The Electoral System

The United Kingdom is divided into 650 parliamentary constituencies, each with an electorate of about 60,000 voters. Each British citizen over eighteen has the vote (except prisoners, lords and the mentally ill). Each constituency is represented by one Member of Parliament in the House of Commons.

Any number of candidates can stand for election in each constituency. The main political parties are usually represented, and sometimes candidates representing minority parties stand. The winner is the candidate who gets more votes than any other single candidate, even if the difference is only one vote. This "first past the post" system is clear, familiar and simple, but it means that the candidate who comes second gets nothing. In 1987 for example, the Liberal/SDP Alliance received 23.1 per cent of the total vote but won only 22 seats (3.5 per cent) in Parliament.

The leader of the party with most seats becomes Prime Minister and forms a government, which can remain in power for up to five years. The second biggest party becomes the official Opposition. Its leader forms a "Shadow Cabinet".

The Prime Minister chooses the date of the next General Election, but does not have to wait until the end of the five years. A time is chosen which will give as much advantage as possible to the political party in power. Other politicians and the newspapers try very hard to guess which date the Prime Minister will choose.

About a month before the election the Prime Minister meets a small group of close advisers to discuss the date which would best suit the party. The date is announced to the Cabinet. The Prime Minister formally asks the Sovereign to dissolve Parliament. Once Parliament is dissolved, all MPs are unemployed, but government officers continue to function.

Party manifestos are published and campaigning begins throughout the country, lasting for about three weeks with large-scale press, radio and television coverage.

Voting takes place on Polling Day (usually a Thursday). The results from each constituency are announced as soon as the votes have been counted, usually the same night. The national result is known by the next morning at the latest.

As soon as it is clear-that one party has a majority of seats in the House of Commons; its leader is formally invited by the Sovereign Го form a government. The modern government is arranged in about fifteen departments each with a minister at its head. Normally, all the heads of departments are members of the House of Commons, though sometimes one is in the House of Lords. They form the cabinet, which meets about once a week in Number 10 Downing Street, a rather ordinary-looking house which also contains the Prime Minister' personal office.

Since 1945 the Conservatives and Labour have been either the Government or the Opposition. Margaret Thatcher dominated British politics throughout the 1980s: she was Britain's first woman Prime Minister, leader of the ruling Conservative Party and the longest-serving Prime Minister of this century. In 1990 Thatcher was replaced as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party by John Major.

The Parties

The British democratic system depends on political parties, and there has been a party system of some kind since the 17th century. The Conservative and Liberal Parties are the oldest and until the last years of the 19th century they were the only parties elected to the House of Commons.

The Conservatives, often called the Tories, have always been the party of the Right, the party of big business, industry, commerce and landowners. It can broadly be described as the party of the middle and upper classes although it does receive some working class support. Most of its voters live in rural areas, small towns and the suburbs of large cities. Much of its financial support comes from large industrial companies. The party represents those who believe in private enterprise as opposed to state-owned undertakings.

The Tories were opposed by the Whigs, a rude name for cattle drivers. In the middle of the 19th century the Liberal Party (or the Whigs) represented the trading and manufacturing classes. Its slogan of that time was "Civil and Religious Liberty". During the second half of the 19th century many working people looked at the Liberal Party as an alternative to the Conservatives and their policy. At the end of the 19th century and in the first two decades of the 20th, the Liberals lost the support of working-class voters.

Around 1900 the Labour Party was formed as the political arm of the trade unions. It was the party that drew away working people's support. In 1906 the Labour Party managed to get twenty-nine representatives elected to Parliament, but it wasn't until 1945 that Britain had its first Labour Government. The Labour Party has always had strong links with the trade unions and receives financial support from them. While many Labour voters are middle-class or intellectuals, the traditional Labour Party support is still strongest in industrial areas.

In 1981 some Conservative and Labour MPs left their own parties to form a new "left-of-centre" party – the Social Democratic Party (SDP) – which they hoped would win enough support to break the two-party system of the previous forty years. They fought the 1983 election in an alliance with the Liberals, but only a small number of their MPs were elected. In 1987 the two parties of the Alliance agreed to merge to form a new party, the Liberal Democrats, although some Social Democrats preferred to remain independent.

There are also some other parties: The Green Party, the Communist Party, the National Front, the Scottish National Party, and the Welsh National Party.

Newspapers.

Fleet Street in London used to be the home of most national daily and Sunday newspapers. People often said "Fleet Street" to mean "the press". Today the old image of London's Fleet Street as the centre of the newspaper printing and publishing world has changed, and in fact all the big newspapers have moved from Fleet Street to more modern premises.

More daily newspapers are sold per person in the UK than in almost any other country: there are twelve national daily newspapers and evelen national Sunday ones. While the more serious newspapers, also called quality papers (for example, the "Daily Telegraph", the "Guardian", "The Times", the "Independent", the "Financial Times", the "Sunday Times", the "Observer", etc), have a lot of home and international news, some of the more popular "tabloids" (so called because of their size, for example, the "Sun", the "Daily Mirror", the "Daily Mail", the "Daily Express", the "Daily Star", etc) concentrate on the more spectacular and scandalous aspects of life in Britain.

