Still Rising: The Career Politician in the British House of Commons, the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet

There is a public perception that politicians in the United Kingdom are increasingly detached from the electorate due to the apparent increase in the number of ‘career politicians’ with a professional background in politics. This article examines the occupational backgrounds of successful candidates to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom between the 1997 and 2010 general elections, comparing the parliamentary compositions of the three main political parties (Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats) during this period, and the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet as of 2014. By evaluating original and secondary quantitative data, it is argued that professionalised politicians have increased in the House of Commons relative to other occupational backgrounds, and are even further disproportionately represented in the senior teams of each major party.

The Statute of Anne and the Great Abridgement Swindle

There are many things that we know about the Statute of Anne with reasonable certitude. We know that it was prefaced by a period of sustained lobbying on the part of the book trade. We know that on January 11, 1710 a bill was introduced in the House of Commons in response to this lobbying and that, less than three months later, on April 5, 1710, the act that is now commonly referred to as the Statute of Anne was passed. And we also know that the Act that was passed differed in many significant respects from the bill as it was originally introduced to parliament.
There are, however, many things that we don't - or can't - know about the Statute of Anne. This article considers one of those things that we don't or can't know; the extent to which the Act was intended to regulate the unauthorised production of derivative versions of published work (in this case, abridgements) if, indeed, it was intended to regulate the production of such works at all.