1.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
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Conservative Party (UK)
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The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a political party in the United Kingdom. It is currently the party, having won a majority of seats in the House of Commons at the 2015 general election. The partys leader, Theresa May, is serving as Prime Minister. It is the largest party in government with 8,702 councillors. The Conservative Party is one of the two major political parties in the United Kingdom, the other being its modern rival. The Conservative Partys platform involves support for market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defence, deregulation. In the 1920s, the Liberal vote greatly diminished and the Labour Party became the Conservatives main rivals, Conservative Prime Ministers led governments for 57 years of the twentieth century, including Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. Thatchers tenure led to wide-ranging economic liberalisation, the Conservative Partys domination of British politics throughout the twentieth century has led to them being referred to as one of the most successful political parties in the Western world. The Conservatives are the joint-second largest British party in the European Parliament, with twenty MEPs, the party is a member of the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe Europarty and the International Democrat Union. The party is the second-largest in the Scottish Parliament and the second-largest in the Welsh Assembly, the party is also organised in the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar. The Conservative Party traces its origins to a faction, rooted in the 18th century Whig Party and they were known as Independent Whigs, Friends of Mr Pitt, or Pittites. After Pitts death the term Tory came into use and this was an allusion to the Tories, a political grouping that had existed from 1678, but which had no organisational continuity with the Pittite party. From about 1812 on the name Tory was commonly used for the newer party, the term Conservative was suggested as a title for the party by a magazine article by J. Wilson Croker in the Quarterly Review in 1830. The name immediately caught on and was adopted under the aegis of Sir Robert Peel around 1834. Peel is acknowledged as the founder of the Conservative Party, which he created with the announcement of the Tamworth Manifesto, the term Conservative Party rather than Tory was the dominant usage by 1845. In 1912, the Liberal Unionists merged with the Conservative Party, in Ireland, the Irish Unionist Alliance had been formed in 1891 which merged anti-Home Rule Unionists into one political movement. Its MPs took the Conservative whip at Westminster, and in essence formed the Irish wing of the party until 1922. The Conservatives served with the Liberals in an all-party coalition government during World War I, keohane finds that the Conservatives were bitterly divided before 1914, especially on the issue of Irish Unionism and the experience of three consecutive election losses
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House of Lords
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The House of Lords of the United Kingdom, referred to ceremonially as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. Unlike the elected House of Commons, all members of the House of Lords are appointed, the membership of the House of Lords is drawn from the peerage and is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. The Lords Spiritual are 26 bishops in the established Church of England, of the Lords Temporal, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. However, they include some hereditary peers including four dukes. Very few of these are female since most hereditary peerages can only be inherited by men, while the House of Commons has a defined 650-seat membership, the number of members in the House of Lords is not fixed. There are currently 805 sitting Lords, the House of Lords is the only upper house of any bicameral parliament to be larger than its respective lower house. The House of Lords scrutinises bills that have approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends Bills from the Commons, while it is unable to prevent Bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay Bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the House of Commons that is independent from the electoral process, Bills can be introduced into either the House of Lords or the House of Commons. Members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, the House of Lords has its own support services, separate from the Commons, including the House of Lords Library. The Queens Speech is delivered in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament, the House also has a Church of England role, in that Church Measures must be tabled within the House by the Lords Spiritual. This new parliament was, in effect, the continuation of the Parliament of England with the addition of 45 MPs and 16 Peers to represent Scotland, the Parliament of England developed from the Magnum Concilium, the Great Council that advised the King during medieval times. This royal council came to be composed of ecclesiastics, noblemen, the first English Parliament is often considered to be the Model Parliament, which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, and representatives of the shires and boroughs of it. The power of Parliament grew slowly, fluctuating as the strength of the monarchy grew or declined, for example, during much of the reign of Edward II, the nobility was supreme, the Crown weak, and the shire and borough representatives entirely powerless. In 1569, the authority of Parliament was for the first time recognised not simply by custom or royal charter, further developments occurred during the reign of Edward IIs successor, Edward III. It was during this Kings reign that Parliament clearly separated into two chambers, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The authority of Parliament continued to grow, and, during the fifteenth century
4.
