Last week’s opposition day debate in the House of Commons about Gaza and Israel was overshadowed by a bitter procedural row over the Speaker’s selection of amendments. But the rules governing opposition days – and their role in allowing these arguments – are not straightforward. Tom Fleming discusses the procedural background and implications. The background ..read more

Healthy political discourse is vital for democracies to function well. In this post, Alan Renwick and Tom Fieldhouse set out five key elements of such discourse, highlight barriers that may be making achieving it increasingly difficult, and propose steps that policy-makers and others could take to support it. Background Healthy political discourse is a core feature of a well-functioning ..read more

Increasing the amount of money that political parties can spend during election campaigns might not sound sensible, but as Justin Fisher explains, the government’s proposal to do so seems reasonable in principle, but must be implemented with care to avoid disproportionately benefiting the two most popular parties. On 20 July, Michael Gove, the Secretary of ..read more

Today sees the publication of a new book by the Unit’s Meg Russell and Lisa James, The Parliamentary Battle over Brexit. Here the authors summarise some of its key findings about why parliament was drawn into such controversy over the implementation of Brexit. They reflect on what these events teach us about our constitution, as ..read more

Lords appointments are back in the news, with rumours of resignation honours from Boris Johnson, and even possibly Liz Truss. The current unregulated system of prime ministerial patronage causes multiple problems, and new Constitution Unit polling shows widespread public demand for change. Meg Russell reviews the problems and possible solutions, in the context of a ..read more