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What is Politics?
"The action of the government, organizations or people who try to influence the way a country or an institution (e.g. a university) is run." And so, ‘politics’ is people changing the way you live, and your VOTE IS IMPORTANT!!
The Houses of Parliament, or the Palace of Westminster has two 'houses' or 'chambers: the House of Commons & the House of Lords. The House of Commons has Green leather seats and the House of Lords has red leather seats.
http://www.explore.parliament.uk/
http://www.parliament.uk/faq/faq.cfm
The House of Commons is in the Palace of Westminster which was first built on a Royal site where Kings lived in the 11th century. The Palace also has Westminster Hall, (which you can still see), and which was built in 1097, and is about 900 years old. The main buildings which you can see now were started in 1840 and completed in 1870. At one end of the houses of parliament is a symbol of Britain-Big Ben.
BIG BEN
Big Ben is the name of the bell which hangs at the top of the tower.
Most large bells have name in Britain. The sound of the chime, a
slow ‘bong’, is also a symbol of London.
Big Ben-Some Facts and Figures:
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How big is Big Ben?
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9'-0" (=Nine feet 0 inches) in diameter, & 7'-6" high, (=2.5 metres high)
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It weighs 13 tons (=13,760 Kg).
The British Imperial System.
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These are traditional British measurements,
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12 inches=1 foot, (2 feet etc), and about 3 feet=1 metre. So Big
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is 9 feet, which is about 3 metres round.
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This system was introduced by the Romans when they invaded Britain
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The traditional system of weights and measures was used ‘officially’ in
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Great Britain from 1824 until the adoption of the metric syste in 1965.
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British Imperial units are now legally in metric terms.
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However, many people born before 1965 (me as well) still think in the old system, and you can still see these measurements everywhere in Britain.
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Also, £1 is now 100 pence, it used to be 220 pennies, when I was smaller. Can you imagine a pocket full of pennies?
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Big Ben was cast (=made) on Saturday 10th April 1858, in Whitechapel Bell Foundry,London. The first chime rung on 31st May 1859.
- http://www.londonnet.co.uk/ln/guide/about/gallbigb.html
More about the House of Commons.
This is the main debating chamber (hall), and the mostimportant place for government. There are two debatingchambers (= discussion halls), and two (2) is a verysignificant number in British politics-2 chambers,2 main parties and 2 opposite points of view.
There are 646 Members of Parliament or seats in ‘the House’. The Houseof Commons is quite small with seats for only 437. When there is something important to be debated it becomes very crowded and the MP’s squeeze onto the benches, sit on the steps or stand. The House of Commons has a chairman called the speaker who keeps ‘the house’ in order. He or she is like a referee and shouts ‘Order, order, order’, when the MP’s get angry with each other.
There is actually a rule book with a list of bad words that people cannot say, and they cannot use the others person’s name directly so they say for example,‘My honourable friend from Scotland’. The speaker sits on a high chair, in the centre at the back. The government makes new laws in the House of Commons, and the new laws reflect what the government believes is right.For example the Labour Party is considered to be a party of high taxes, because they believe that wealth (money) should be distributed among people, and that services like centres for old people are good, which can be paid for by taxation. They try and make laws to increase the amount of tax that people pay. The Conservative party believes in the opposite, and tries to do the opposite. If the Labour party tries to introduce a new tax bill so that it will become law, the conservative party will try to block it. When the MP’s have finished discussing a new bill, they take a vote and if the government has enough votes, then the bill becomes a law, when it is signed by the Queen. The speaker cannot vote, and the Queen does not have any real political power in Britain.
The parties not in power are the opposition parties, and they sit opposite the government. They opposition parties form shadow governments. The Government sits on the left in the picture, (the right of the speaker) and the Conservative party (the ‘Tory Party’ as they are also called), and the Liberal party, and any other smaller parties), sit on the right.
These positions, where they sit, are extremely important because they encourage confrontation, argument and change. The parties always disagree (except during military campaigns e.g. Iraq, or about the royal family)and the opposition party (mainly the conservatives) tries to block new laws. The do so by critical debate before a vote to pass a bill to make it a new law.
The most important MP’s sit on the front benches, and are called frontbenchers. Younger and less important MP’s sit at the back and are called backbenchers.
When the MP’s make a speech, they stand at the table in the centre.
When the MP’s ask a question they stand where they are.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS
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What is the House of Lords? |
It is the second chamber of the UK Parliament and has the power to lookvery closely at new bills and delay new laws put forward by the governmentin the House of Commons. It cannot stop new laws, but it can delay them.
It is composed of 'peers'. These are people with titles (a kind of award)which have been inherited form their parents (who were given them from a King or Queen, or given to them by the recommendation of the Prime Ministerto the Queen. People with hereditary titles used to make up a substantialproportion of the Upper House until the reforms or changes were started bythe labour government in 1997, but not much haw changed.
Why were the reforms begun?
