Who rules //
The UK Government
How is the government chosen?
In the UK, general elections are held every four to five years. In a general election everyone who is over 18 gets to vote for someone to become the MP for their constituency. Each MP will usually belong to a political party (eg Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat). The party that has the most MPs elected becomes the government. The leader of this party, who is elected by party members, automatically becomes the prime minister. Unlike France, the UK doesn't have a separate election for a prime minister.
Government responsibilities
The government's main responsibility is to make decisions. Imagine another country decides that it wants to invade Britain. Who would decide what should happen? We might all decide to do something about it, but we'd probably have different ideas about what should be done.
If we all just did what we thought was right we'd be all over the place. Who would be in charge? Who would speak up for us? In the meantime, the invader would probably have come in and taken over while we've squabbled.
It's important to have a government so that difficult and important decisions are made. A government faces all sorts of difficult questions every day such as: How much should taxpayers pay? How should taxes be spent? How should education be organised?
Prime minister
The prime minister (PM) is in overall charge of all the UK nations and everything they own. It's a stressful job. The PM needs to have answers to everything. If the health service has year-long waiting lists, schools aren't getting good results, there's too much traffic, there's unemployment, then the PM has to get to the bottom of it and sort it out.
If there aren't results, the media will soon find out and let us know. Come election time there could be trouble. Of course the PM can't sort these things out alone. The PM has a special group of people called the Cabinet.
The Cabinet
The PM chooses the Cabinet members from the MPs in his or her party and they get given a specific area that they have to deal with. Health, education and transport are examples. These MPs with special responsibilities are called ministers. The PM can choose or get rid of ministers. As well as leading the UK government, the PM also meets with leaders from abroad to discuss and act on important worldwide concerns.
Key Points
- In the UK, general elections are held every four to five years.
- We vote for MPs to represent our local area.
- MPs usually belong to a political party.
- The party with the most MPs elected wins and becomes the government.
- We don't vote for the prime minister.
- The prime minister chooses government ministers.
- MPs not chosen to be Cabinet ministers are known as backbenchers.
Reality Bytes: What if the Government is Failing?
If you think the government is doing a bad job, then you can vote for someone else in the next general election. But what can you do in the meantime? How can you keep tabs on what's going on? Well, apart from the prime minister, Cabinet members and MPs in government, there are also lots of MPs in opposition.
They belong to the parties that didn't win a majority vote in the general election. They are still allowed to speak and express their opinion in the hope that the government will take what they have to say on board. After all, they represent the people in their constituencies.
The opposition
Usually the party with the second highest number of votes is referred to as the main opposition. Part of its job is to check up and challenge what the government is doing.
Interesting Facts
- The Conservative Party was in power for 18 years between 1979 and 1997
- Every Wednesday afternoon in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister has to answer questions from MPs on the government’s work and policies. This is called Prime Minister's Questions.
- There are 689 members of the House of Lords. Unlike MPs, they are not paid.
Big Question
- At the age of 16 you can legally have sex, get married (in England only, with parents' permission), leave school, buy cigarettes, work full time, drink beer and wine with a meal in a restaurant, leave home (in England only, with parents' permission) and drive a moped but you can't vote. Is this right? Should the law be changed?
