are blurred together.

• One-nation conservatism vs New Right

  One-nation conservatism: paternalistic acceptance of social obligations. New Right: market liberalism combined with social authority.

• Social democracy vs Third Way

  Social democracy: reformed capitalism with welfare and redistribution. Third Way: market-oriented revision stressing opportunity and responsibility.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Define a political party.

   Model answer

   A political party is an organisation of people with broadly shared views that seeks to win governmental power by putting up candidates for election.

2. 2

   Define ideology in the context of party politics.

   Model answer

   An ideology is a coherent set of beliefs about how society should be organised, which provides a party with its aims and a justification for its policies.

3. 3

   State five functions performed by political parties.

   Model answer

   Representing interests, encouraging participation, recruiting and training the political elite, formulating policy, and organising government and opposition.

4. 4

   Which document of 1834 is usually taken to mark the birth of the modern Conservative Party?

   Model answer

   Peel's Tamworth Manifesto, which accepted the 1832 reform and committed the party to cautious change rather than outright resistance.

5. 5

   State four principles of traditional conservatism.

   Model answer

   Respect for tradition and inherited institutions, pragmatism rather than abstract theory, a belief in human imperfection, and an organic view of society.

6. 6

   What is one-nation conservatism?

   Model answer

   It is the paternalist tradition associated with Disraeli, holding that the privileged have a duty to improve the condition of the poor in order to keep society united.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Political Parties in the UK revision questions

What does Political Parties in the UK cover in AQA A-Level Politics?

7 subtopics: party functions and the conservative party, labour: origins, clause iv and structure, the liberal democrats, party funding and short money, funding controversies, the media and electoral outcomes, two-party, multi-party and dominant-party systems and minor parties in uk politics. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Political Parties in the UK organised?

By the AQA 7152 specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.