Political structure in the UK

Despite its name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not a federation. It is a unitary state - a parliamentary monarchy.
Two small areas of the British Isles have a special political status, the status of "Crown dependencies": The Isle of Men and Channel Islands. Each territory has its own government, parliament and the tax system. The territory controlled by the vice-governor appointed by the British government.
The first title of England was - Albion. It was the first Roman name of Britain. It is assumed that it is derived from the Latin word albus - white. White chalk cliffs on the south coast in the vicinity of Dover are clearly visible from the sea by travelers.
Britain it is the name given to Northern Province of Rome, which occupied roughly the territory of modern England. Britain is the woman in a helmet with a trident in her hand (symbol of power over the water element). The image of Britain was engraved on many British coins for over 300 years.
A single written constitution as the major law, the country does not have. Its legislation is based on the important status, the centuries-old constitutional customs and decisions of the Supreme Judiciary (precedents).
Nominally the supreme power in the country belongs to the monarch (since1952 - Queen Elizabeth II). In fact, the Queen reigns but does not rule.
The highest legislative body - the parliament, which includes: Queen, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The House of Commons - representative national Assembly, elected at least every 5 years, and the House of Lords consists of hereditary peers, princes of royal blood, the highest spiritual and judicial dignitaries and persons with the appropriate title which was granted for life by the monarch, often on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.
Executive power is exercised by the government headed by the prime minister. Usually the Queen appoints the prime minister the leader of the party that won the most seats in the House of Commons.

Coalition government, it is a government with a multiparty parliamentary management system formed by several political parties. Most often it is created to gain an absolute majority in Parliament. In addition, coalitions can be created also during emergency circumstances (economic or foreign policy, such as war) for better coordination management.

The Liberal Democrats were formed on March 2, 1988 after the merger of the Liberal party and the Social democratic party.

In the first general election in 2010 neither party got an overwhelming majority.

Majority party forms the cabinet. A hung parliament (as soon as it was no party to win an overwhelming majority)

A "hung Parliament", it is a Situation when after the elections, none of the political parties there is no majority in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, there is not one party received more than half of all mandates of the house of Commons, the lower house of the British Parliament.

In this case, the government (usually it is formed by the party that received the vast majority) will not have sufficient support to implement laws without support from members of other parties.

For the first time since 1974 in the UK in 2010 was formed a situation, which named "hung parliament".The conservatives won but have not received a decisive majority to form the government.
Tory got 306 seats in Parliament, and it was already clear that the absolute majority of 326 seats - they will not gain. The Labour party in power in the country since 1997, received a little more than 250 seats, losing in Parliament 91st place, and also could not count on the most.
Conservative party leader David Cameron said that "the Labour government has lost the mandate to govern the country.
What conservatives will be able to form a government - it was not obvious. Much depended on the position of the Liberal Democrats, this is showed in the elections of the third result and received more than 50 places.
For the first time in the history of the Parliament managed to pass to the representative of the green party.
The voter turnout was 65%, four percentage points higher than in 2005.

Elections 2010:

In the elections 2010 until the very end it was not clear who will be the winner, and this is mainly due to the return of the political struggle of the liberal democratic party, headed by the charismatic Nick Clegg, but he is not only a charismatic leader, he was indeed fresh and also extremely prominent figure in English political life. However, the impact is more significant factors. The ruling Labour party has led the country for 13 years. During this time, England was involved with the United States in a series of unpopular wars. In addition, the country more than ever began to play the role of an American satellite in international politics. Social policy has been rather controversial and clearly did not justify the hopes pinned on the British Labour party in 1997, giving them a resounding victory. Blair in his policy largely made concessions to the market illusions 1980s-90s. The British were disappointed in the Labour party. The more the party brings little charismatic appearance of Gordon brown. However, the voters obviously did not want to change the party generally positions itself as the workers ' party to the conservatives. 18-year reign of the latter (1979-1997.), including a brutal line of Thatcherism, with its attacks on the interests of employees, caused the country a very deep trauma. Liberal Democrats on this background are the alternative to the Labour party, but the alternative in a relatively left-wing framework. On the eve of the election, the Labour party became a constant target of criticism from conservatives and in matters concerning immigration. In their speeches to their constituents, and also during television debates, David Cameron accused the Labour government that its overly liberal policies have led to a sharp increase in the number of immigrants in the country. He drew attention to the fact that since 1997 Britain has moved about 1 million immigrants, and it is equivalent appearance on the map of the country of the new city, by population equal to the Birmingham.These statements on migration gave good results on elections: traditionally English regions voted conservative, because most suffered from immigration.

