1.
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
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The Secretary of State is a Minister of the Crown who is accountable to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is the chief minister in the Northern Ireland Office. As with other ministers, the position is appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, the position is normally described simply as the Secretary of State by residents of Northern Ireland. g. Security, human rights, certain public inquiries and the administration of elections, created in 1972, the position has switched between Members of Parliament from the Conservative Party and Labour Party. This contrasts with the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Secretary of State for Wales, historically, the principal ministers for Irish affairs in the UK Government and its predecessors were, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the Home Secretary. In August 1969, for example, Home Secretary James Callaghan approved the sending of British Army soldiers to Northern Ireland, the office of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was created following the suspension, then abolition, of the Northern Ireland Parliament, following widespread civil strife. The UK Government was increasingly concerned that the Northern Ireland Government was losing control of the situation, on 24 March 1972, it announced that direct rule from Westminster would be introduced. This took effect on 30 March 1972, the post effectively filled three roles which existed under the previous Stormont regime, the Governor of Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, and the Minister of Home Affairs. Direct rule was seen as a measure, with a power-sharing devolution preferred as the solution. The Sunningdale Agreement in 1973 resulted in a brief, power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive, from 1 January 1974, the strikers opposed the power-sharing and all-Ireland aspects of the new administration. The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention and Northern Ireland Assembly were unsuccessful in restoring devolved government, after the Anglo-Irish Agreement on 15 November 1985, the UK Government and Irish Government co-operated more closely on security and political matters. Following the Belfast Agreement on 10 April 1998, devolution returned to Northern Ireland on 2 December 1999 and this removed many of the duties of the Secretary of State and his Northern Ireland Office colleagues and devolved them to locally elected politicians, constituting the Northern Ireland Executive. On each of these occasions, the responsibilities of the ministers in the Executive then returned to the Secretary of State and his ministers. During these periods, in addition to administration of the region, power was again devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 8 May 2007. The Secretary of State retained responsibility for policing and justice until most of powers were devolved on 12 April 2010
2.
Margaret Thatcher
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She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, and the first woman to have held the office. A Soviet journalist dubbed her The Iron Lady, a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics, as Prime Minister, she implemented policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism. A research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959, Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and she became Prime Minister after winning the 1979 general election. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation, flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies and she narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in 1984. Thatcher was re-elected for a term in 1987. During this period her support for a Community Charge was widely unpopular and she resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a peerage as Baroness Thatcher which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. After a series of strokes in 2002, she was advised to withdraw from public speaking. Despite this, she managed to pre-record a eulogy to Ronald Reagan prior to his death, in 2013, she died of another stroke in London, at the age of 87. Always a controversial figure, she has described as one of the greatest and most influential politicians in British history. Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on 13 October 1925, in Grantham and her father was Alfred Roberts, originally from Northamptonshire, and her mother was Beatrice Ethel from Lincolnshire. She spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned two grocery shops, Prior to the Second World War, in 1938 the Roberts family gave sanctuary to a teenage Jewish girl escaping Nazi Germany. Thatcher was to describe this in her memoirs as among the significant events of her formative years, Alfred Roberts was an alderman and a Methodist local preacher, and brought up his daughter as a strict Wesleyan Methodist attending the Finkin Street Methodist Church. He came from a Liberal family but stood as an Independent and he was Mayor of Grantham in 1945–46 and lost his position as alderman in 1952 after the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950. Margaret Roberts attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and her school reports showed hard work and continual improvement, her extracurricular activities included the piano, field hockey, poetry recitals, swimming and walking. She was head girl in 1942–43, in her upper sixth year she applied for a scholarship to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, but she was initially rejected and was offered a place only after another candidate withdrew. Her dissertation was on the structure of the antibiotic gramicidin, even while working on chemistry, she was already thinking towards law and politics
3.
