1.
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
–
The House of Commons of the United Kingdom is the lower house of the countrys parliament. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The House is a body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by first-past-the-post and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved, under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The Government is primarily responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as he or she retains the support of a majority of its members. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance, by convention, the prime minister is answerable to, and must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Since 1963, by convention, the minister is always a member of the House of Commons. The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence, confidence and no confidence motions are sometimes phrased explicitly, for instance, That this House has no confidence in Her Majestys Government. Many other motions were considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such, in particular, important bills that form a part of the Governments agenda were formerly considered matters of confidence, as is the annual Budget. Parliament normally sits for a term of five years. Subject to that limit, the minister could formerly choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament. By this second mechanism, the government of the United Kingdom can change without a general election. In such circumstances there may not even have been a party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim. A prime minister may resign if he or she is not defeated at the polls. In such a case, the premiership goes to whoever can command a majority in the House of Commons, in practice this is usually the new leader of the outgoing prime ministers party. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no mechanism for electing a new leader, when Anthony Eden resigned as PM in 1957 without recommending a successor and it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the advice of ministers. By convention, all ministers must be members of the House of Commons or of the House of Lords, a handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they then entered Parliament either in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Since 1902, all ministers have been members of the Commons
2.
William Hague
–
William Jefferson Hague, Baron Hague of Richmond PC FRSL is a British Conservative politician and life peer. He represented Richmond, Yorkshire as Member of Parliament from 1989 to 2015, Hague was educated at Wath-upon-Dearne Grammar School, the University of Oxford and INSEAD, subsequently being returned to the House of Commons at a by-election in 1989. Hague quickly rose through the ranks of the government of John Major and was appointed to Cabinet in 1995 as Secretary of State for Wales. Following the Conservatives landslide defeat at the 1997 general election by the Labour Party and he returned to the backbenches, pursuing a career as an author, writing biographies of William Pitt the Younger and William Wilberforce. He also held several directorships, and worked as a consultant, after David Cameron was elected Leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, Hague was reappointed to the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Foreign Secretary. He also assumed the role of Senior Member of the Shadow Cabinet, after the formation of the Coalition Government in 2010, Hague was appointed First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary. Cameron described him as his de facto political deputy, Hague was elevated as a Life Peer in the 2015 Dissolution Honours List and created Baron Hague of Richmond, of Richmond in the County of North Yorkshire, on 9 October. Hague was born on 26 March 1961 in Rotherham, Yorkshire and he initially boarded at Ripon Grammar School and then attended Wath-upon-Dearne Comprehensive, a State-secondary school near Rotherham, previously Wath Grammar School. His parents, Nigel and Stella Hague, ran a soft drinks manufacturing business where he worked during school holidays and his childhood nurse, Bessie Camm, went on to be the oldest living person in Britain as of 2017, at age 112. He first made the news at the age of 16 by addressing the Conservatives at their 1977 Annual National Conference. In his speech he told the delegates, half of you wont be here in 30 or 40 years time, but that others would have to live with consequences of a Labour Government if it stayed in power. Hague read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford and he was President of the Oxford University Conservative Association, but was convicted of electoral malpractice in the election process. Hague was playing the game of using his powers as President to keep his faction in power. There were accusations of blatant ballot box stuffing and he also served as President of the Oxford Union, an established route into politics. After Oxford, Hague went on to study for a Master of Business Administration degree at INSEAD and he then worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, where Archie Norman was his mentor. After Lamont was sacked in 1993, Hague moved to the Department of Social Security where he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the following year he was promoted as Minister of State in the DSS with responsibility for Social Security and Disabled People. His fast rise up through Government was attributed to his intelligence and he continued serving in Cabinet until the Conservatives were replaced by New Labour at the 1997 general election. At the age of 36, Hague was tasked with rebuilding the Conservative Party by attempting to build a modern image
3.