University College London
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University College London is a public research university in London, England, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is the largest postgraduate institution in the UK by enrollment and is regarded as one of the worlds leading research universities. UCL also makes the claims of being the third-oldest university in England. In 1836 UCL became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London, which was granted a charter in the same year. UCL has its campus in the Bloomsbury area of central London, with a number of institutes and teaching hospitals elsewhere in central London. UCL is organised into 11 constituent faculties, within there are over 100 departments, institutes. In 2015/16, UCL had around 38,300 students and 12,000 staff and had an income of £1.36 billion. UCL ranks highly in national and international league tables and its graduates rank among the most employable in the world, UCL academics discovered five of the naturally occurring noble gases, co-discovered hormones, invented the vacuum tube, and made several foundational advances in modern statistics. There are at least 29 Nobel Prize winners and 3 Fields medalists amongst UCLs alumni and current, UCL was founded on 11 February 1826 under the name London University, as an alternative to the Anglican universities of Oxford and Cambridge. London Universitys first Warden was Leonard Horner, who was the first scientist to head a British university and this suggests that while his ideas may have been influential, he himself was less so. In 1827, the Chair of Political Economy at London University was created, with John Ramsay McCulloch as the first incumbent, in 1828 the university became the first in England to offer English as a subject and the teaching of Classics and medicine began. In 1830, London University founded the London University School, which would later become University College School, in 1833, the university appointed Alexander Maconochie, Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, as the first professor of geography in the UK. In 1834, University College Hospital opened as a hospital for the universitys medical school. In 1836, London University was incorporated by charter under the name University College. The Slade School of Fine Art was founded as part of University College in 1871, in 1878, the University of London gained a supplemental charter making it the first British university to be allowed to award degrees to women. The same year, UCL admitted women to the faculties of Arts and Law and of Science, although women remained barred from the faculties of Engineering and of Medicine. Armstrong College, an institution of Newcastle University, also allowed women to enter from its foundation in 1871. Women were finally admitted to medical studies during the First World War in 1917, in 1898, Sir William Ramsay discovered the elements krypton, neon and xenon whilst professor of chemistry at UCL
5.
Kellogg School of Management
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The Kellogg School of Management is the business school of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, with additional campuses in downtown Chicago, Illinois and Miami, Florida. Kellogg offers full-time, part-time, and executive programs, and partners with schools in China, France/Singapore, India, Spain, Hong Kong, Israel, Germany, Canada, and Thailand. Degrees granted include the Master of Business Administration, Ph. D. programs in fields, an MBA-JD, and MMM Program. The MDI degree replaces the MEM degree within the MMM program, founded in 1908 in downtown Chicago as a part-time evening program, the school was chartered to educate business leaders with good moral character. Kellogg pioneered the use of group projects and evaluations and popularized the importance of teamwork and team leadership within the business world. Kellogg has historically been ranked as one of the top schools in the world by BusinessWeek, U. S. News & World Report, The Economist Intelligence Unit. The PTMBA program has recently been ranked #1 in the nation by Business Week, Alumni from the Kellogg school hold leadership positions in for-profit, nonprofit, governmental, and academic institutions around the world. As one of the original members, the school later played a major role in helping to establish the Graduate Management Admission Test. In addition, faculty associated with the school have made contributions to such as marketing. For instance, Walter Dill Scott, a pioneer in applied psychology and he went on to serve as president of Northwestern University from 1920–1939. Similarly, Kotlers Marketing Management text has played a key role in deepening the fields scholarship, in 1919, Ralph E. Heilman, a Northwestern graduate with a doctorate from Harvard, was appointed dean of the school. And in the year, the school launched a graduate program leading toward the Master of Business Administration degree. In 1939, Homer Vanderblue became the dean of the school. In 1951, Kellogg began offering executive education courses, the Institute for Management, a four-week summer program based in Evanston, expanded the following year to two sections. The programs success eventually led to it being expanded in Europe in 1965 with a program offered in Bürgenstock. In 1976, the school expanded its executive education offerings in Evanston, a watershed event in the schools history was the opening of the James L. Allen Center, home of the Kellogg executive education programs. The Allen Centers cornerstone was laid in 1978 while the facility officially opened Oct 31,1979, in addition, this training was oriented toward general management, rather than narrowly functional skills, as had largely been the case in many business schools for much of the 20th century. To reflect this change, the school in 1969 stopped issuing the MBA credential in favor of the MM, a point of differentiation for nearly three decades, the school more recently returned to the traditional MBA
6.
