LECTURE 4.

COMPREHENSION TEST

The United Kingdom is a unitary state with devolution (delegation of power) that is
governed within the framework of a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy in
which the monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, is the ________while the Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom, currently Boris Johnson, is the _______.
HM government stands for __________ Government.
The British monarch, currently Queen Elizabeth II, is the head of state of the United
Kingdom
and the Commonwealth, so she is the Queen of _______ countries such as Australia, Canada, New
Zealand, etc. and formerly she was the Queen of many more countries including Pakistan, Cyprus,
India, Barbados, Sri Lanka and Zambia etc.

Legislative power
History (dates).
______ King John put his seal on Magna Carta and agreed to a list of 63 rules prepared by a
group of barons. This assured that no one, not even the king, is above the law.
________First English Parliament (Simon Montford invited the representatives of towns and
counties to his Parliament)
______ English Bill of Rights guaranteed the rights of Parliament
_______ Parliaments of England and Scotland merged (Great Britain)
Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher were the conservative or labour ? PM
Boris Johnson is currently Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the
Conservative or Labour ? Party

The UK Parliament is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom (i.e., there is
parliamentary sovereignty), and is bicameral, consisting of the ______________ and___________.
There are also devolved Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and a devolved Assembly in Northern
Ireland, with varying degrees of legislative authority.
House of Commons
The Countries of the United Kingdom are divided into parliamentary constituencies of
broadly equal population by the four Boundary Commissions. Each constituency elects a Member
of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons at general elections and, if required, at by-elections.
As of 2010 there are ________ constituencies.
_________ is a proposal for a new law or changes to an existing law.
Green paper or White? paper is a proposal, which represents the government’s idea about
future policy
Green paper or White? paper outlines the firm plan of government’s policy usually after
public discussions of an idea

House of Lords
The House of Lords was previously a largely hereditary aristocratic chamber, although
including life peers, and Lords Spiritual. It is currently midway through extensive reforms, the most
recent of these being enacted in the House of Lords Act 1999. The house consists of two very
different types of member, ___________and ________________.

Executive power
Executive power is exercised by the_______________, on behalf of and by the consent of
the monarch, and the devolved (delegated) governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
 The monarch appoints a Prime Minister as the head of Her Majesty's Government in the
United Kingdom, guided by the strict convention that the Prime Minister should be the member of
the House of Commons most likely to be able to form a Government with the support of that House.
In practice, this means that the leader of the political party with an absolute ____________of seats
in the House of Commons is chosen to be the Prime Minister.
England is divided into 9 governmental regions: Creater London, South East England, South
West England, East of England, East Midland, North West England, West Midlands, Yorkshire
and the Humber and North East England.
The Scottish Government is responsible for all issues that are not explicitly reserved to the
United Kingdom Parliament at Westminster, by the Scotland Act; including NHS Scotland,
education, justice, rural affairs, and transport.
The Welsh Government and Senedd Cymru – Welsh Parliament have more limited powers
than those devolved to Scotland,
The Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly have powers closer to those already devolved
to Scotland.

Electoral system
The United Kingdom is divided into _______ parliamentary constituencies, each with an
electorate of about 60,000 voters. Each British citizen over _____ has the vote (although voting is
not compulsory). Each constituency is represented by one MP in the House of Commons.
The winner of the election is the candidate who gets more votes than any other single
candidate, even if the difference is only one vote. This is the___________________. This system is
used for general elections to the House of Commons, and also for some local government elections
in England and Wales.
The leader of the party with most seats becomes _____________and forms a Government,
which can remain in power for up to five years unless the Prime Minister decides to hold an earlier
election. The second biggest party becomes the official ____________. Its leader forms a "Shadow
Cabinet".
Political Parties.
____________(Tories) won 365 seats at the 2019 general election and had a majority,
forming the first majority government since 2015-17.
Historically, the party has been the mainland party most pre-occupied by British Unionism,
as attested to by the party's full name, the Conservative & Unionist Party. The unionist tendency is
still in evidence today, manifesting sometimes as a scepticism or opposition to devolution, firm
support for the continued existence of the United Kingdom in the face of movements advocating
independence from the UK, and a historic link with the cultural unionism of Northern Ireland.

___________ (Whigs) won the second-largest number of seats in the House of Commons at
the 2019 general election, with 202 seats overall, 60 seats less than 2017.
The history of the Labour Party goes back to 1900, when a Labour Representation
Committee was established and changed its name to "The Labour Party" in 1906. After the First
World War, this led to the demise of the Liberal Party as the main reformist force in British politics.
The existence of the Labour Party on the left-wing of British politics led to a slow waning of energy
from the Liberal Party, which has consequently assumed third place in national politics. After
performing poorly at the general elections of 1922, 1923 and 1924, the Liberal Party was
superseded by the Labour Party as being the party of the left.
______________won the third-largest number of seats in the House of Commons at the
2015 general election, winning 56 MPs from the 59 constituencies in Scotland having won 50% of
the popular vote. This was an increase of 50 MPs on the result achieved in 2010.
___________ (1993) is a radical right-wing populist party

Uncodified Constitution
6 Sources of the UK Constitution are:
1. ______
2. _______
3._______
4. _________
5. ________
6. ________