United kingdom - politics

United kingdom - politics

• The United Kingdom is a parliamentary monarchy based on an unwritten constitution and is thus adaptable to changing political conditions

• Britain is today governed by her majesty’s Government in the name of the queen and with the approval of Parliament

The monarch :
• Queen Elizabeth II., succeeded to the throne on February 6, 1952, on the death of her father King George VI.; the heir to the throne is her oldest son, Charles, Prince of Wales;

• the Monarch formally appoints the prime minister and government and other important persons, she chairs meeting regularly with the prime minister, receives accounts of cabinet decisions, signs state papers and dissolves the parliament

The executive :
• prime minister chooses his ministers (usually from the Commons) who create the cabinet, which decides and implements policy and coordinates government departments; it normally numbers between 15 to 20

The Parliament :
The monarch
The House of Lords (1036 peers) - can’t cancel the law but can discuss it for 1 year at most; made up of the lords temporal and the lords spiritual - hereditary peers and life peers :
lords temporal - law lords (judicial duties)
- other life peers appointed in recognition for their service in politics ...
lords spiritual -archbishops and bishops
The house of Commons (651 members) - are elected from gographical constituences by majority system, the voting age was lowered in 1969 to 18 years, its life is 5 years, dissolved by the sovereign

Political parties :
• the majority party forms Her (or His) Majesty's Government, and the second party is officially recognized as Her (or His) Majesty's Own Loyal Opposition
- the Labour party, generally socialist until the 1990s when it moved towards the political centre, began a programme of nationalization of selected industries after an overwhelming election victory in May 1945
- the Conservative party has favoured private enterprise with less state regulation
- other parties in the early 1990s included the Scottish Nationalist party and Plaid Cymru (Welsh nationalist), and the Northern Irish parties: the Ulster Unionist party, the Democratic Unionist party, the Social Democratic and Labour party, and Sinn Fein; all but Sinn Fein have representatives in the House of Commons