Labour came to power in 1997 with a promise to reform what it believed was an outdated and undemocratic system.The Hous eof Lords was composed largely of people who had inherited the titles, and who are called 'Lord' or 'Lady', and who were nearly always Conservative, and always disagree with the Labour government.
How many peers sit in the Lords at the moment?
Currently 646 peerscan sit in the Upper House. Only 92 hereditaries now remain including dukes, earls and viscounts.
When was the Lords founded? -In the 14th century.
Look how much more decorated it is than the House of Commons.The Queen makes the annual opening of Parliament speech from here.The Queen of course has no power, rather she is a symbolic figure.
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT
A British government can stay in power for a maximum of 5 years in Britain.After that there has to be a general election. In fact, most general electionstake place before this, at around 4 years. It all depends on timing, and thepopularity of the government. They will call a general election when theyare most popular. The voting agein Britain is 18.
HOWEVER-The history of general elections in Britain has been that of twoparties.
What does this mean? Two party politisc means 'change' and above all the voice of British people whowill vote for a different government if they do not like the present one.Unfortunately it seems that all governments become unpopular eventuallyin Britain.
There has been a two-party system in Britain since the 17th century.Today the two major parties in Britain are the Conservatives (‘the Tories’),and the Labour Party.
What about Japan?The history of Japan has been of one party, the LDP.
THE QUEEN
Although Britain has a monarch, a queen, the queen plays no actual role indeciding matters of state, the running of the country. The Queen has a purelysymbolic role, most notably addressing the nation, Britain, with a speechduring the opening of Parliament ceremony once a year. During this speechshe outlines the policies of ‘her’ government. In fact these have been decidedby the elected government, and she is told what to say. In this respect,we have a parliamentary democracy in Britain. An elected government whichdebates and decides policies in parliament. In fact, with a big majority(in the House of Commons), it is easy for the Labour government to passnew laws.
When were women given the vote in Britain?
1918 - Women aged 30 and over.
1928 - Women aged 21 and over (i.e. the same as men)
What about in Japan?
The First Past the Post Voting System, FPTP.
Britain has a strange first-past-the-post voting system which means thatfor a person to become an MP, they have to win the most votes than in theirarea (constituency), and not the majority of votes cast.
For example if there is a general election, each constituency (region) has itslocal election......
Ms. A (Labour): gets 22,000 votes.
Mr. B (Tory): gets 17,000 votes
Ms. C (Lib Dems): gets 13,000 votes
Ms. A is the winner.
An MP (a Member of Parliament) is elected by his or her constituency (area)and takes up a seat in Parliament. The party with the most MP’s in thecountry is the government.
There are problems with this system. Is it democratic?In the example above, 22,000 voted for Ms. A and she won that election, but 30,000 voted against her (17,000 + 13,000= 30,000). This means that she has the most votes, but not the majority of the votes. Which means that most people do not want her party, the Labour party to win. However, the Labour party won, and they sent an MP to Westminster. In elections the winner often has more people vote against him/her. Therefore, that victor cannot claim to have the support of the majority. A counter-argument against this is that one of the over-riding beliefs in democracy is that the winner should be accepted by all and the losers should have their concerns listened to by the victorious party.In the 1997 election, the Labour Party gained 43.2% of the total votescast and won 63.6% of seats at Westminster. The combined number of votes for the Tory and Liberal Democrats represented 47.5% of the total votes (nearly 4% more than Labour) yet between them they got 32.1% of the seats available at Westminster. In the 2001 election, Labour got 43% of the total popular vote whereas all the other parties got 57% - yet Labour maintained its very powerful position in Parliament with 413 MP's out of 659. The FPTP system also encourages the two party system because people do not vote for a smaller, minority party as they know that their vote will be wasted, BECAUSE the party which comes second in many areas around Britain does not get many seats in the Commons. This discriminates against minority parties who will lose out as a consequence of this the larger parties would say, so what, we usually win? Proportional Representation, or 'PR' argues for the party with the percentage of the votes should equal the number of seats in the house. This would change parliament for the Liberals especially. Supporters of FPTP say that PR is nonsense and that PR creates unstable coalitions and through backroom deals, puts minor parties into the driving seat.
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Different constituencies (areas) of Britain have different numbers of peopleliving in them, different voting patterns, different politics and different classes.
The different colours are the different parties
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The Two Main Parties, the Labour Party and the Conservative
Party (‘the Tories’). |
Britain is a two party country. The government changes between the Conservatives (‘the Tories’) and Labour. The British people will change the government if they do not like it. The leader of the current government, the Labour party is Gordon Brown. Historically, since 1900, the Labour Party has represented the values of socialism whose doctrine can be found especially in the work of Karl Marx. That is, the needs of the working classes, poor people with no rights, and who were exploited by the capitalist land owners and factory owners, the rich. In fact he gap between the two parties has narrowed and the differences in policies are sometimes invisible.
