Government & Politics
The Government
The Sovereign formally appoints the Prime Minister, who, by convention, is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. Other ministers are appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister. Although the ministers control the executive division of the government, they remain responsible to the U.K. Parliament.
The Sovereign or monarch, currently Queen Elisabeth II, is head of stat but has no personal political involvement in the administration of the country. The role of the monarch is ceremonial rather than constitutional. The queen has many symbolic political duties but little, if any, political power. For example, no statute that has received parliamentary approval may become law without receiving Royal Assent, but in practice, this is never withheld.
The U.K. Parliament is the United Kingdom's legislative body. It consists of the Queen and the two Houses of Parliament, the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
The House of Commons
The House of Commons is a representative body consisting of 659 Members of Parliament (MPs) elected be a system of universal adult suffrage.
A general election must be held at least once every five years, but the Government may call a general election at any time. MPs represent individual constituencies and are elected by a simple majority "first past the post" system, rather than by any form of proportional representation. This tends to favour larger political parties at the expense of smaller ones; the majority of MPs belong to either the Labour Party or the Conservative Party.
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