The Cabinet and the Prime Minister

Some organisation had to be found which would enable the king and the majority in Parliament to work smoothly together. This organisation was the cabinet system. The origin of the Cabinet is to be found in the small group of people who formed the King's Council. During the Middle Ages these Great Officers of state — the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Marshall, the Constable (chief officer of the Household), and others — were bishops or great nobles. Some of these officers were chosen by the king, amongst them being the Chancellor and Treasurer.

But others, including the Marshal and Constable, inherited their positions without the king having any say in the matter. All were men of great power and authority in their own right. This type of Council or Privy Council, as it came to be called lasted as long as the king was still the senior partner in the partnership between king and Parliament. But after the victory of Parliament it began to develop rapidly into the Cabinet Council.

Charles II found the Privy Council, which had grown to some fifty members, too large and cumbersome; he preferred a more intimate gathering of some five or six men, the holders of the great offices of state, who could meet in a small room or cabinet.

This small council came to be called the Cabinet Council or, for short, Cabinet. Thus, in our present-day constitution the king or queen, as the head of the state, sees that a ministry is formed by the party with a majority in the Commons. The government is carried on in the Queen's name, but she has no control over what the ministry does in her name so long as it has the support of a majority in the Commons.

The British Parliamens

Elections

In democracy, the country's rulers and law-makers are chosen in elections.

In American English, candidates run for election and in Britain they stand for election. The campaign is the series of advertisements, television appearances, meetings and speeches designed to get support for a candidate.

The run-up to an election is the period leading up to an election, perhaps a longer time than the campaign itself. A political party is a group of politicians and their supporters who have similar views on how the country should be run. A party's platform is the policy, which promises to put into effect if elected. Proposed policies may be outlined in a document known a manifesto. Speeches were traditionally made in Britain standing on a soapbox and in the U.S. on the stump, and there are things often referred to in connection with campaigning even if they are not often actually used. People who shout out their disagreement to a politician making a speech are hecklers and the process is heckle.

A very fast campaigning trip, with a candidate making a lot of speeches and appearances in a lot of places in a short time, is a whistle stop tour. A tour such as this might consist, among other things, of rallies: large, often open-air, political events with speeches and entertainment, and walkabouts: the candidate walks about in a crowd and shakes hands, or in this political context, glad-hands people. Candidates must be careful not to make gaffes.

Gaffes are slips of the tongue or offensive remarks that damage their image: the perception that people have of them. Results of findings of opinion polls are more or less reliable or accurate. Between elections, pollsters ask people if they approve the performance of politicians and parties, and the results are given as approval ratings or popularity ratings. On an election day, voters go to the polls. They vote, or cast their votes or ballots, to elect candidates.

People with the right of vote are voters, and together make up the electorate. A body that passes laws is a legislature. Candidates win or gain seats in legislatures under different systems in different countries. Existing members of a legislature who haven't been reelected lose their seats.

When it becomes apparent which parties or politicians have won an election, the winners claim victory and the losers concede or admit defeat.

Undemocratic forms of rule, or regimes, are authoritarian or autocratic. Hardline regimes refuse to allow any change in the political system.

Hardliners are representatives of regimes, which are particularly resistant to changes.

The British Parliamens