Northwestern University
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Composed of twelve schools and colleges, Northwestern offers 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees. Northwestern was founded in 1851 by John Evans, for whom the City of Evanston is named and its founding purpose was to serve the Northwest Territory, an area that today includes the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota. Instruction began in 1855, women were admitted in 1869, today, the main campus is a 240-acre parcel in Evanston, along the shores of Lake Michigan 12 miles north of downtown Chicago. The universitys law, medical, and professional schools are located on a 25-acre campus in Chicagos Streeterville neighborhood, in 2008, the university opened a campus in Education City, Doha, Qatar with programs in journalism and communication. In 2016, Northwestern opened its San Francisco space at 44 Montgomery St. which hosts journalism, engineering, Northwestern is a large research university with a comprehensive doctoral program and it attracts over $650 million in sponsored research each year. Northwestern has the tenth largest university endowment in the United States, in 2017, the university accepted 9. 0% of undergraduate applicants from a pool of 37,255. Northwestern is a member of the Big Ten Conference and remains the only private university in the conference. The Northwestern Wildcats compete in 19 intercollegiate sports in the NCAAs Division I Big Ten Conference, on January 28,1851, the Illinois General Assembly granted a charter to the Trustees of the North-Western University, making it the first chartered university in Illinois. The schools nine founders, all of whom were Methodists, knelt in prayer, John Evans, for whom Evanston is named, bought 379 acres of land along Lake Michigan in 1853, and Philo Judson developed plans for what would become the city of Evanston, Illinois. The first building, Old College, opened on November 5,1855, to raise funds for its construction, Northwestern sold $100 perpetual scholarships entitling the purchaser and his heirs to free tuition. Willard Residential College is named in her honor, Northwestern admitted its first women students in 1869, and the first woman was graduated in 1874. Northwestern fielded its first intercollegiate football team in 1882, later becoming a member of the Big Ten Conference. In the 1870s and 1880s, Northwestern affiliated itself with already existing schools of law, medicine, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the oldest law school in Chicago. The Association of American Universities invited Northwestern to become a member in 1917, in 1933, a proposal to merge Northwestern with the University of Chicago was considered but rejected. Northwestern was also one of the first six universities in the country to establish a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps in the 1920s, after the golden years of the 1920s, the Great Depression in the United States hit Northwestern hard. Its annual income dropped 25 percent from $4.8 million in 1930-31 to $3.6 million in 1933-34. Investment income shrank, fewer parents could pay full tuition, and annual giving from alumni, the university responded with two salary cuts of 10 percent each for all employees. It imposed a freeze, a building freeze, and slashed appropriations for maintenance, books
7.
Brighton Pavilion (UK Parliament constituency)
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1950-1983, The County Borough of Brighton wards of Hollingbury, Montpelier, Patcham, Pavilion, Preston, Preston Park, Regency, St Nicholas, St Peters, and West. 1983-1997, The Borough of Brighton wards of Hollingbury, Patcham, Preston, Regency, St Peters, Seven Dials, Stanmer, and Westdene. 1997-2010, The Borough of Brighton wards of Hanover, Hollingbury, Patcham, Preston, Regency, St Peters, Seven Dials, Stanmer, and Westdene. 2010-present, The City of Brighton and Hove wards of Hanover and Elm Grove, Hollingbury and Stanmer, Patcham, Preston Park, Regency, St Peters and North Laine, the present name is derived from the Royal Pavilion. On current boundaries, the pavilion itself is right on the South-Eastern border of the seat – the opposite side of the road is Brighton Kemptown. It encompasses the heart of the city, including the Georgian and Regency alleyway properties of The Lanes, the developed centre of the promenade above the pebbled beach has Brighton Pier, major entertainment venues and the citys largest hotels including the Grand Hotel and Hilton Brighton Metropole. It is a relatively affluent seat, since average income is higher than the UK average, from 1950 until 1997 the seat had Conservative Party representatives. In 1997, David Lepper of the Labour Party began service as MP for 13 years by winning the two subsequent elections, the Conservatives share of the vote has declined at every election since 1983. In July 2007, the Green Party selected Caroline Lucas to contest the seat, at which point she was neither Leader nor Principal Speaker for the party. In November 2009 Charlotte Vere was selected as the Conservative Party candidate at an open primary attended by local Party members, in January 2010 the Liberal Democrats also selected a female candidate, Bernadette Millam. Labour had selected Nancy Platts, a campaigner and former union worker. This meant that, distinctively, all of the four leading parties in the constituency had female candidates, in 2010 Labours share of the vote fell by 6. 5%, and Lucas, by then leading the Green Party, won the seat. In contrast to results, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat share of the vote fell. Lucas held the seat for the Green Party in the 2015 General Election with an increased majority, purna Sen, who held senior roles at the Commonwealth, LSE and Amnesty International, was selected to contest the seat for Labour. Clarence Mitchell, a former BBC News reporter and spokesman for the family of Madeleine McCann, was selected as the Conservative Party candidate, nomis Constituency Profile for Brighton, Pavilion — presenting data from the ONS annual population survey and other official statistics
8.
