Financial Assistance to PartiesAnnual assistance from public funds helps opposition parties carry out their parliamentary work at Westminster. It is limited to parties which had at least two members elected at the previous general election or one member elected and a minimum of 150,000 votes cast. The amount is £3,442.50 for every seat won, plus £6.89 for every 200 votes.
The Parliament in Westminster approved a devolution order under the Northern Ireland Act 1998 on Tuesday 30 November 1999. The order allowed for the transfer of certain powers from Westminster to the 108 member Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, Belfast, and the associated new institutions of government. The arrangements for devolved government were set out in the Good Friday Agreement that had been agreed as a result of the peace process. Powers were devolved to the new institutions at midnight Tuesday 1 December 1999. The Assembly has the power to make laws and take decisions on all matters that have been devolved from Westminster. The Northern Ireland Assembly elected an Executive Committee, which is the equivalent of the British Cabinet. The Executive is made up of the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister, and the ten Ministers who head the Departments. Scottish Parliament was established by Scotland Act 1998, which received Royal Assent on 19 November 1998. The Act provided "for the establishment of a Scottish Parliament", and gave the Secretary of State for Scotland the power to decide the date of the first election. The first elections to the Scottish Parliament took place on 6 May 1999 and meetings of the Parliament began with the first sitting on 12 May 1999. At this sitting, the MSPs were able to take the oath of allegiance or make a solemn affirmation and to elect the Presiding Officer and two Deputy Presiding Officers. The Parliament was officially opened by the Queen on 1 July 1999 and took up its full powers on this date. UK Parliament passed the Government of Wales Act 1998, which established the National Assembly for Wales and the National Assembly for Wales (Transfer of Functions) Order 1999. This enabled the transfer of the devolved powers and responsibilities from the Secretary of State for Wales to the Assembly to take place on 1 July 1999. The Assembly decides on its priorities and allocates the funds made available to it from the Treasury. Within its powers, the Assembly develops and implements policies which reflect the particular needs of the people of Wales. Decisions about these issues are made by politicians who are accountable, through the ballot box, to voters in Wales. Wales remains part of the UK and the Secretary of State for Wales and MPs from Welsh constituencies continue to have seats in Westminster. Laws passed by Parliament in Westminster still apply to Wales.
There are 36 Metropolitan Borough Councils in the main urban areas of England outside London. These areas are Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Merseyside, South and West Yorkshire, and Tyne and Wear. The 36 metropolitan boroughs provide all the main local government services for the area. Councillors for metropolitan boroughs are elected for four year terms. A third of the seats are elected every year, with no elections in the fourth year (the year of county elections) In Greater London, there are 32 London Borough councils, and the Corporation of the City of London. The London Boroughs are elected once every four years. London also has the Greater London Authority, which was created by an Act of Parliament in 1999. There are 46 unitary authorities (councils which provide all the main services) in other parts of the country. Many of these were created more recently. There are 34 County Councils in England. In these areas there is a two-tier structure of local government as there are also district councils which cover smaller areas within counties and which provide some of the services. County Councils are elected every four years, with all seats contested at this time. Each council elects a chairman, or in boroughs a mayor, and in Scotland a provost. All senior local government officers are appointed only with approval from a government ministry. Metropolitan, London Borough and unitary authorities are principally responsible for: education, social services and housing and council tax benefits, public libraries, museums and art galleries, traffic and transportation, refuse collection, recycling and disposal, planning, environmental health, swimming pools and leisure facilities, parks and countryside including footpaths, cemeteries and crematoria, markets and fairs, registration of births, deaths, marriages and electorates, collecting council tax and business rates. Town and Parish Councils can also provide community centres, arts and leisure facilities, parks and play areas, public conveniences and other services, and have a right to be notified about planning applications in the area. There is an organization, Local Government Ombudsmen, the task of which is to investigate complaints of injustice arising from mal-administration by local authorities and certain other bodies. There are three Local Government Ombudsmen in England and they each deal with complaints from different parts of the country. They investigate complaints about most council matters including housing, planning, education, social services, consumer protection, drainage and council tax.
Task 2. Check yourself questions: 1. Who is at the head of the Executive branch of political power? 2. How can a person become Prime Minister? 3. Who appoints the PM officially? 4. What is Cabinet? 5. What is Shadow Cabinet? 6. What are the functions of party whips? 7. Which are the main parties in Britain? 8. What other parties do you know? 9. What is the difference between a backbencher and a frontbencher? 10. Is there a separate election campaign for the Prime Minister? 11. What happened to the party that was called the Whigs? 12. What are the names of parties in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? 13. What is the framework of Local government? 14. What are the functions of Local government? 15. Which party forms the Government? 16. Which party forms the Opposition? 17. Who deals with complaints of people?
