Between 2017 and 2025, the Canadian House of Commons operated a Prime Minister’s Question Period procedure, introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In a new published article summarised here, Ruxandra Serban explores how this procedure worked, and how it differed from the traditional Question Period model.
Continue readingIn 2024 the French National Assembly initiated a trial period during which the country’s prime minister would answer questions in parliament alone, rather than together with their ministers, in a format similar to Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in the House of Commons. In this post, Calixte Bloquet and Ruxandra Serban explain why French politicians decided to go ahead with the experiment, and how the format of the French version of PMQs compares to similar procedures in other parliaments. A second post will then discuss how the trial went, and what can be learned from it.
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On 6 January, the Governor General of Canada granted a request for a two-month prorogation of parliament. A legal challenge was soon launched to have it declared unlawful. Steven Chaplin argues that the prorogation is perfectly proper, that it is highly unlikely that a Canadian court will rule it to be unlawful, and that comparisons with the Boris Johnson prorogation request in 2019 and the subsequent ‘Miller 2’ case do not hold up.
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The surprise general election may leave many suddenly nostalgic for the principle of fixed-term parliaments. The original central arguments for fixed terms have been reawakened. In this post, Meg Russell and Robert Hazell revisit these long-standing arguments, summarise the birth and death of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, and argue that – on the basis of UK and international experience – we should consider returning Westminster to fixed terms.
The lengthy and debilitating speculation about when Rishi Sunak might call the general election may have reminded many of the arguments in favour of fixed-term parliaments. His shock announcement on 22 May that such an election would take place in July only reinforces those views. This blog post revisits the arguments for fixed terms, reminds readers of how the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) was created and abolished, and argues for reintroduction of the principle of fixed terms – albeit with flexibility to allow early elections on occasion, as applies in many other democracies (and existed under the FTPA).
The arguments for fixed-term parliaments
The following is a summary of points in favour of the principle of fixed-term parliaments:
These are not our words; they are drawn (mostly verbatim) from the report of the cross-party parliamentary Joint Committee on the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (paragraph 17), published in March 2021. Based on recent experience, some of them may now feel very familiar.
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Political parties have access to an array of data that can potentially inform how they campaign. Kate Dommett, co-author of a new book on the subject, explains what data-driving campaigning is, the different ways in which parties use it, the problems it can cause, and how it might impact the next UK general election.
Imagine yourself running a party’s election campaign. Your mission in the run up to polling day is to develop a strategy for securing electoral victory or an increased vote share. You know that according to the latest social science research that campaigns can have important, if small effects on electoral outcomes. You know you will need to work to locate existing supporters and encourage them to turn out and cast their vote. You will also likely need to persuade undecided voters of the virtues of your party. And you will need to contact activists and motivate them to get involved in the campaign by donating money, attending campaign events or sharing party messages.
The key to all these activities is being able to communicate with the right audience. You do not want to be sending a reminder to vote to supporters of your opponents, and you do not want to waste money sending advertisements intended to persuade people who already plan to vote for you. You therefore need to gather and sort information about people’s voting behaviour to develop tailored messages. You also need to work out what messaging and mediums are most effective for achieving your desired goals. What slogans have the desired effect, what appeals prompt donations, and what campaign action most effectively reminds people to vote?
This form of campaigning is nothing new, but in recent years the availability of new forms of data, the emergence of new and more sophisticated techniques for profiling voters, and new mediums for contact are seen to have heralded a form of ‘data-driven campaigning’. Rather than relying on their gut instinct, party campaigners now use data and analytics insights to construct their campaign as never before. And yet, whilst increasingly common, our understanding of what exactly is captured by the term data-driven campaigning is often opaque.
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