Niamh Thompson

  The UK electoral system is named first past the post, where in the election the person with the highest number of votes wins the seat, no matter the percentage of votes they got, or how close the other candidates were to the winning candidate in number of votes. Then, the party with the most seats forms the government.   A key issue with first past the post as a voting system is that it tends to favour a two-party system, where two parties are fairly equally matched in terms of competing in the election, and there is a rotation of the two of them forming the government. This is clear in that since 1922 only the Conservative and Labour party have formed the government in the UK. This could be argued as being a coincidence, or because they are simply the most popular parties, however, first past the post favours the larger parties meaning they are the main parties who have representation. This creates a less legitimate government, as those who vote for a minor party are le...

Too little, too late: the government has scrapped the algorithm that decided thousands of students’ grades for A-Levels this week, but many students don’t feel this is enough to reverse the damage already done. On 17 August, after nearly a week of students and teachers protesting, the decision was announced to reverse the 40% of results downgraded by Ofqual, meaning A-Level results would be based entirely on teacher predictions, rather than the so called ‘algorithm’. The 40% of downgraded students tended to be from state schools, with not a single pupil from Eton, the most well-known private school, having a grade downgraded. The ‘algorithm’ was announced when the government released their strategy to give students grades without them sitting exams, due to COVID-19, and it was said to combine teacher predictions with the school/college’s past performance in those subject areas. This seemed a good idea initially, as it would ensure schools didn’t inflate pupils’ grades in order to i...