Task 3. Solve the crossword: (you can find some of the answers in the following texts) Across: A group of about 20 leading Ministers, taking collective decisions. 5. People responsible for party members discipline in Parliament. 6. Prime Minister of the UK in the beginning of the XXI century. 7. Her nickname was the Iron Lady. 8. One of the predecessors of M. Thatcher. 10. Part of the name of a Welsh nationalist party Plaid … 13. An MP whose position is not very important. 14. What did T. Blair study at Oxford? 16. Where was T. Blair born? Down: 1. Modern name of the Tories. 2. The Ministry of finances. 3. One of Blair’s predecessors. 4. The street, where many Ministries are situated. The name of the street has become synonymous to “government”. 9. The name of a constituency, which elected M. Thatcher to Parliament. 11. A city, in Choristers school of which T. Blair studied. 12. The Islands in Argentina where M. Thatcher’s government was waging a war. 15. What did M. Thatcher study at Oxford?
Task 4. Read about one of the most admired and the most hated Prime Ministers in the UK. Find answers to the following questions: Where was M. Thatcher born? Which party does she represent? Why was she nicknamed the iron lady?
Born Margaret Roberts on October 13, 1925, the daughter of a grocer, she graduated from Somerville College, Oxford, with a degree in chemistry, although she had always had an interest in politics and law. She ran for Parliament in 1950 but lost and continued to work as a research chemist. The following year she married well-to-do businessman Dennis Thatcher. Her marriage enabled her to finish her studies for the bar and devote herself to politics. Although she again lost a bid to Parliament in 1951, she succeeded in winning the Conservative Finchely district seat in October 1959. Her first government posts were as joint parliamentary secretary of Pensions and National Insurance (1961-64) and as secretary of Education and Science (1970-74) under Prime Minister Edward Heath. After the Conservative Party lost two elections, however, Thatcher -- supported by the very conservative right wing of the party -- criticized Heath's economic policies and challenged him for leadership of the Conservative Party, which she won in February 1975. In 1976, she indicated her foreign policy leanings when she criticized the Soviet Union for its failure to engage in "genuine detente," said Soviet intervention in Angola proved Soviet aims of world domination, and urged NATO to remain strong. Soon after, she was sarcastically called the "Iron Lady" by the Soviet press, but she chose to adopt the title, believing it illustrated her resolve and strength in the face of adversaries, as well as adversity. After the Conservatives won the May 1979 elections, Thatcher became the first woman prime minister of Britain. Her primary goal in her first term was to enact her ideas about how best to run the economy. She was saved from the unpopularity of her economic policies by her personal handling of the Falklands War with Argentina in 1982, which won her great popular acclaim. She rode this wave of patriotism to office in 1983, and a short upturn in the economy returned her to an unprecedented third term in office in 1987. Throughout all three terms she pursued economic policies that reduced the power of the unions, decreased public spending, increased personal tax cuts, increased privatization of public utilities, and deregulated industry. Thatcher is recognized for having curbed runaway inflation, significantly reducing public spending and reducing the power of the British unions. However, her programs, known as "Thatcherism," also produced high unemployment (which nearly tripled in her first two terms), high interest rates and increased class differentiation, as well as growth of the underclass. In foreign policy, she was a staunch anti-communist. A consistent supporter of NATO, she backed the 1979 decision to deploy U.S. Pershing and cruise missiles in Western Europe and took a tough line against the anti-nuclear demonstrators at Greenam Common, who tried to stop the delivery of the bulk of more than 160 missiles to be placed there. Thatcher also pressed ahead with her plans to modernize the British fleet with Trident II nuclear submarines and resisted Soviet efforts to include British and French nuclear deterrents in the INF treaty negotiations. U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who took office in January 1981, proved to be Thatcher's ideological soul mate in both domestic and foreign policy. This ideological closeness produced intense transatlantic cooperation between the United States and Britain, especially on issues related to the Soviet Union. In December 1984, when Gorbachev visited London shortly before his elevation to general secretary of the Communist Party, Thatcher met with him. She came out of the discussions declaring, "I like Mr. Gorbachev -- we can do business together." She carried this message to Reagan, who had called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire." By the fall of 1988, Thatcher declared that "the Cold War was over." Despite winning the general election in 1987, Thatcher resigned in November 1990 in the face of increasing opposition concerning her economic policies. She held a parliamentary seat as a representative of Finchely until 1992, when she did not stand for re-election. She was made a baroness in 1992.
Task 5. Read the text about one of Conservative PMs and explain the following words and expressions:
|
THE IRON LADY
