Slide 4

Slide 3.

Slide 2.

Politics.

The United Kingdom is a unitary state under a constitutional monarchy.

A unitary state is a state governed as one single unit in which the central government is supreme and any administrative divisions only exercise powers that their central government chooses to delegate. The United Kingdom is an example of a unitary state. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland which, along with England are the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom, have a degree of autonomous power delegated by Britain's central government, i.e. by the Parliament of the United Kingdom: the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament in Scotland, the Welsh Government and National Assembly for Wales in Wales, and the Northern Ireland Executive and Northern Ireland Assembly in Northern Ireland.

Constitutional monarchy (or limited monarchy) is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state in the frames of a constitution. Most constitutional monarchies (including the UK) employ a parliamentary system in which the monarch may have strictly ceremonial duties or may have reserve powers, depending on the constitution. Under most modern constitutional monarchies there is also a prime minister who is the head of government and exercises effective political power.

In classical political theory, there are three branches of power in a state:

· The executive - the Ministers who run the country and propose new laws

· The legislature - the elected body that passes new laws

· The judiciary - the judges and the courts who ensure that everyone obeys the laws

In the political system of various states, the constitution provides that there must be a strict separate of powers of these three branches, so that no individual can be a member of more than one. This concept is called 'separation of powers'.

This is not the case in the UK:

· all Ministers in the government are members of the legislature;

· some very senior judges sit in the upper house of the parliament;

· the formal head of the judiciary is a senior minister.

This is an illustration of how pragmatic and flexible the British political system is.

Slide 5. There are three branches of power.

Slide 6.

Crown

Queen Elizabeth II is the monarch and the head of state of the UK as well as of fifteen other independent Commonwealth countries. The Commonwealth of Nations (the Commonwealth) is an intergovernmental organisation of 54 independent member states. All members except Mozambique and Rwanda were part of the British Empire, out of which the Commonwealth developed.

The monarchy is based on the hereditary and primogeniture principles which means that the oldest male child of a monarch is the next in line to the throne. Under the terms of the Act of Settlement of 1701, the monarch and the monarch's spouse cannot be Catholics because the UK monarch is also the Head of the Church of England. These archaic arrangements are currently under review.

The monarch has "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn".

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