this is the note from thrusay the 5th

Closing Prime Minister
The Prime Minister:
- Chairs the cabinet meeting
- Acts as a spokes person
- Selects rest of cabinet
 Most are members of parliament, some are from the House of Commons (which are directly elected by the people, they are used to get closer to the public)
 Rule: 2 must be from the house or Lords
 22 members of cabinet, 20 from the cabins and 2 from the House of Lords
Legislative branch
- Parliament’s influence on policy is limited
- Policy made by cabinet after discussion on the policy and after the PM buys the conclusion
Govt has another meaning in a parliamentary system, it might mean just the PM and the cabinet acting together.
- All proposed bills from PM and Cabinet are strongly acted on
- In one year a PM can secure passage for every policy introduced by them, and can be deemed a vote of confidence
- If a vote of confidence is done, every member of majority party is expected to vote for bill
 If not them the parliament will dissolve
 This can be used as a tool of the majority party
 New elections would be held in weeks
 The risk: opposition may be voted in as the majority party and the original majority party may lose their public stance
- Occasionally there is a free vote otherwise it’s the party line, and members can vote either way
- Britain has 2 houses of legislation
 Has minimal influence on policy
 There are three types of lords: hereditary peers, life peers, law lords.
• The law lords cannot rule acts of parliament unconstitutional even though they are the highest courts of appeals
• and the Hereditary peers cannot vote
• the life peers are appointed by PM, are “Anglican entertainers” and church officials
- In 1830 the house of Lords had 1,200 members
- In November of 1999 the lords passed a bill to strip 800 members of their power
House of Lords
- Approve legislations
- Propose amendments to legislations
- Delay passage of legislation through extended debate
- They CANNOT vote down a bill
- Did debate on fox hunting
- Commons is the final authority of proposed
- Becomes a bill after 2 years in a row even if it doesn’t get settled in House of Lords
- There has been a lot of talk about changing the house of lords, if it’s done than they will become an electoral body and they will gain more say in passing legislation
- In march 2007 an advisory vote (not binding) to draw up legislation to make House of Lords and elected body
- 659 members- under 5 year terms
- Prime minister can dissolve this body with royal consent
- They are representatives from single member districts
- Major parties have a technique called parachuting
- Parliamentary party (majority party) is key to British power
- Majority leadership: PM.
- Cabinet is known as front benchers, others are known as back benchers
- Head of largest minority party becomes leader of opposition or “loyal opposition”
Minority party
- Head appoints shadow cabinet
- If curret majority party will lose favor with public then they will become next majority.
- Tasked with watching real cabinet and challenge them in debates
- Most of HOC are debating policy
 Don’t pass bills
 Just debate good and bad policies
Bureaucracy
- The cabinet’s primary source of power
- Collective responsibility: an industry is expected to support all decisions even if they personally disagree with the policy
- If they can’t do this, they resign
- White hall= bureaucracy
- Ministry officials are ranked and all cabinet positions are appointed in regards to ranking
- In a bureaucracy they might get appointed positions that they mnight not have any interest in
- Career civil servants may work for any partisan in power
- Administrators= civil servants
 May flush out details of proposed legislation
- Permanent secretary:
 Found in each den
 They are assisted by other civil servants
 Are all given names (egs: deputy)
Unitary form of government
- Does not have state govt and local govt
- Strategic authority is extensive authority to passing laws in Britain
Local govt carries out jobs like delivering to the population
- Can set local property taxes
- Parliament can take back any delegated authority given to local authorities
Two types of non-elected bodies in Britain
1. Regulatory agencies
2. quangos: quazi autonomists (advisory boards) could be school groups advisory boards. – I really didn’t get what they were so I got the definition from dictionary.com—

Quango - A semi-public advisory and administrative body supported by the government and having most of its members appointed by the government. An organization or agency that is financed by a government but that acts independently of it.