Theme 3. British and American political system. Great Britain and the USA: people and society.
The political system of the UK.
A) The organs of government (the legislature, the executive, the judiciary).
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a constitutional monarchy. It is a unitary state.
As a matter of fact there is no constitution in the UK in the sense of the basic law of the country, written in a single document. The UK constitution is formed partly by statutes, and partly by conventions. The organs of government in the United Kingdom are:
1. the legislature which consists of the Queen (the supreme authority of the realm) and Parliament (the main law-making body);
2. the executive branch which consists of a) the Cabinet and other ministers of the Crown, b) government departments, and c) local authorities;
3. the judiciary (law courts) which determines common law and interprets the laws.
B) The monarchy. Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. The queen’s role. The royal family.
Britain is a constitutional monarchy. This means that the monarch, at the moment Queen Elizabeth II, is the Head of State. The Queen is also head of the judiciary and of the Church of England, as well as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The Queen is the personification of the state. Her face is on all British bank notes, coins and postage stamps. The Queen’s title is “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”.
The Queen’s constitutional role, however, is mainly symbolic. True power lies in the hands of the Prime Minister and his or her Cabinet. It is the Queen who formally opens Parliament every autumn, but the speech she makes from the throne, giving details of the government’s future plans, is written for her by politicians. Nothing becomes British law without the monarch’s signature, but the Queen would never refuse to sign a bill which has been passed by Parliament. It is the Queen who officially appoints the Prime Minister, but traditionally she always asks the leader of the party with a majority in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister visits Buckingham Palace every Tuesday and informs the Queen of all state affairs.
The most important function of the Queen is ceremonial. On great occasions, such as the State Opening of Parliament, she is driven through the streets in a golden carriage, guarded by soldiers. She gives a state banquet, usually in her home Buckingham Palace, when foreign monarchs or Heads of State visit Britain and soldiers dressed in eighteenth-century uniforms help her welcome them. The Queen is head of the Commonwealth (a group of former and present-day British colonies). As head of the Commonwealth, she meets and entertains prime ministers of the member states.
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Since Elizabeth II came to the throne in 1952, she has represented Britain in visits to most parts of the world. Prime Ministers come and go, but she carries on above politics, a symbol of British traditions. Today the Queen is not only head of state, but also an important symbol of national unity.
The surname of the royal family is Windsor. This might sound very British, but the royal family’s ancestors were German. The present Queen’s great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria (1819-1910), was born in Britain, but her mother and her husband were both German. When Queen Victoria got married, she became a Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The British royal family continued with this surname until the First World War (1914-1918) when King George V (1865-1936) decided to adopt the more English-sounding name of Windsor. In fact, Windsor is the name of one of their castles.
Nowadays the Royal Family includes the Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, her three sons (Princes Charles, Andrew, Edward) and a daughter (Princess Anne), her grandchildren and cousins.
There are many colourful ceremonies that involve the royal family, and members of the family often visit towns and institutions all over the UK and in other countries. Stories about them often appear in newspapers and on television, and many people like and respect them. Apart from the Queen, the most popular members of the royal family include Princess Anne (who does a lot of work for charity organizations), and Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. However, the royal family became less popular during the 1990s, especially when people found out that Prince Charles was having a relationship with another woman, and because of the end of his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales. People think that the royal family have old-fashioned and very traditional values.
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