Wednesday 2/4

1. Labor Party (LP) formed around the 1900s as an alliance of trade unions, independent socialist groups, and worker cooperatives.

• More divided and diverse than the Conservative (CON) Party
• Unions dominated party and provide the most members and funding
• During Collective Consensus LP was a moderate party, but after its breakdown, LP moved to the left and was identified as a party of irresponsible reform and disruption
• Became more moderate during the 90s ("New Labor" Party) and won control of parliament in 1997 election
• In April 1996, LP rejected appeals from old-line trade union leaders and rejected 77 year-old commitment to nationalize industries
• Common ownership replaced with equality of opportunity within the marketplace; reinstated competition
• Under Blair, LP stayed in center of spectrum and won majority again in 2001 and 2005

2. Liberal Democratic Party (LD)

• alliance of 2 old parties; moderate on spectrum
• gained LP and CON members after collective consensus when parties became more extreme
• won have used public dissatisfaction with CON to gain voters
• look for issues to place themselves to the left of Labor (environment is one such issue)
• ask for income tax increase to fund health and education

3. Regional Parties (Outside of England)

• resent English domination of government
• in 2005 Regional Parties won 18 seats in the House of Commons

4. Constitution

• No written constitution--it's unwritten: made of acts of parliament, treaties, judicial decisions, customs, and conventions
• vagueness makes it flexible/easy to change, but gives few concrete guarantees to citizens like our bill of rights does
• civil liberties are protected by tradition with some legislation
• parliament changes the constitution by adding new acts/bills
• standing government can change the constitution to a lesser extent by taking executive action with new precedents
• historically unitary government, not federalist
• central govt has all political power, may devolve power to subnational units
• executive branch leadership selected from legislature
• no clear separation of powers
• executive and legislative branches more overlapping, opposition parties serve as the only check in power
• independent courts, but courts don't have judicial review
• parliament has unlimited legislative power
• no court can declare an act of parliament unconstitutional
• courts determine whether laws conflict with treaties
• the Law Lords serve as Britain's highest court of appeals (9 Lords)
• parliamentary elections must be at least once every 5 years, Prime minister decides when

5. Executive Branch

• Queen/King/monarch is head of executive branch and part of the crown-in-parliament, commander-in-chief of armed forces, and temporal of the Church of England
• most functions have gone to the Prime Minister (PM)
• Monarch has to give royal assent to bills in parliament (since 1707, the queen has never said no)
• queen may also refuse PM's request to dissolve parliament
• PM names his cabinet and writes the queen's "speech from the throne" (like state of the union address)
• PM is the head of govt and majority party in the House of Commons, political party manager, and must retain confidence of his party
• uses patronage to assign members of parliament to 20 cabinet ministries and 100 other front bench positions
• PM speaks in debates in parliament
• appears for house questioning once a week, chairs cabinet meetings, spokesperson for cabinet, deals with other foreign leaders and policy