Parliamentary elections in Great Britain.
For general election purposes, the United Kingdom is currently divided into 650 constituencies, each of which returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons, elected for a maximum term of five years. Of these, 533 are in England, 59 in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland.
Each elector casts a vote for one of the candidates running for MP in his or her constituency, and the candidate with the largest number of votes is elected to office. This method is also known as the first-past-the-post (FPTP) or plurality system, for all that it is required is a simple majority of votes: an absolute majority is not a requisite for election.
Voting is on the same day (usually on Thursday) in all constituencies, and the voting stations are open from 7 in the morning till 9 at night. Each voter has only one vote, if he knows that he will be unable to vote, because he is ill or has moved away or must be away on business, he may apply in advance to be allowed to send his vote by post.
As in Britain the political scene is dominated by the Conservatives and the Labour Party, in every constituency each of these parties has a local organization whose first task is to choose the candidate and which then helps him to conduct his local campaign. Any British subject can be nominated as a candidate, there is no need to live in the area, though peers, clergymen, lunatics and felons in prison are disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons.
The monarchy in the UK: political functions, the changing image of monarchy.
The British national anthem, the flag and the royal coat of arms.
The British National Anthem dates back to the eighteenth century.'God Save The King' was a patriotic song first publicly performed in London in 1745, which came to be known as the National Anthem at the beginning of the nineteenth century.The words and tune are anonymous, and may date back to the seventeenth century.In September 1745 the 'Young Pretender' to the British Throne, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, defeated the army of King George II at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. In a fit of patriotic fervour after news of Prestonpans had reached London, the leader of the band at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, arranged 'God Save The King' for performance after a play. It was a tremendous success and was repeated nightly. This practice soon spread to other theatres, and the custom of greeting monarchs with the song as he or she entered a place of public entertainment was thus established.There is no authorised version of the National Anthem as the words are a matter of tradition. Additional verses have been added down the years, but these are rarely used. The words used today are those sung in 1745, substituting 'Queen' for 'King' where appropriate. On official occasions, only the first verse is usually sung. The British tune has been used in other countries. European visitors to Britain in the eighteenth century noticed the advantage of a country possessing such a recognised musical symbol. In total, around 140 composers, including Beethoven, Haydn and Brahms, have used the tune in their compositions.
The national flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the most obvious symbol of the United Kingdom. It is called the Union Jack.
"Jack" is an old word which means "sailor". It explaines the name of the flag. King James Ш (1566-1622) ordered the Union Flag to be flown on the main mast of all British ships, except for the ships of war. So the flag was flown at the front of the ships.
Union Jack is a mixture of several overlaid flags. It combines three flags representing England, Scotland and Ireland.
These flags are the crosses of the Patron Saint of England (St. George's Cross — red cross on a white ground), the flag of the Patron Saint of Scotland (St. Andrew's Cross — white diagonal cross on a blue ground) and the flag of the Patron Saint of Nothern Ireland (St. Patrick's Cross — red diagonal on a white ground).
The main National Royal symbol is the Royal Coat of Arms, which identifies the person who is the Head of State.
The first "Union Flag" was formed in 1606 (union with Scotland).
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After the Act of Union (1801) the St Patricks Cross was inserted into the existing flag of Great Britain (a flag composed of the English St George's Cross and the Scottish St Andrew's Cross) as a symbol of Ireland.
The royal Coat of Arms reflects the history of the Monarchy and of the country, because it comprises the various Royal emblems of different parts of the United Kingdom. In the centre of the emblem a heraldic shield is situated. It is divided into four parts: three gold leopards or lions on a red ground is the English The British Royal Coat of Anns emblem (left upper part & right lower part), a red lion on a gold ground is the Scottish emblem (right upper part), yellow harp on a blue ground is the Irish emblem (left lower part). The shield is supported by two Royal Beasts — the Lion with the crown on the left and the Unicorn on the right. The Lion represents pride, bravery, valour. It is also a symbol of power and royalty. The unicorn is a mythical animal. It has appeared at the British and the Scottish coats of arms and is the symbol of purity. They are surmounted by the Royal crown. King James VI of Scotland brought one of the unicorns and changed the red draqon which earlier represented Wales on the coat of arms. Around the shield there is a garter with the motto of the Royal family "Honi soit qui mal у pense" (French for "Evil to him who evil thinks"), which symbolises the Order of the Garter, an ancient order of chivalry of which the Queen is Sovereign. Below the shield there is the motto of the Monarch which is also in French "Dieu et mon droit" ("God and my right"). Henry VI began to use it as the motto of the British monarch in the 15th century.