British Politics For Dummies, 2nd Edition

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The Conservatives were in government for eighteen years between 1979 and 1997, under the leadership of the first-ever female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and former Chancellor of the Exchequer John Major (1990–97). The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom replaced the House of Lords as the final court of appeal on civil cases within the United Kingdom on 1 October 2009. This, coupled with the professionalising of the party machine's approach to the media, helped Labour win a historic landslide at the 1997 general election, after eighteen consecutive years of Conservative rule. This means that the ruling party needs to have more Members of Parliament than all the other parties put together. Sinn Féin has a policy of abstentionism and their MPs refuse to take their seats in Parliament, and have done so since 1918.

Voters rank the candidates from their preferred to their least preferred; if a candidate is the first choice for more than half of the votes cast, they win. Alternative proposals for English regional government have stalled, following a poorly received referendum on devolved government for the North East of England, which had hitherto been considered the region most in favour of the idea, with the exception of Cornwall, where there is widespread support for a Cornish Assembly, including all five Cornish MPs.The essence of common-law is that law is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent ( stare decisis) to the facts before them. These powers are known as royal prerogative and can be used for a vast amount of things, such as the issue or withdrawal of passports, to the dismissal of the prime minister or even the declaration of war. Indeed, the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was an MP for a Scottish constituency until the 2015 general election, introduced some laws that only affect England and not his own constituency. The British National Party (BNP) became the official opposition in the 2006 Barking and Dagenham Council election, won a seat in the 2008 London Assembly election, two seats in the 2009 European elections, and received the fifth-highest share of votes in the 2010 general election.

Advisory NDPBs provide independent, expert advice to ministers - for example, the Committee on Standards in Public Life. In some parts of the country, there’s just one tier of local government providing all the functions, known as a ‘unitary authority’.When the nationalists came to power in 2011, opinion polls placed support for independence at around 31%, but in 2014, 45% voted to leave the union. Ministers are chosen by the Prime Minister from the members of the House of Commons and House of Lords. After winning the largest number of seats and votes in the 2015 general election, the Conservatives under David Cameron, remained ahead of the Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn since September 2015. The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) won its first seat in the Scottish Parliament in the 1999 Scottish Parliament election. Government of Ireland Act 1920, passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and created the partition of Ireland.