United Kingdom general election, 2010
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The United Kingdom general election of 2010 was held on Thursday,6 May 2010, with 45,597,461 registered voters entitled to vote to elect members to the House of Commons. The election took place in 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom under the first-past-the-post system, none of the parties achieved the 326 seats needed for an overall majority. The Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, won the largest number of votes and seats and this resulted in a hung parliament where no party was able to command a majority in the House of Commons. This was only the general election since World War II to return a hung parliament. The coalition government that was formed was the first coalition in British history to eventuate directly from an election outcome. The hung parliament came in spite of the Conservatives managing a higher share of the vote than the previous Labour government had done in 2005 that had a comfortable majority, Coalition talks began immediately between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and lasted for five days. There was an attempt to put together a Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition. To facilitate this Gordon Brown announced on the evening of Monday 10 May that he would resign as Labour Party leader. Realising that a deal with the Conservatives was in reach, the day on Tuesday 11 May, Brown announced his resignation as Prime Minister. This was accepted by Queen Elizabeth II, who then invited David Cameron to form a government in her name and become Prime Minister, none of the three main party leaders had previously led a general election campaign, a situation which had not occurred since the 1979 election. During the campaign, the three party leaders engaged in a series of televised debates, the first such debates in a British general election campaign. The Liberal Democrats achieved a breakthrough in opinion polls after the first debate, nonetheless on polling day their share of the vote increased by only 1% over the previous general election, and they suffered a net loss of five seats. This was still the Liberal Democrats largest popular vote since the partys creation, the share of votes for parties other than Labour or the Conservatives was 35%, the largest since the 1918 general election. In terms of votes it was the most three-cornered election since 1923, the Green Party of England and Wales won its first ever seat in the Commons, and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland also gained its first elected member. The General Election saw a 5. 1% national swing from Labour to the Conservatives, the result in one constituency, Oldham East and Saddleworth, was subsequently declared void on petition because of illegal practices during the campaign, the first such instance since 1910. The election took place on 6 May in 649 constituencies across the United Kingdom, under the first-past-the-post system, voting in the Thirsk and Malton constituency was postponed for three weeks because of the death of a candidate. The governing Labour Party had campaigned to secure a consecutive term in office. The Conservative Party sought to gain a dominant position in British politics after losses in the 1990s, the Liberal Democrats hoped to make gains from both sides and hoped to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament
9.
Norbiton
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Norbiton is an area within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, London. It lies approximately 1 mile east of Kingston upon Thames town centre and its name was originally Norberton and it was named in a similar way to Surbiton on the opposite side of the Hogsmill River. The origin of the place-name is from the Old English words north, bere, norbitons housing stock largely consists of large family Victorian and Edwardian houses, plus small localised brownfield redevelopments of 1960s, 1980s and modern flats. It is home also to Kingston Cemetery on Bonner Hill, being 25 minutes via train to Waterloo station, the suburban population includes a large concentration of London commuters. This may be why the station here was famously used as a location for the British sitcom The Fall. The headquarters of the Fire Brigades Union is located close to the station, on Coombe Road, Norbiton is the location for the One Norbiton Working Together project, an initiative supported by the Cabinet Office under the LIS banner. One Norbiton is an initiative established in 2010 by the Government. It is primarily made up of residents and businesses, with input from the police, council officials. For education in Norbiton see the main Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames article, ham New Malden Teddington Petersham Berrylands Roehampton Surbiton Wimbledon Norbiton railway station Kingston railway station Berrylands railway station New Malden railway station
10.
