The political system of Great Britain

LEGISLATIVE POWER

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament (MPs).

The House of Lords also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster. All members of the House of Lords (excluding 90 hereditary peers) are appointed. The membership of the House of Lords is drawn from the peerage and is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal.

JUDICIARY POWER

The United Kingdom does not have a single legal system due to it being created by the political union of previously independent countries with the terms of the Treaty of Union guaranteeing the continued existence of Scotland's separate legal system. Today the UK has three distinct systems of law: English law, Northern Ireland law and Scots law. Recent constitutional changes saw a new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom come into being in October 2009 that took on the appeal functions of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, comprising the same members as the Supreme Court, is the highest court of appeal for several independent Commonwealth countries, the UK overseas territories, and the British crown dependencies

Political parties

The system of political parties in the UK appeared in the 17th centuary. At first,there were two parties: Tory(the party that supposted the King) and Whigs(who supported the Parliament). The word “tory” means “an Irish robber”. A”whig” was a Scottish preacher who could preach moralising sermons for several hours.

Now the main British political parties are:

• The Conservative Party
• The Labour Party
• The Party of Liberal Democrats

Since 1945 the British Government is constantly represented by two political parties:Conservative(who are called “Tory” by their opponents) and Labour (called “Whigs”).

In 1988 the Liberal Party made an alliance with Social Democrats and the Party of Liberal Democrats was formed.

The proportional representation system in the UK means that all political parties,small and large,are represented in the government according to the proportion of votes they receive.