Although newspaper sales have fallen slightly over the past few years, newspapers have an important effect on public opinion. Most British newspapers are owned by big business and although they are not directly linked to political parties, there are strong connections. The majority of newspapers – even those which carry serious news – are conservative in outlook.

Running a newspaper is an expensive and competitive business and several newspapers started and failed during the 1980s.

Radio and Television.Broadcasting in the United Kingdom is controlled by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). The BBC receives its income from the government, but the private companies controlled by the IBA earn money from advertising.

BBC Radio broadcasts five national services to the United Kingdom plus regional services in Wales (including programmes in Welsh), Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are:

Radio 1: pop and rock music;

Radio 2: light music, drama, documentaries and sport;

Radio 3: classical music, drama, documentaries and cricket;

Radio 4: news, documentaries, drama and entertainment and educational programmes for schools and adults;

Radio 5: sport, educational programmes and children's programmes.

Watching television is one of the great British pastimes! By the middle of the 1980s there were four channels on British TV: BBC1 and BBC2 plus the two independent channels, ITV and Channel 4. Independent channels get their income from advertisements but there is no advertising on the BBC channels: instead the BBC's revenue comes from licence fees, payable by everybody who has a television, plus some additional funds from Parliament. Both the BBC and ITV sell programmes overseas which adds to their revenue.

The BBC is incorporated under a Royal Charter, which means it is a state organization but not government controlled. The first television broadcasts began in 1936. The Independent Television Authority was created by Act of Parliament in 1954 to provide an additional television broadcasting service. Commercial television consists of fifteen ITV programme companies providing programmes in fourteen different regions. An increasing number of programmes are now made by independent production companies. A 2nd BBC channel (BBC2) began broadcasting in 1964 and a 2nd commercial channel (Channel 4) in 1982.

In general, people think the programmes offered on British television are of a very high standard. Some people, however, are becoming worried about the amount of violence on TV, and the effect this may have on young people.

TV and radio are also two of the main teaching channels used by the Open University. This "university of the air" allows many thousands of students to study at home for degrees they never would have obtained in the main educational system. They also have to do without sleep as most of their programmes are broadcast early in the morning or late at night!

New technology has made it possible for viewers to receive many more programmes into their homes through sattelite TV. The 1990s may well see many changes in British TV and Radio.

British TV has an international reputation for producing programmes of a high quality such as documentaries, nature programmes, comedies and drama series and according to the government there should be a combination of "competition, quality and choice" in any plans for the future of TV. However, not everyone agrees that more TV means better TV and it has been argued that the standard of programmes may drop in the future with companies concentrating on making programmes with a mass appeal such as soap operas, quiz shows, and situation comedies. "Minority" programmes, such as many of those broadcast on BBC2 and Channel 4, might disappear.

THE PURITANS. After Elizabeth became Queen, a group of Protestants wanted to "purify" the Church of England of all Roman Catholic influence. These people were called Puritans – they were the English Protestants. They dressed very simply and believed that all pleasures, such as fine clothes and the theatre, were wicked.

When James I was King (1603 – 1625) the Puritans were often put in prison and sometimes even killed. Some of them decided to leave England to find freedom in a new country.

They sailed from Plymouth in 1620 in a ship called "Mayflower", and these "Pilgrim Fathers" – as they were called – started a new life in America,

Under the rule of James Fs son, Charles I, the Puritans were treated even worse. Many people sympathized with the Puritans, and the Court was unpopular because it was suspected of being a centre of Roman Catholicism. (This was because Charles's wife was a Roman Catholic). This religious split between the Puritans and the Court was one cause of the outbreak of civil war in 1628 and the eventual execution of Charles I. Following this, from 1649 to 1660, Britain was a republic for a short while.

RELIGION TODAY. The Church of England – or the Anglican Church – is still the established church in England, and the British king or queen is still head of the Church. There are, however, many other churches to which people belong: for example Roman Catholics (6 million) and the basically protestant Methodists (1,150,000), Congregationalists (372,000), Baptists (338,000) and other smaller groups. The Methodists and Baptists are particularly strong in Wales.

In Scotland the Presbyterian Church (called the Kirk) is the established church and it is completely separate from the Church of England. The Presbyterian Church is based on a strict form of Protestantism which was taught by a French reformer, Calvin, and brought to Scotland by John Knox.

Although there is a complete religious freedom in Britain today, there is still tension between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, where religion is still caught up with politics.

Britain's immigrants have also brought with them their own religions which they continue to practice. There are Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs from the Indian subcontinent, Rastafarians from the West Indies, and the largest group of Jews living in Europe.

In spite of the great variety of forms of worship, only a minority of people regularly go to church in Britain today. Most people see Sunday as a day for relaxing with the family or for doing jobs around the house and the garden.

[1] the latter half of the 5th century – вторая половина V века

[2] years to come – грядущие годы

[3] The Venerable Bede ['venərəbl 'bi:d] – Достопочтенный Беда;

[4] Alcuin [æl'kwFn]

[5] Egbert ['egbət]

[6] from that time on – с того времени