About political parties

Text 5

1. Read and translate the text.

2. Find out the main idea of each paragraph and give a title to each of them.

3. Make up the summary of the whole text.

1. There are many political parties in Britain but throughout the whole of England, there are three dominant political parties: Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

The party system is based on political groups with their own policies, which compete for the support of the public to win power. In Parliament, the two parties with the most Members of Parliament (MPs) form the government and the opposition.

A political party is an organized group of people who have similar ideas about how the country should be run. Their aim is to get their candidates elected to political power.

After a general election, the party with the most MPs usually forms the new government. The second largest party becomes the official opposition, with its own leader and 'shadow cabinet'.

Most candidates in elections, and almost all winning candidates, belong to one of the main parties. If an MP doesn't have a political party, they are known as an 'Independent'.

2. The effectiveness of the party system in Parliament relies on the relationship between the government and the opposition parties.

The opposition parties contribute to policy and legislation through constructive criticism, oppose government proposals that they disagree with, and put forward their own policies to improve their chances of winning the next general election.

Leaders of the government and opposition sit opposite each other on the front benches in the debating chamber of the House of Commons. Their supporters, called the 'backbenchers', sit behind them.

There are similar seating arrangements in the House of Lords, but peers who don't wish to be associated with any political party choose to sit on the 'crossbenches'.

3. The system of political parties has existed since at least the 18th century. It evolved from the historical division of Whigs and Tories in the Stuart period. For the past 150 years, Britain has had a mainly two-party system, in which two parties dominate although there may be other parties.

Since 1945, either the Conservative Party or the Labour Party has held power. The Liberal Democrats, the third biggest party in the UK, were formed when the Liberal Party merged with the Social Democratic Party in 1988.

There have been twelve British Prime Ministers during The Queen's reign:

They are:
Winston Churchill 1951-55
Sir Anthony Eden 1955-57
Harold Macmillan 1957-63
Sir Alec Douglas-Home 1963-64
Harold Wilson 1964-70 and 1974-76
Edward Heath 1970-74
James Callaghan 1976-79
Margaret Thatcher 1979-90
John Major 1990-97
Tony Blair 1997-2007
Gordon Brown 2007-2010
David Cameron from 2010

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