The first three years of the twentieth century were a crucial time in the development of state-funded education in England. The rising tide of Germanophobia in the wake of the South African War impressed Conservative politicians with the need to improve England's educational system in order that she remain competitive in the world. With the aid of a very few Liberal imperialists, the Conservatives were able to shepherd through a series of bills which established state funded secondary schools throughout all of England, an expansion on the system created by the Education Act of 1870 in terms of both curriculum and breadth of jurisdiction. The Liberals opposed much of this legislation based on their allegiance to their nonconformist constituents, who viewed the expanse of state-funded schools as a threat to their voluntary schools and as an attempt to enforce Anglican uniformity. The fact that these MPs opposed these bills, and later modified them greatly when Liberal, and later Labour, governments came to power in the decade immediately preceding the first World War, should in no way diminish the importance of these pieces of Conservative legislation. This essay fits into the historiography of its topic in that it provides a detailed examination of debates which have often been overlooked due to historians' emphasis on the later Liberal legislation.

Democratic representation is crucial in a representative democracy. To elect representatives there are several different electoral systems. In the United Kingdom a majority system, the First past the post system, is used. This study aims to investigate how the First past the post system affects the democratic representation in the British parliament. Specifically, its focus is on how the democratic representation of the British political parties is affected.  This research is carried out by conducting a case study with the British parliament and the First past the post system as the studied case. The study is done by using textual analysis as the chosen method, where various texts are used as material to be able to reach a result.  The results showed several aspects of the First past the post system that affected the democratic representation regarding political parties. It suggested that theories such as Duverger’s law are applicable to the party representation in the British parliament, indicating that the First past the post system favours a two-party system where the representation of the other parties is flawed resulting in negatively skewed democratic representation.

C’est à tort qu’on a considéré que l’ordre juridique anglais ne connaît ou ne pourrait connaître un contrôle de la «loi». Si l’on y a vu une irréductible doctrine de la souveraineté du parlement, qui met en place un «règne de la légalité» froid et implacable, l’on a, en cela, méconnu le véritable sens de la common law, comme porteur d'une unique idée de «jurisdictio» à travers les temps, déployant un programme de droit tant herméneutique que fondamentalement constitutionnaliste, tout en étant en perpétuel devenir. La doctrine de la souveraineté du parlement tire sa reconnaissance d’une doctrine common law. Or, la «légalité», par ses postulats même, est prise au piège par un deuxième principe qui en émane, celui que nous nommons «principe de supra-légalité», du fait du contenu même de certains Actes du Parlement et de la considération que leur réserve la common law. Par ailleurs, la common law est celle qui a permis en sa «jurisdictio», la «Rule of Law», et par là, de s’assurer d'une «constitution common law». De son fait jurisprudentiel, comme dialectique et discours, elle vise une mise en œuvre perpétuelle en problématique permanente de toute norme supérieure. C'est ce qui caractérise le «principe de jurisprudentialité» qui s’ajoute ainsi à la «supra-légalité». Principes de légalité, de supra-légalité et de jurisprudentialité sont ceux qui façonnent alors le principe de constitutionnalité en cette constitution common law. La common law, seul gardien des principes intangibles du droit, autonome et auto-validée par sa Raison fut le premier modèle constitutionnaliste existant dans les droits modernes. / It has been one of the main legal misunderstandings of the modern world that the English legal system cannot admit of anyconstitutional review of laws. The prevailing idea colouring any vision ofits constituent parts has been marked by a cold anrlirreducible doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament which in turn has brought about a <Rule of Legality> narrowly definerl - far from being akin to any Diceyean <<Rule of Lawr (or Rule of (the' Law)- , thereby preventing any constitutionalist territory within its domain to be carved orrt. This half-truth has masked the real meaning of the common law, as spelling out over centuries, a unique idea of <jurisdictio>, underlying which is a programme polarized by a hermeneutic vision of itself as law-realisation, as well as being a constitutionalist backdrop to any legal system. The doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament derives its recognition from what can be termed as the <Principle of Jurisprudentiality>, the keystone of the <Common Law Constitution>>. Legality, in turn, hy its fundamentals, is caught in its own game, by an emerging superior principle, that of what is here termed <Supra-Legality>, if only owing to the content of Acts of Parliament themselves. The Common Law, the only guardian of intangible or immutable principles of law, autonomous and self-validating due to its Reason, did bring about a first constitutionalist model in the modern world. At all times, a constitutional review of laws has been carried out in the English legal system, albeit under different guises, now enhanced following the incorporation of the ECHR and community laws.

This thesis is focused on the development of the English and Scottish radical reform movement in the 1790s and analyzes the relationship between the British government and the radical reformers who endeavored for introduction of universal suffrage and annual parliaments. The thesis also emphasizes the reaction of a large part of the public, and especially the wealthy, who in fear of spreading the ideas of the French Revolution, decided to suppress the activities of the reformers through the so-called loyalist movement. The result of fear of loyalists from the threat of domestic Jacobinism was a wave of persecution, which ended with great political trials in Scotland and England in 1793 and 1794. The thesis is also focused on the question of the influence of the French Revolution on the activities of the reformers and explains to what extent, the ideas of republicanism prevailed among the radicals. The work also emphasizes that not only thoughts of the French Revolution but also an effect of the domestic reform tradition and Glorious Revolution had an impact on the ideas of the radical reformers. In addition, this thesis analyses also the activities of the reformers themselves, who founded in 1792 a number of new societies whose membership base consisted mainly of the working class. British...