British Politics - Pt.2

We more or less covered the parties last time, so let's see where and how they actually operate.

British Parliament for dummies.



The Houses of Parliament on the banks of the Thames

This (on the right) is the Houses of Parliament, also known as the Palace of Westminster. It's a set of buildings on the North Bank of the River Thames, in the centre of London.

The Houses of Parliament is where the Government (the political party with the most MPs*) and the 'opposition' operates. Parliament itself is the various groups and bodies that try to pass laws, or oppose them, and create a democratic way of running a country. Basically, the Government is within Parliament. It's where new proposals are debated, laws are passed, and the Government's actions are challenged. War is declared within those chambers. So how does it all work?



An empty House of Commons - there's more seats upstairs.

First, we have the House of Commons, which is where MPs meet and discuss laws, as well as vote on them or challenge them. Each MP has one vote, and they generally vote depending on what their party believes, i.e. Conservative leaders might ask their MPs to vote in favour of raising the minimum wage (although they are allowed to refuse and vote differently). If a law is passed through here, it then goes to the House of Lords.




The House of Lords is the second chamber, and its main task is examining laws passed by the Commons. It contains around 800 members, who are mostly hand-picked for their knowledge of law, business, society etc. It also contains Bishops and hereditary peers (their parents were Lords and passed the title down to them) They are required to examine the law in physical form and check for errors and loopholes, as well as challenging the government about anything questionable.

A law can be stopped and returned to the House of Commons, if the members feel that it needs improvement.


House of Lords on a quiet day

The third stage of Parliament is the Monarch (i.e. the Queen). She mainly has a ceremonial role, meeting the Prime Minister once a week to discuss various affairs, and officially approving laws - which she must do. (Although if she feels that a law will cause harm to Britain, or isn't justified, she may object). Once she approves a law, it becomes legally binding, and the government can begin to implement it.

There we go, the British Parliament in a nutshell! I know there's probably still some gaps, but hopefully we'll cover those off in the third and last post of this series - coming soon (hopefully before Christmas). 

Also, check out Joel's film blog, I don't have the link, but it's on some of my other posts at the bottom. He's started a sweet little 'Thursday rant' section, where he discusses all sorts of things. It's actually rather good.


*MPs: the person, often from a certain party, that an area chooses to represent their people's interests in Parliament. All of the 650 MPs can vote once on each law, often voting how their party wants them to vote.