Teachers are permitted to give 'reasonable assistance' to candidates which may be supporting candidates in their search for relevant sources of information, clarifying instructions and progress checks. 

Teachers are not permitted to give candidates 'ready-made' questions. Teachers are able to offer guidance on the choice of topic or question. Within such guidelines, we could consider the following as ideas for a choice of topic or question: 

• The legacy of Margaret Thatcher/Tony Blair/Benjamin Disraeli/Blair etc
• The purpose of the House of Lords. 
• The use of social media in political campaigning in the US/UK. 
• Brexit – the causes of the result/the impact on British politics. 
• Reform of the electoral system to a more proportional system. 
• Making voting compulsory in the UK 
• Should Britain adopt a written constitution? 
• Scottish Independence. 
• The impact of age/social class/media/geographical location on voting behaviour. 
• Threats to national security. 
• US/UK foreign policy. 
• The political impact of Covid-19 on the UK/China/USA/Italy.... 
• The importance of civil liberties and national security.
• The political causes of international terrorism. 
• The role of politicians in tackling climate change. 
• The role of the Supreme Court in the UK/USA in protecting human rights/civil liberties. 
• The causes/impact of the Arab Spring. 
• The rise of the Alt-right. 
• Public health v freedom of speech
• The impact of pressure groups in terms of enhancing democracy. 

Ideally you should choose an issue that has a variety of different viewpoints or ideas. It is advisable to consider three paragraph themes for the Assignment.

In order to generate ideas for an Assignment topic, access the videos in the Power section of the course, read newspapers and periodicals such as The New Statesman, Prospect, The New Internationalist and The Economist. 

You are very welcome to participate or just read the discussions in the Politics and International Relations Society section of this course. This may help you to generate ideas.

In addition, the following software tool may also be helpful. 

B-Link will enable you to create novel and interesting connections from a single keyword. You can then use the software to generate evocative images from these new connections, which further enhances your creativity and allows you to generate new ideas that you may not have explored otherwise.

1. Pick a keyword and type it into the box

2. Explore the connections suggested by the software and play with the number of minimum steps to find more distant connections.

3. Choose a connection that interests you and use the 'Search Path' tool to find other ways that the two words could be connected.