Leader of the House of Commons
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The Leader of the House of Commons is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Commons. This office does not attract a ministerial salary, and as such it is held jointly with another ministerial position. The Leader is assisted in the Office of the Leader of the House of Commons by the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, at times the nominal leadership was held by the Prime Minister but the day-to-day work was done by a Deputy. At other times a Deputy was appointed merely to enhance an individual politicians standing within the government, however, since 2010 the Deputy Leader of the House of Commons has been a ministerial role at the level of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State. The House of Commons devotes approximately three-quarters of its time to Government business, such as introduced by the government. The Leader of the House, with the chief whips, is responsible for organising Government business. The Leader of the House additionally announces the next weeks debate schedule in the Business Statement every Thursday, when there is either no Deputy Prime Minister or First Secretary of State, the Leader of the House may stand in for an absent Prime Minister at Prime Ministers Questions
4.
Edward Heath
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It was, says biographer John Campbell, Heaths finest hour. Although he planned to be an innovator as Prime Minister, his government foundered on economic difficulties, including high inflation and he led his party to defeat by the Labour Party twice in 1974. He became a vehement opponent of Margaret Thatcher, who supplanted him as party leader in 1975, Heaths lower middle-class origins were quite unusual for a Conservative Party leader. However, he was a leader in student politics at Oxford University and he worked briefly in the Civil Service, but resigned in order to stand for Parliament, and was elected for Bexley in the 1950 general election. He was the Chief Whip from 1955 to 1959, having entered the Cabinet as Minister of Labour in 1959, he was promoted to Lord Privy Seal and later became President of the Board of Trade. Heath was elected leader of the Conservative Party in 1965, he retained that position despite losing the 1966 general election, Heath became Prime Minister after winning the 1970 election. Possibly most significantly, he took Britain into the European Economic Community in 1973, Heaths premiership also oversaw the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, with the suspension of the Stormont Parliament and the imposition of direct British rule. Heath also tried to curb the trade unions with the Industrial Relations Act 1971, however, rising unemployment in 1972 led him to reflate the economy, he attempted to control the resulting high inflation by a prices and incomes policy. Two miners strikes, in 1972 and at the start of 1974, damaged the government, Heath resigned as Prime Minister after trying in vain to form a coalition with the Liberal Party. Despite losing a general election in October that year, he vowed to continue as leader of his party. In February 1975, however, Margaret Thatcher challenged and defeated him to win the leadership, returning to the backbenches, Heath became an active critic of Thatchers policies. He remained a backbench MP until retiring at the 2001 election, outside politics, Heath was a world-class yachtsman and a talented musician. He was one of only four British prime ministers never to have married, in August 2015, the Wiltshire Police announced the beginning of Operation Conifer, a posthumous investigation of Heath for historical incidences of sex abuse. Edward Heath was born at 54 Albion Road, Broadstairs, Kent on 9 July 1916, the son of William George Heath, a carpenter and builder, and Edith Anne Heath and his father was later a successful small businessman. Heath was educated at Chatham House Grammar School in Ramsgate, and in 1935 with the aid of a county scholarship he went up to study at Balliol College, while at university Heath became active in Conservative politics. On the key issue of the day, foreign policy. His first Paper Speech at the Oxford Union, in Michaelmas 1936, was in opposition to the appeasement of Germany by returning her colonies, confiscated during the First World War. In June 1937 he was elected President of the Oxford University Conservative Association as a pro-Spanish Republic candidate, in 1937–38 he was chairman of the national Federation of University Conservative Associations, and in the same year he was Secretary and then Librarian of the Oxford Union
5.
Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
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The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a United Kingdom cabinet position, responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The post was originally named President of the Board of Agriculture and was created in 1889, in 1919, it was renamed Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. In 1954, the position of Minister of Food was merged into the post and it was renamed Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries. Successive Prime Ministers asked the Minister to upgrade the Ministry to a Department of State taking the title Secretary of State, on 8 June 2001, the Ministry merged with Secretary of State for the Environment into the office of Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. However, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was not formally abolished until The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Order 2002 came into force on 27 March 2002
6.
