Democracy in Britain in 1918
A country is democratic only when all of their citizens have access to
the political process and their voting system is fair. Also, it is
democratic when the government is accountable to the voters and voters
have the right of choice in elections. Democracy is a government of
the people, by the people, for the people. This included: fairness,
accountability, choice, access to information, party organisation, the
right to vote and the opportunity to become an MP.
The political system round about the 1850’s was full of corruption and
unfairness. Elections were ran by bribery because MP’s used to pay
voters off and because voting was just a matter of raising your hand
candidates would be able to see who voted for them or not. The
political system favoured the wealthy in many ways: there was a
requirement that no man could stand for election unless he owned land
worth £610. Also, it was mainly the rich that could vote so the
country was basically being run by the better off. However, gradually
democracy was extended in the political system. This was done by a
series of reforms.
Fairness was incorporated when the secret ballot was introduced by the
ballot act 1872. No longer could Mp’s openly bribe people however, it
didn’t stop them trying. Also, the redistribution of Acts ballot in
1885 got rid of the rotten boroughs and evenly spread out MP’s. Now
large working class cities had at least some form of representation. A
Corrupt and Illegal practices Act was also passed so that people could
vote for who they liked and so the government would be by the people.
However, this could not be because working class people could still
not become MP’s and not many working classes had the vote. A country
is not democratic if working class were not properly represented in
the House of Commons. This was changed when the property qualification
for MP’s was abolished in 1858. It was not only the extremely wealthy
could become members of parliament but because it cost so much to run