Swansea
–
Swansea, officially known as the City and County of Swansea, is a coastal city and county in Wales. It is the second largest city in Wales after Cardiff, Swansea lies within the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan and the ancient Welsh commote of Gŵyr. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county includes the Gower Peninsula. According to its council, the City and County of Swansea had a population of 241,300 in 2014. During its 19th-century industrial heyday, Swansea was a key centre of the copper industry, archaeological finds are mostly confined to the Gower Peninsula, and include items from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. The Romans reached the area, as did the Norsemen, Swansea is thought to have developed as a Viking trading post. Its English name may be derived from Sveinns island – the reference to an island may refer to a bank at the mouth of the river Tawe, an alternative explanation is that the name derives from the Norse name Sweyn and ey, which can mean inlet. This explanation supports the tradition that the city was founded by the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard, the name is pronounced Swans-y /ˈswɒnzi/), not Swan-sea. The charter gave Swansea the status of a borough, granting the townsmen, a second charter was granted in 1215 by King John. In this charter, the name appears as Sweyneshe, the town seal which is believed to date from this period names the town as Sweyse. Following the Norman Conquest, a marcher lordship was created under the title of Gower and it included land around Swansea Bay as far as the River Tawe, the manor of Kilvey beyond the Tawe, and the peninsula itself. Swansea was designated chief town of the lordship and received a borough charter some time between 1158 and 1184, the port of Swansea initially traded in wine, hides, wool, cloth and later in coal. Smelters were operating by 1720 and proliferated, following this, more coal mines were opened and smelters were opened and flourished. Over the next century and a half, works were established to process arsenic, zinc and tin and to create tinplate, the city expanded rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries, and was termed Copperopolis. However, the census understated Swanseas true size, as much of the area lay outside the contemporary boundaries of the borough. Swanseas population was overtaken by Merthyr in 1821 and by Cardiff in 1881. Through the 20th century, heavy industries in the town declined, leaving the Lower Swansea Valley filled with derelict works, the Lower Swansea Valley Scheme reclaimed much of the land. The present Enterprise Zone was the result and, of the original docks, only those outside the city continue to work as docks, North Dock is now Parc Tawe
4.
Wales
–
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon. The country lies within the temperate zone and has a changeable. Welsh national identity emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudds death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of Englands conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century. The whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism, Welsh national feeling grew over the century, Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, two-thirds of the population live in south Wales, mainly in and around Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and in the nearby valleys. Now that the countrys traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, Wales economy depends on the sector, light and service industries. Wales 2010 gross value added was £45.5 billion, over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, and the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the land of song, Rugby union is seen as a symbol of Welsh identity and an expression of national consciousness. The Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term Wælisc when referring to the Celtic Britons in particular, the modern names for some Continental European lands and peoples have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales and these words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen. The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the location in the post-Roman Era of the Welsh people in modern Wales as well as in northern England and southern Scotland. It emphasised that the Welsh in modern Wales and in the Hen Ogledd were one people, in particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage, culture, and language to the Welsh. The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century and it is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh, until c.1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. The Latinised forms of names, Cambrian, Cambric and Cambria, survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales, Welsh
5.
Conservative Party (UK)
–
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
6.
Swansea University
–
Swansea University is a public research university located in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. It was chartered as University College of Swansea in 1920, as the college of the University of Wales. In 1996, it changed its name to the University of Wales Swansea following structural changes within the University of Wales, Swansea University has two campuses located adjacent to the coast at the north of Swansea Bay. The Singleton Park Campus is set in the grounds of Singleton Park to the west of Swansea city centre, the Bay Campus which opened in September 2015, is located adjacent to Jersey Marine Beach to the east of Swansea city centre. It is the third largest university in Wales in terms of number of students and it currently offers about 330 undergraduate courses and 120 post-graduate courses to 17,445 undergraduate and postgraduate students. In 2014 Swansea was named University of the Year in the WhatUni. com Student Choice Awards, in 2016, Swansea University was named as the best university in Wales by The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2017 League Table. It was also awarded the inaugural Welsh University of the Year title, the university is divided between two campuses. The 46-acre Singleton Park campus, set in two miles west of Swansea city centre, houses the colleges of Arts and Humanities, Human and Health Sciences, Medicine, Science. It lies on the approach to the Gower Peninsula, the UK’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It lies three miles east of Swansea city centre in the County Borough of Neath Port Talbot, information Services and Systems has provided a combined library, IT and careers service for the university since 2011. In 2013, ISS received a renewed Customer Service Excellence award along with the universitys Registry and Student Services. Visitors can access a range of electronic resources, including 23,000 e-journals. There are over 1,000 study spaces, almost half of which are equipped with networked PCs, LIS was awarded the Charter Mark in 2006, and received the new Customer Service Excellence award in 2009. In 2013 it received a renewed Customer Service Excellence award in combination with the universitys Registry, morriston Hospital Nursing Library is also housed there. The 2,624 square-metre Bay Library is open round the clock to provide learning spaces for more than 650 students including 400 study spaces and silent study areas for a further 150 students. It holds 1, 800m of library stock, focused on Engineering and Management titles and has dedicated postgraduate rooms, a 30-seat computing and teaching room, Swansea Universitys £20 million International Sports Village is five minutes walk from the Singleton Park campus on the western side of Sketty Lane. The University also owns training pitches in the north of the city, in Fairwood, during the 2012 Summer Olympics, the University hosted the training camps for the Mexican and New Zealand Paralympic teams and the Ireland Triathlon team. In 2014, it hosted the IPC Athletics European Championships, furthermore, in 2015 it hosted the training camps of the Canada national rugby union team and the Fiji national rugby union team in preparation for the 2015 Rugby World Cup
7.
