Elections. Prime Minister and Cabinet

The Executive

Prime Minister and Cabinet

The leader of the party which obtains a majority of seats in a general election is named Prime Minister and is formally asked by the Sovereign to recommend a group of ministers to form a Government. The position of Prime Minister is based on convention, not status, and dates back to when George 1 left the running of the country’s affairs to his ministers. A number of ministers are invited by the Prime Minister to attend regular meetings to discuss policy and this group of ministers is known as the Cabinet. It is a political convention for the Cabinet to act as a single man, which means that a minister who cannot accept a Cabinet decision must resign. (The main opposition party forms a Shadow Cabinet, which is more or less as the Government would be if the party were in power, and the relevant members act as opposition spokesmen on major issues.)

The Prime Minister has considerable individual power to introduce and control policies, and to change the Cabinet by appointing new ministers, sacking old ones, or “reshuffling” the Cabinet by moving its members to other Cabinet posts.

The right to vote in elections has gradually been extended to virtually every British subject over 18 who is resident in Britain (members of the Royal Family and lunatics are not allowed to vote). People vote for any one of the candidates in the constituency in which they are registered. The candidate that obtains the most votes in that constituency, irrespective of whether he or she has an overall majority, becomes its Member of Parliament and the other votes are “wasted”.

Anyone over 21 who is entitled to vote (except for clergymen, civil servants, felons and bankrupts) can stand as a candidate. Candidates are normally selected by the local party associations, but independent candidates can also stand. Each candidate has to pay a deposit (currently 500 pounds), which is returned if a candidate obtains at least 5% of the total number of votes cast in that constituency. It is now a tradition for there to be a few humorous candidates in all general elections (such as the “Don’t-Vote-For-Me Party” in the 1987 election).

General elections must be held at least every five years, but the Prime Minister has the right to call elections before the five-year term has expired. Nowadays, the electorate often votes for a particular party leader rather than the party itself, so Government leaders try to hold elections at moments of particular popularity, e.g. Mrs. Thatcher after her victory in the Falklands War.

Дата добавления: 2015-01-03