Norwich
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Norwich is a city on the River Wensum in East Anglia and lies about 100 miles north-east of London. It is the administrative centre for East Anglia and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London and it remained the capital of the most populous English county until the Industrial Revolution. The urban area of Norwich had a population of 213,166 according to the 2011 Census, the parliamentary seats cross over into adjacent local-government districts. A total of 132,512 people live in the City of Norwich, Norwich is the fourth most densely populated local-government district in the East of England, with 3,480 people per square kilometre. In May 2012, Norwich was designated Englands first UNESCO City of Literature, the capital of the Iceni tribe was a settlement located near to the village of Caistor St. Edmund on the River Tas approximately 8 kilometres to the south of modern-day Norwich. Following an uprising led by Boudica around AD60 the Caistor area became the Roman capital of East Anglia named Venta Icenorum, literally the market place of the Iceni. According to a rhyme, the demise of Venta Icenorum led to the development of Norwich, Caistor was a city when Norwich was none. There are two suggested models of development for Norwich, the ancient city was a thriving centre for trade and commerce in East Anglia in 1004 AD when it was raided and burnt by Swein Forkbeard the Viking king of Denmark. Mercian coins and shards of pottery from the Rhineland dating from the 8th century suggest that trade was happening long before this. Between 924 and 939, Norwich became fully established as a town, the word Norvic appears on coins across Europe minted during this period, in the reign of King Athelstan. The Vikings were a cultural influence in Norwich for 40–50 years at the end of the 9th century. At the time of the Norman Conquest the city was one of the largest in England, the Domesday Book states that it had approximately 25 churches and a population of between 5, 000–10,000. It also records the site of an Anglo-Saxon church in Tombland, the site of the Saxon market place and the later Norman cathedral. Norwich continued to be a centre for trade, the River Wensum being a convenient export route to the River Yare and Great Yarmouth. Quern stones and other artefacts from Scandinavia and the Rhineland have been found during excavations in Norwich city centre and these date from the 11th century onwards. Norwich Castle was founded soon after the Norman Conquest, the Domesday Book records that 98 Saxon homes were demolished to make way for the castle. In 1096, Herbert de Losinga, Bishop of Thetford, began construction of Norwich Cathedral, the chief building material for the Cathedral was limestone, imported from Caen in Normandy
7.
Norfolk
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Norfolk /ˈnɔːrfək/ is a county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the west and north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea and, to the north-west, The Wash. With an area of 2,074 square miles and a population of 859,400, of the countys population, 40% live in four major built up areas, Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Kings Lynn and Thetford. The Broads is a network of rivers and lakes in the east of the county, the area is not a National Park although it is marketed as such. It has similar status to a park, and is protected by the Broads Authority. Norfolk was settled in times, with camps along the higher land in the west. A Brythonic tribe, the Iceni, inhabited the county from the 1st century BC to the end of the 1st century AD, the Iceni revolted against the Roman invasion in AD47, and again in 60 led by Boudica. The crushing of the second opened the county to the Romans. During the Roman era roads and ports were constructed throughout the county, situated on the east coast, Norfolk was vulnerable to invasions from Scandinavia and Northern Europe, and forts were built to defend against the Angles and Saxons. Norfolk, Suffolk and several adjacent areas became the kingdom of East Anglia, the influence of the Early English settlers can be seen in the many place names ending in -ton and -ham. Endings such as -by and -thorpe are also common, indicating Danish place names, in the 9th century the region came under attack. In the centuries before the Norman Conquest the wetlands of the east of the county began to be converted to farmland, and settlements grew in these areas. Migration into East Anglia must have high, by the time of the Domesday Book survey it was one of the most densely populated parts of the British Isles. During the high and late Middle Ages the county developed arable agriculture, the economy was in decline by the time of the Black Death, which dramatically reduced the population in 1349. During the English Civil War Norfolk was largely Parliamentarian, the economy and agriculture of the region declined somewhat. During the Industrial Revolution Norfolk developed little industry except in Norwich which was an addition to the railway network. In the 20th century the county developed a role in aviation, during the Second World War agriculture rapidly intensified, and it has remained very intensive since, with the establishment of large fields for growing cereals and oilseed rape. Norfolks low-lying land and easily eroded cliffs, many of which are chalk and clay, make it vulnerable to the sea, the low-lying section of coast between Kelling and Lowestoft Ness in Suffolk is currently managed by the Environment Agency to protect the Broads from sea flooding
8.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
9.
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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