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
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The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is a borough in southwest London, England. The main town is Kingston upon Thames and it includes Surbiton, Chessington, New Malden, Tolworth and it is the oldest of the four Royal Boroughs in England. The others are Kensington and Chelsea and Greenwich also in London, the local authority is Kingston upon Thames London Borough Council. Many Roman relics have been found in the surrounding areas, a church has stood on the site of All Saints Church, in the centre of Kingston, for more than a thousand years. An earlier church was sacked by the Vikings in 1009 AD, a coin from the reign of each of those kings is set into the base of the stone. The borough was formed in 1965 by the merger and the transfer from Surrey to Greater London of the Municipal boroughs of Kingston-upon-Thames, Malden and Coombe, the current name of the borough omits hyphens to distinguish it from the similarly named former municipal borough. The borough includes the whole of the Kingston and Surbiton Westminster Parliamentary Constituency and part of the Richmond Park Constituency, the previous constituencies re-arranged to form these two had been essentially Conservative. In 1997 the Liberal Democrats won both seats, goldsmith retained his seat at the 2015 general election, with a greatly increased majority of 23,015. Edward Davey overturned the previous Conservative majority of more than 10,000 in Kingston and Surbiton and he retained the seat in 2001 with a majority of 15,676 over the Conservative candidate David Shaw. In 2005 Daveys majority was 8,961 and in the May 2010 general election he retained the seat with a slightly reduced majority. In the 2015 general election, Daveys seat was taken by Conservative James Berry with a majority of 2,834, Daveys was one of six Liberal Democrat losses in London and 49 overall as the party suffered its worst election results since its formation in 1988. The Borough Council was controlled by the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1986 and it lost several by-elections due to its attempt to abolish the Boroughs grammar school system. The Conservatives regained control in 1987, the 1990 election gave no party a majority but the Conservatives kept power with the casting vote of the Mayor. In 1994 the Liberal Democrats took the Council for the first time, in 1998 the Liberal Democrats lost their majority on the Council and a minority Conservative Party administration was formed. This minority administration was weakened in 1999 by the expulsion of Tim Brown for expressing concerns about the leadership of the local Kingston & Surbiton Conservative Association, marks ward Councillors Dennis de Lord and Jan Jenner resigned in protest at hypocrisy within the Conservative group on the Council. With Tim Brown they formed a new Independent Group of Councillors with Dennis de Lord as leader and Tim Brown as deputy leader, to put People Before Politics. This was the first time that four parties were represented on the council, the group did not stand for re-election following the continuing ill-health of Dennis de Lord. At the 2002 elections, the Liberal Democrats took control of the Council with a majority of twelve seats and this was the first time any party had retained control of the Council since 1986
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BBC News
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BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the worlds largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, the service maintains 50 foreign news bureaux with more than 250 correspondents around the world. James Harding has been Director of News and Current Affairs since April 2013, the departments annual budget is in excess of £350 million, it has 3,500 staff,2,000 of whom are journalists. BBC News domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London. Through the BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England, as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland, all nations and English regions produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes. As with all media outlets, though, it has been accused of political bias from across the political spectrum. The British Broadcasting Company broadcast its first radio bulletin from radio station 2LO on 14 November 1922, on Easter weekend in 1930, this reliance on newspaper wire services left the radio news service with no information to report. The BBC gradually gained the right to edit the copy and, in 1934, however, it could not broadcast news before 6 PM until World War II. Gaumont British and Movietone cinema newsreels had been broadcast on the TV service since 1936, a weekly Childrens Newsreel was inaugurated on 23 April 1950, to around 350,000 receivers. The network began simulcasting its radio news on television in 1946, televised bulletins began on 5 July 1954, broadcast from leased studios within Alexandra Palace in London. The publics interest in television and live events was stimulated by Elizabeth IIs coronation in 1953 and it is estimated that up to 27 million people viewed the programme in the UK, overtaking radios audience of 12 million for the first time. Those live pictures were fed from 21 cameras in central London to Alexandra Palace for transmission and that year, there were around two million TV Licences held in the UK, rising to over three million the following year, and four and a half million by 1955. This was then followed by the customary Television Newsreel with a commentary by John Snagge. It was revealed that this had been due to producers fearing a newsreader with visible facial movements would distract the viewer from the story. On-screen newsreaders were finally introduced a year later in 1955 – Kenneth Kendall, Robert Dougall, mainstream television production had started to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950 to larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherds Bush, west London – taking Current Affairs with it. It was from here that the first Panorama, a new programme, was transmitted on 11 November 1953. On 28 October 1957, the Today programme, a radio programme, was launched in central London on the Home Service. In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs and he set up a BBC study group whose findings, published in 1959, were critical of what the television news operation had become under his predecessor, Tahu Hole
12.