On the other hand, Margaret Thatcher, one of the most famous Conservative Prime ministers said ‘There is no such thing as society’. That is a country is made up of individuals only, and we should only look after ourselves, and notworry about our neighbours. The Conservatives (and especially)Margaret Thatcher believe in the pursuit of the individual over society, and a free market economy at all costs. They see socialism, and its belief in manipulation the economy for the benefit of the poor, as destroying Britain.The Labour Party is a left of centre party, and The Conservative Party is a right of centre party. Traditional conservatism stands for the monarchy, law and order andfree enterprise with a minimum of state interference in business. Despite being largely a middle-class organisation it has always attracted a great deal ofworking-class support. The party has also enjoyed the regular backing of the land owning aristocracy and of successful businessmen.
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Labour
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Conservative |
•Believes in power for people.
•Claims equality is a good thing.
•Tries to make laws to help people (The NHS, Benefit system). |
•Believes we need fewer laws.
•People make their own lives, (‘There is no such thing as society’ Thatcher)
•People should look after themselves. (No benefits, sink or swim which favours the rich?). |
David Cameron the new leader of the Conservative Party.
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The Liberal Party (the ‘Lib dems’).
This is the next major party, and is a so-called centre party. New Labour The general election of 1997 was an overwhelming victory for the Labour Party,and saw the election of a New Labour which had reinvented itself as a partywhich supports business and the working man and woman in Britain.It had removed its traditional socialist values and image.The landslide election result (a total victory), in 1997, was the end of apolitical era in Britain. The Conservative Party, had been in power for 18 years before Labour won. The Labour Party's success in the election wasbecause of years of declining popularity for the Tories. A move towards ‘sleeze’ or wairo and scandal.In 1997, the Labour Party won 419 seats in the THEN 659-seat House of Commons, far more than it had ever won in a general election, ending 18 years of Tory rule. The Conservatives took only 165 seats, about half the 324 seats they had held before the election.The Tories' seat total was the party's lowest since 1906. In 2001, the Labour Party did the same thing again with anotherlandslide victory. It is now 646 seats.
Some Differences between Japanese Politics and British Politics.
It seems reasonable to suggest that Japanese people do not really like politicians.In fact, people do not really like politicians in Britain, but they seem to value them more than Japanese people. The leading politicians of Britain are often young, handsome, beautiful and charming. Tony Blair was 43 when hebecame prime minister, (Britain's youngest prime minister since 1812).He is also an incredible speaker, as many politicians are in Britain. This is because the tradition of debate is firmly established in Britain with the two parties constantly arguing with each other in the two houses.There is also a very strong political and debating ethos in British universities.Many of the Prime Ministers come from Oxford and Cambridge Universities which have famous debating societies where they learn the skills necessary to have an intellectual argument and to persuade other people they are right. Many many students are also politically aware of what the government is doing and any bad things they are doing. There are students groups who shout the news at the other students, and there are hundreds of posters. My first university was said to be the most political in Britain at the time and the students had a rent strike, (I do not remember why), but all the 1st year students refused to pay rent until changes were made. President Bush seems to be very poor at speaking by comparison. What about the Japanese Prime Minister, is he a good speaker?
The British system of politics, which is debate centred, keeps the policies alive,and the British public informed of alternative policies offered by the different parties. There are almost never any scandals regarding money, (wairo) in Britain. There have been strict limitations imposed on politicians to declare how much they earn, and how much they get from outside business. This is not to say that a lot of politicians do not take up lucrative jobs when they leave government, but there seems to be no, or much less sense of this corruption in Britain than in Japan. It has been suggested (Pinnington, 2000), that because the voters can make choices about the parties policies, and change the government,which is usually every ten years, that this prevents corruption as the changein government prevents business and politicians forming strong relationships.These certainly do exist, but the extent of the connections seems to be far less thanin Japan.
The Gunpowder Plot and Bonfire Night-November 5th
http://www.bonefire.org/guy/gunpowder.php
‘Fireworks night’ is one of the biggest festivals in Britain.This associated with the Houses of Parliament. We buy fireworks and arrange a small party, or young boys (mainly) play with fireworks in the street or outside somewhere. ‘Bangers’ were the most popular in my time. However, this day, while still very much celebrated has a long history. In 1605, Guy Fawkes and a group of conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. They were Catholics (a Christian group), and Catholics were treated badly by the King and Queen. The leader, Robert Catesby suggested to some close friends that they blow up the Houses of Parliament. In doing so, they would kill the King, maybe even the Prince of Wales, and the Members of Parliament who were making life difficult for the Catholics.
Today these conspirators would be known as extremists, or terrorists. To carry out their plan, the conspirators got hold of 36 barrels of gunpowder and stored it in a cellar, just under the House of Lords. But as the group worked on the plot, it became clear that some innocent people would be hurt or killed in the attack. Some of the plotters started having second thoughts. One of the group members sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. The warning letter reached the King, and the King's forces made plans to stop the conspirators. Guy Fawkes, who was in the cellar of the parliament with the 36 barrels of gunpowder when the authorities stormed it in the early hours of November 5th, was caught, tortured and executed. November 5th, Firework Night or Bonfire Night, is a celebration of this event.
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