Predicted Mock Paper - Summer 2026
Prepared by David Clayton. Based on question-bank rotation analysis of 2019-2025 papers, specimen and 2023 Mock.
Question | Most likely question | Reasoning |
Q1(a) | PM and Executive (source) | PM and Executive has not been a Q1 source since 2023. Starmer's first full year in office offers fresh material on the centre of government. |
Q1(b) | Parliament (source) | Parliament was Q1a in 2024 (elected Lords) but the scrutiny angle, especially post Covid select-committee reforms, is due. |
Q2(a) | Constitution (codification / reform) | 2025 covered 'constitution working effectively' and English Parliament. A direct codification question has not been asked at essay level for several cycles. |
Q2(b) | Judiciary / Devolution | Judiciary was last asked at essay level in 2023 Mock Q2b. Alternatively devolution beyond the English Parliament angle. |
Section B - Anarchism | Human nature / future society | 2024 and 2025 both focused on the collectivist vs individualist split on liberty and society. Human nature assumptions are due again. |
Section B - Ecologism | State and economy | 2024 and 2025 focused on anthropocentrism and internal disagreement. The state and the transition economy angle is now overdue. |
Section B - Feminism | Role of the state | 2025 was sex and gender, public and private. State-vs-society angle (last big ask in 2021) is due. |
Section B - Multiculturalism | Integration and diversity | Culture and identity done in 2025. Integration-diversity balance is the classic rotation next. |
Section B - Nationalism | Progressive vs regressive | 2024 asked about inclusive nationalism; 2025 asked about the nation-state. Progressive-regressive was last seen in 2023. It is due. |
Q1(a) Using the source, evaluate the view that modern Prime Ministers rely more on their inner circle of advisers than on the Cabinet.
Q1(b) Using the source, evaluate the view that Parliament is now more effective at scrutinising the executive than at any time in recent decades.
Q2(a) Evaluate the view that the codification of the UK constitution would do more harm than good. (30)
Q2(b) Evaluate the view that the Supreme Court has become too political a body. (30)
Q3(a) To what extent do anarchists agree about human nature?
(b) To what extent is an anarchist society achievable in modern conditions?
Q4(a) To what extent are ecologists divided on the role of the state in delivering change?
(b) To what extent do ecologists agree that capitalism must be replaced?
Q5(a) To what extent do feminists disagree about the role of the state in achieving gender equality?
(b) To what extent is feminism more divided than united over its view of human nature?
Q6(a) To what extent do multiculturalists agree about the balance between integration and diversity? (b) To what extent does multiculturalism fundamentally reject liberal values?
Q7(a) To what extent is nationalism inherently regressive?
(b) To what extent do nationalists disagree over the role of the state?
Time: 2 hours. The total mark for this paper is 84.
Section A: answer Question 1(a) OR 1(b), and Question 2(a) OR 2(b).
Section B: answer either Question 3(a) or 3(b), Question 4(a) or 4(b), Question 5(a) or 5(b), Question 6(a) or 6(b), or Question 7(a) or 7(b).
Source 1(a)
Source 1(a) considers the relationship between the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the informal inner circle of advisers and staff at the centre of government. |
The modern Prime Minister rarely reaches a decision in Cabinet. Most weighty choices are thrashed out in the Prime Minister's office, in bilateral meetings with a Chancellor or Chief of Staff, and in smaller Cabinet committees populated by close allies. Under Starmer, the Number 10 operation has been reshaped around a Chief of Staff and a National Security Adviser with greater power over policy direction than most Cabinet Secretaries of State. Special advisers draft the lines, set the media grid and, increasingly, shape the agenda that Cabinet is then invited to endorse. This centralisation is partly driven by speed. A 24-hour media environment, permanent security concerns and a large civil service all push decisions towards a small group that can act quickly. Prime Ministers who have tried to govern through full Cabinet discussion, as Theresa May attempted on Brexit, have found the method slow, leaky and indecisive. Cabinet government, on this reading, is a constitutional fiction that never survives contact with a modern premiership. However, the inner circle only works while the Prime Minister is politically strong. Boris Johnson's reliance on Dominic Cummings turned into a liability once the Cabinet turned against him. Liz Truss lasted weeks when her Chancellor's mini-budget bypassed Treasury orthodoxy. Rishi Sunak governed a Cabinet whose Brexit hardliners he could not ignore. Starmer, despite a commanding majority, has had to rethink welfare proposals after backbench and Cabinet pushback. The inner circle may draft decisions but Cabinet remains the place where political authority is either confirmed or withdrawn. Ministers who feel frozen out begin to leak, resign or plot. In this sense, Cabinet government is rarely where decisions are made but is almost always where premierships are ended. |
Using the source, evaluate the view that modern Prime Ministers rely more on their inner circle of advisers than on the Cabinet.
In your response you must:
(Total for Question: 30 marks)
Source 1(b)
Source 1(b) looks at whether Parliament is now stronger in holding the executive to account than it was a generation ago. |
Parliamentary scrutiny has been transformed since the Wright reforms of 2010. Elected select committee chairs have built cross-party reputations for forensic questioning of ministers and officials. Hearings with Chancellors, Home Secretaries and regulators are now routinely broadcast and quoted in the press. The Backbench Business Committee has given MPs control of part of the timetable, and urgent questions have become a daily tool of pressure. The Lords has used its long experience and cross-bench expertise to defeat government bills hundreds of times since 2010, from tax-credit cuts to legislation on immigration and protest. Despite this, the government still owns most of the legislative time, controls Public Bill Committees through a whipped majority, and can overturn Lords amendments in the Commons. Prime Minister's Questions remains a contest of soundbites rather than scrutiny, and many select committee recommendations are quietly ignored. Ministers have increasingly avoided the Commons, preferring to announce policy to the media first and answer questions later. Nonetheless, when compared with the 1980s and 1990s, the contemporary Parliament is markedly more active. MPs are less tribal, more willing to rebel, and better resourced than their predecessors. The 2017-2019 Parliament showed how even a minority-led executive can be forced to change course on Brexit timing, prorogation and policy detail. The Lords has grown in assertiveness even as its legitimacy is questioned. Some argue that this has made government less coherent, not more accountable. Others reply that an executive that actually has to explain itself is the precondition for democratic government rather than an obstacle to it. |
Using the source, evaluate the view that Parliament is now more effective at scrutinising the executive than at any time in recent decades.
In your response you must:
(Total for Question: 30 marks)
Evaluate the view that the codification of the UK constitution would do more harm than good.
(Total for Question: 30 marks)
Evaluate the view that the Supreme Court has become too political a body.
(Total for Question: 30 marks)
Answer one question.
Question 3(a) To what extent do anarchists agree about human nature? (24)
OR
Question 3(b) To what extent is an anarchist society achievable in modern conditions? (24)
Question 4(a) To what extent are ecologists divided on the role of the state in delivering environmental change? (24)
OR
Question 4(b) To what extent do ecologists agree that capitalism must be replaced rather than reformed? (24)
Question 5(a) To what extent do feminists disagree about the role of the state in achieving gender equality? (24)
OR
Question 5(b) To what extent is feminism more divided than united over its view of human nature? (24)
Question 6(a) To what extent do multiculturalists agree about the balance between integration and diversity? (24)
OR
Question 6(b) To what extent does multiculturalism fundamentally reject liberal values? (24)
Question 7(a) To what extent is nationalism inherently regressive? (24)
OR
Question 7(b) To what extent do nationalists disagree over the role of the state? (24)
TOTAL FOR PAPER: 84 MARKS