The conservative leader has always insisted on the need to reduce the influx of immigrants from several hundred thousand to several tens of thousands per year and to establish strict control of immigration, introducing quotas on the number of arriving foreigners into the country. Against the measure strongly advocated by his opponents – Gordon brown and Nick Clegg, who during the election campaign defended he put forward the idea of Amnesty for illegal immigrants who have lived in the UK for at least ten years and never violated British laws. Analyzing the reasons for the failure of the liberal democratic party, some observers noted that voters turned away from her, frightened of the position of the LDP immigration issue in favor of the liberals voted only in places where migration is minimal and where, liberals traditionally provide incentives to property and support of small and medium business, especially important is the outskirts of the country, Scotland, partially Wales. The prospect of Amnesty for illegal immigrants did not find support in society. As highlighted after the election, many of the British newspaper, the main surprise was the results of the liberal Democratic Party. While its leader Nick Clegg so brilliantly declared itself, especially in presidential debates, the party not only did not meet expectations on strengthening its presence in Parliament, but, on the contrary, lost 6 seats, winning only 57 seats in the new composition of the House of Commons. You may ask why, if the Labour party in the eyes of the Brits had a pronounced negative image, has gained such a respectable percentage of the votes?

There are a couple of reasons:

- the Labour party, has always positioned itself as workers ' representatives in Parliament and have very good relations with trade Union organizations, which are mostly located in industrial centers such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leicester, Glasgow, Edinburgh.

- Scotland has always been key to the success of the Labour party and the liberals in Parliament, in this region the long-standing question of devolution (which recently decided) i.e. the granting of autonomy. Labour unlike the conservatives, with amazing ease went to the devolution. This can be seen especially Labour liberal concept of decentralization of society. If the right - liberalists tradition of Tory (conservatives) tend to channel this trend towards the delegation of government prerogatives to private corporations, the left - liberalists the tradition of Labour's preference for civilian communities. You might ask, then why Scotland doesn't vote for the Scottish national party, because those generally offered completely separates from the UK? Because the Scots don't want full separation, loss of economic ties, the destabilization of the economy, this autonomy is enough to extinguish the little spark of national separatism. Elections in the UK have always been objects of great interest within the international community, known for its intrigue and pluralistic, and show elements, and especially in 2010, when three parties scored almost the same number of votes.

According to the results of the elections, no party gained an absolute majority (more than half) of the seats in the House of Commons: the conservatives got 306 seats (97 mandates compared with the 2005 elections), the Labour party — 258 seats (minus 91, compared with the previous election). Thus in the country there is a situation of suspended parliament; but on May 7, 2010 brown indicated that he did not intend to resign. The reviewers noted the special role of the monarch in resolving the current political crisis.

On May 8, 2010, after a meeting of parliamentarians-members of the liberal Democratic Party, stated that the strategy of Mr. Clegg on the negotiations on the coalition in the first place with the conservatives, received the "full support" from fractions. Talks between the conservatives and liberal Democrats continued in the first half of May 10.
In the evening of 10 may 2010, Prime Minister brown announced his intention to resign in order to give an opportunity for his party to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

On May 11, 2010 David Cameron was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II 75th Prime Minister of great Britain; on May 12, 2010, for the first time in the postwar history of Britain, formed a coalition government; the leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg took the post of Deputy Prime Minister. On May 25, 2010 will be a Grand opening of the newly formed Parliament.

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