The London Gazette
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The London Gazette claims to be the oldest surviving English newspaper and the oldest continuously published newspaper in the UK, having been first published on 7 November 1665 as The Oxford Gazette. This claim is made by the Stamford Mercury and Berrows Worcester Journal. It does not have a large circulation, in turn, The London Gazette carries not only notices of UK-wide interest, but also those relating specifically to entities or people in England and Wales. However, certain notices that are only of specific interest to Scotland or Northern Ireland are also required to be published in The London Gazette, the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes are published by TSO on behalf of Her Majestys Stationery Office. They are subject to Crown Copyright, the London Gazette is published each weekday, except for Bank Holidays. The official Gazettes are published by The Stationery Office, the content, apart from insolvency notices, is available in a number of machine-readable formats, including XML and XML/RDFa via Atom feed. The London Gazette was first published as The Oxford Gazette on 7 November 1665. Charles II and the Royal Court had moved to Oxford to escape the Great Plague of London, the Gazette was Published by Authority by Henry Muddiman, and its first publication is noted by Samuel Pepys in his diary. The King returned to London as the plague dissipated, and the Gazette moved too, the Gazette was not a newspaper in the modern sense, it was sent by post to subscribers, not printed for sale to the general public. Her Majestys Stationery Office took over the publication of the Gazette in 1889, publication of the Gazette was transferred to the private sector, under government supervision, in the 1990s, when HMSO was sold and renamed The Stationery Office. In time of war, dispatches from the conflicts are published in The London Gazette. People referred to are said to have mentioned in dispatches. When members of the forces are promoted, and these promotions are published here. Man tally-ho, Miss piano, Wife silk and satin, Boy Greek and Latin, the phrase gazetted fortune hunter is also probably derived from this. Notices of engagement and marriage were also published in the Gazette. Gazettes, modelled on The London Gazette, were issued for most British colonial possessions
13.
10 Downing Street
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Situated in Downing Street in the City of Westminster, London, Number 10 is over 300 years old and contains approximately 100 rooms. A private residence occupies the floor and there is a kitchen in the basement. At the rear is a courtyard and a terrace overlooking a garden of 0.5 acres. Adjacent to St Jamess Park, Number 10 is near Buckingham Palace, the London residence of the British monarch, and the Palace of Westminster, originally three houses, Number 10 was offered to Sir Robert Walpole by King George II in 1732. Walpole accepted on the condition that the gift was to the office of First Lord of the Treasury rather than to him personally, Walpole commissioned William Kent to join the three houses and it is this larger house that is known as Number 10 Downing Street. The arrangement was not an immediate success, despite its size and convenient location near to Parliament, few early Prime Ministers lived there. Costly to maintain, neglected, and run-down, Number 10 was close to being demolished several times but the property survived and became linked with many statesmen, in 1985 Margaret Thatcher said Number 10 had become one of the most precious jewels in the national heritage. Number 10 Downing Street was originally three properties, a mansion overlooking St Jamess Park called the House at the Back, a house behind it. The town house, from which the building gets its name, was one of several built by Sir George Downing between 1682 and 1684. Downing, a spy for Oliver Cromwell and later Charles II, invested in property. In 1654, he purchased the lease on land south of St Jamess Park, Downing planned to build a row of town houses for persons of good quality to inhabit in. The street on which he built them now bears his name, straightforward as the investment seemed, it proved otherwise. The Hampden family had a lease on the land that they refused to relinquish, Downing fought their claim, but failed and had to wait thirty years before he could build. When the Hampden lease expired, Downing received permission to build on land further west to take advantage of recent property developments. The new warrant issued in 1682 reads, Sir George Downing. to build new, subject to the proviso that it be not built any nearer than 14 feet of the wall of the said Park at the West end thereof. Between 1682 and 1684, Downing built a cul-de-sac of two-storey town houses with coach-houses, stables, over the years, the addresses changed several times. In 1787 Number 5 became Number 10, Downing employed Sir Christopher Wren to design the houses. Although large, they were put up quickly and cheaply on soft soil with shallow foundations, the fronts were façades with lines painted on the surface imitating brick mortar
