In media talking, “the government”:

•Refer to all politicians

•Refer to the Prime Minister and other
members of the cabinet (more limited)
• A ‘single-party government’ in Britain
• Coalition government as a bad idea
• 21 years of the coalition government (1915 –
1922 and 1931 – 1945)
• In the 1970s, no majority government, no
coalition government, just a minority government
• Single-party government → help to establish the
tradition known as the collective responsibility
• NO criticism about the policy in public
Leading politicians as members of the cabinet
Meeting once a week to decide:
- New policies
- The implementation of existing policies
- The running of departments
• An organization to run the modern government
– the cabinet office
• Pointed committees by the cabinet
• Not only politicians as committees
In contrast to the position of the monarch
Not nearly as powerful as other ministers due
to:
- By convention, the PM’s powers of patronage
- The power of public image
- PM’s jobs
Governments come and go,
but the civil service remains
The most senior civil servant with the title of
“Permanent Secretary”
Civil servants are unknown to the larger public.
British civil service is a career.
Ministers appoint experts from outside the civil
service
• Reorganization during the last 100 years
• Elected representatives called councilors (the equivalent of MPs), who
meet in a council chamber in the Town Hall or County Hall (the equivalent
of Parliament), where they make policy which is implemented by local
government officers (the equivalent of civil servants).
• Local councils are allowed to collect one kind of tax. →council tax, based
on the estimated value of a property → not nearly enough to provide all
the services → more than half of a local council’s income is given to it by
the central government
• Include public hygiene and environmental health inspection, rubbish
collection (done by ‘dustmen’), cleaning and tidying all public places (done
by ‘street sweepers’), and many others.
 Activities: • The highest legislative
authority
• Making new laws
• Giving authority to the
government
• Monitoring the
government activities
• Discussing these activities
Place: • The Place of Westminster
(the Houses of
Parliament)
• Inside: offices,
committee rooms,
restaurants, bars,
The Palace of Westminster libraries, etc.
Two houses: • House of Commons
• House of Lords
Inside the Palace of Westminster
• The lower house of the UK parliament
• An elected body with 650 members
called Members of Parliament (MPs)
• Each member is elected by and
represents an electoral district of
Britain - a constituency.
• The Prime Minister = an MP
Sitting arrangements
Just two rows (left – government benches; right
– the opposite party)
→For or against the government
→Encourage confrontation
→The furthest opposition benches: the neutral
MPs
House of Commons room
 Furniture

No special place for people to stand when speaking

No desk for the MPs
Small room with about 400 seats
No marked names on the seat
→ An informal atmosphere → encourage cooperation
House of Commons meeting
 Rules
Forbid MPs to address one another by name
→ ‘the honorable member for Winchester’ or ‘my
right honorable friend’
Never say ‘you’
→ Take the ‘heat’ out of a debate and decrease the
possibility of violence House of Commons meeting
→ Today, more formal → feeling of a special group
• Control the discussion in the House
• Decide which MP to speak
• Make sure that the rules of
procedure are followed
• An important position after the PM
• Be addressed as ‘Mr. Speaker’ or
‘Madame Speaker’
• Give up all party politics
 Press gallery
Galleries for visitors

The speaker
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC The government
The opposition
• The best attended, usually the noisiest
• MPs ask questions of government
ministers
• Questions that are written down and
placed on the table two days in advance
• After being answered, further questions
relating to the minister’s answer
• Frontbenchers: the leading members
• Backbenchers: MPs who do not hold a
government post or a post in the shadow
cabinet
• Traditionally, not be specialist politicians
→ Be not paid until 20th century
→ Only rich people with backgrounds of power
and wealth
• Now, not be paid very much
• Become professional (full-time politicians)
• The average time of MPs at work > any other
jobs in the UK
• At the weekend, MPs expected to visit their
constituencies
• Debate on a particular proposal → a resolution (accept or reject)
• No need to vote but a particular proposal (‘Ayes’ – agree; ‘Noes’ –
disagree)
• Some appointed committees to examine specific proposals for
laws
• Permanent committees to investigate the activities of the
government
• Power to call certain people to come and answer questions
→ An increasingly important part of the business of the Commons
 First Second Committee
reading reading stage

Third Report
reading stage
• MPs nearly always vote the way that their party tells them to
• The Whips make sure that MPs do this
• The Whips act as intermediaries between the backbenchers and
the frontbenchers of a party
• Sometimes, the major parties allow a ‘free vote,’ except for some
quite important decisions
• The upper house
• Independent from and complements the
work of the House of Commons
• A way rewarding distinguished older
politicians
• Informally, ‘being kicked upstairs’
• Appointed on the recommendation of
the PM, political parties, or House of
Lords Appointments Commission
• Hereditary members  small, the Lords
 assertive and willing to challenge the
decisions of the government-controlled
Commons
-Members aren’t elected but either inherit
their title or are appointed by the
Government or shadow cabinet
-Consist of:
* Lords Spiritual: 2 archbishops and
24 bishops of the Church of England →
approximately 1/31
* Lords Temporal: selected or
appointed from the Peerage
 No real power and only limited influence

Revise legislation, change In-depth consideration of Scrutinize the work of the

Bills (cannot stop them public policy (matters that Government
from becoming laws) the Commons has been
ignoring)