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That the public distrusts politicians is prevalent in both polling and academic literature (Uberoi & Apostolova, 2017; van der Meer, 2017; YouGov, 2017a, 2017b). Whether it's true that politicians cannot actually be trusted is really immaterial. If McCombs (2004) and Lippman (1922) are correct, and the media has an enormous impact on public opinion simply by establishing this dire narrative, then the perception of mistrust has become fact. Citizens are disengaged, misinformed, and weary. Politicians issue statements to meet political expediencies. Trust is a critical component of democracy, and only by behaving in a substantively new manner can politicians restore it. The irony is that this image cannot be artificially constructed; they must behave naturally and re-introduce themselves to a public sceptical of media training and spin. To restore trust they must present themselves as they truly are. They must behave authentically. This thesis examines the tweets made by UK MPs during 2011 and 2012 (n=774,467) for evidence of authenticity and establishes behavioural models that identify authentic talk in large Twitter datasets. The analytical .framework that defines authenticity and informs the content analysis is broadly based on the prior work examining authentic behaviour in reality TV conducted by Coleman (2006) that reveals performative characteristics that audiences are drawn to; Hall's (2009) examination of the good and bad effects of mediated communication on reality TV audiences; Liebes's (2001) examination of sincerity and humility in the performance of authenticity by politicians; Montgomery's (2001b) work examining the presence of authenticity in the press behaviour of UK MPs and his examination of Goffman's relevance to mediated communication (Montgomery, 2001a). This study also challenges Goffman's Dramaturgical theory which positions public communication either on stage or backstage by suggesting that the backstage is now performed onstage (Goffman, 1959, 1981). Additionally, this content analysis is informed by Henneberg and Scammell's examination of how competing perceptions of democratic theory can be used to evaluate a politician's political marketing techniques (Henneberg, Scammell, & O'Shaughnessy, 2009) and positions the behavioural models within these techniques. It is also important to note that the 774,467 tweets subjected to a quantitative and qualitative content analysis, as far as can be established, is the only large-scale longitudinal study of parliamentary Twitter behaviour.

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Under the Labour governments of 1997–2010, Britain's economic immigration policy was transformed from one of the most restrictive to one of the most liberal in Europe. This development was especially puzzling given the noted path dependence of immigration policy, as well as the absence of any public demand for liberalisation. Based on over 40 elite interviews coupled with document and archival analysis, the thesis sets out to explain why economic immigration policy changed so radically in Britain between 1997 and 2010 by examining how organised interests, political parties and the institutional context influenced policy and policy change. The thesis argues that policy change was a result of a combined set of favourable conditions. The overarching change in the policy framework was also not preconceived and the repercussions were not intended. The shift in policy framing was a consequence of an accumulation of policy reforms from different departments with different agendas. However, the logic and idea behind the policy reforms were fundamentally underpinned by the Labour Party's third way framework, in particular the Party's business-friendly approach and its fixation with globalisation. The thesis demonstrates that immigration policymaking in Britain is an elite-driven pursuit, that the institutional context is pertinent to explaining policy change and that parties, and the ideas which configure them, shape immigration policy.

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This study examines intra-party power in the Liberal Democrats, looking at the formal role and remit of the various sectors that make up the party bureaucracy, and evaluating the exercise of power with regard to policy, campaigning and the use of resources. It is interested in two overarching questions: has the party professionalised, and has power moved toward the top? If so could this have had an impact on its electoral success? The theoretical context for this study is a well-established tradition of scholarship on party organisation going back to Moise Ostrogorski (1902) and Robert Michels (1911). The hierarchical nature of party organisations has been a constant refrain in this literature, especially in respect of major parties that are serious contenders for governmental office (McKenzie 1963; Kirchheimer 1966; Panebianco 1988; Katz & Mair 1995). This thesis offers a test of these theories by applying them to a smaller party that gradually evolved from a party of opposition to a party of government. While the incentives for intra-party centralisation are clear in office-seeking parties (the leadership requires maximum autonomy in order to devise and adapt a competitive strategy), this research explores whether it is a necessary precursor to electoral success. It will test whether the party has become more professional, or top-down, by looking at the policy making process, at the way the party campaigns, and at its distribution of resources. Finally the thesis examines the role of intra-party politics in achieving and maintaining the coalition with the Conservatives negotiated in May 2010. The research spans the lifetime of the party from 1988 to present day, and relies on an extensive series of semi-structured interviews with 70 individuals connected to the party including prominent politicians, senior staff and ordinary members. It argues that the party has become significantly more professional during this time, and that this was a contributory factor in delivering office.

This thesis examines the extent of turnout decline at general elections since 1992. Its first contribution is to reveal that turnout decline amongst the youngest age groups was significantly more pronounced in the period 1992-2001 than for other age groups. The central argument is that there are sufficient grounds for suspecting that life-cycle factors cannot alone account for the unprecedented decline in turnout between 1992 and 2001, and that generational factors may be at work. The second contribution of the thesis is to test a variety of explanatory models of political participation on these youngest groups to ascertain if the results provide any insights of the dynamics of a suspected generational change. The thesis argues that a weakening of the psychological anchors to social and political life have left recent generations exposed and more susceptible than their older counterparts to factors that have been shown to decrease the likelihood of voting such as weakness of electoral competition; little perceived difference between political parties and an environment of negative images of politics and politicians.

This thesis explores how poor, single mothers on benefits experienced discourses of welfare and social exclusion within the context of New Labour's policy measures. This research is based on thirty-six months ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2007 and 2011 on a housing estate in the South of England among single mothers on benefits. The researcher studied how New Labour social policy initiatives had an impact on their lives. This study argues that while social exclusion and its flexibility constituted a tool to explore multi-dimensional aspects of poverty, the same term had come to entail a much more narrow focus under New Labour. The effects of such a shift in terms of providing services to mothers on benefits provided the framework through which the participants viewed dominant discourses on welfare and social exclusion. In doing so this thesis exposes the contestations and tensions that permeate much of these discourses. In interviews and discussions carried out during the fieldwork, many women located described the official political discourse as an external phenomenon with which they strategically engage, while also internalising it and accepting it as an accurate representation of social reality. On the other hand, most participants critically engaged with the dominant discourse and almost all traversed a tightrope of moral evaluation. This study argues that the importance of placing the experiences of single mothers on benefits in the context of welfare reform measures cannot be overestimated because it offers an understanding of how different social groups experience new social policies. It also suggests the possibility to evaluate the the deeper societal struggles and it constitutes an opportunity to reform existing economic, political and social structures. This thesis shows that the tendency to morally condemn poor and unemployed citizens has been part of social policy landscape in the United Kingdom for a very long time. These include ongoing changes to the welfare system, focusing on key elements such as penalising the unemployed and privatising public services.