British people
–
British people, or Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown dependencies, and their descendants. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, although early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the united Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity. The notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, and developed further during the Victorian era, because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by unionists. Modern Britons are descended mainly from the ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles in and before the 11th century, Prehistoric, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse. The British are a diverse, multi-national and multicultural society, with regional accents, expressions. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them, the group included Ireland, which was referred to as Ierne inhabited by the different race of Hiberni, and Britain as insula Albionum, island of the Albions. The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands. Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britanni. It has been suggested that name derives from a Gaulish description translated as people of the forms. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, the term Britannia persisted as the Latin name for the island, during the Middle Ages, and particularly in the Tudor period, the term British was used to refer to the Welsh people and Cornish people. At that time, it was the held belief that these were the remaining descendants of the ancient Britons. This notion was supported by such as the Historia Regum Britanniae. Wales and Cornwall, and north, i. e. Cumbria, Strathclyde and this legendary Celtic history of Great Britain is known as the Matter of Britain. The indigenous people of the British Isles have a combination of Celtic, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, oppenheimer continues that the majority of the people of the British Isles share genetic commonalities with the Basques, ranging from highs of 90% in Wales to lows of 66% in East Anglia. Oppenheimers opinion is that. by far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia, ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales. The English had been unified under a single state in 937 by King Athelstan of Wessex after the Battle of Brunanburh. However, historian Simon Schama suggested that it was Edward I of England who was responsible for provoking the peoples of Britain into an awareness of their nationhood in the 13th century
8.
Speaker of the House of Commons (United Kingdom)
–
The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdoms lower chamber of Parliament. The office is held by John Bercow, who was initially elected on 22 June 2009. He was returned as an MP in the 2010 general election and was re-elected as Speaker when the House sat at the start of the new Parliament on 18 May 2010. He was again returned as an MP in the 2015 general election and was re-elected, unopposed, the Speaker presides over the Houses debates, determining which members may speak. The Speaker is also responsible for maintaining order during debate, the Speaker does not take part in debate or vote. Aside from duties relating to presiding over the House, the Speaker also performs administrative and procedural functions, the Speaker has the right and obligation to reside in Speakers House at the Palace of Westminster. The office of Speaker is almost as old as Parliament itself, the earliest year for which a presiding officer has been identified is 1258, when Peter de Montfort presided over the Parliament held in Oxford. Early presiding officers were known by the title parlour or prolocutor, Edward III was frail and in seclusion, his prestigious eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, terminally ill. It was left to the son, a furious John of Gaunt. He arrested De la Mare and disgraced other leading critics, in the next, Bad Parliament, in 1377, a cowed Commons put forward Gaunts steward, Thomas Hungerford, as their spokesman in retracting their predecessors misdoings of the previous year. On 6 October 1399, Sir John Cheyne of Beckford was elected speaker, the powerful Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, is said to have voiced his fears of Cheynes reputation as a critic of the Church. Eight days later, Cheyne resigned on grounds of ill-health, although he remained in favour with the king, in such a situation, the influence of the speaker should not be underestimated. Sir Thomas More was the first speaker to go on to become Lord Chancellor, until the 17th century, members of the House of Commons often continued to view their Speaker as an agent of the Crown. As Parliament evolved, however, the Speakers position grew into one that involved more duties to the House than to the Crown, such was definitely the case by the time of the English Civil War. This change is said to be reflected by an incident in 1642. The development of Cabinet government under King William III in the late 17th century caused further change in the nature of the Speakership, Speakers were generally associated with the ministry, and often held other government offices. For example, Robert Harley served simultaneously as Speaker and as a Secretary of State between 1704 and 1705, the Speaker between 1728 and 1761, Arthur Onslow, reduced ties with the government, though the office did remain to a large degree political. The Speakership evolved into its modern form—in which the holder is an impartial and apolitical officer who does not belong to any party—only during the middle of the 19th century, over 150 individuals have served as Speaker of the House of Commons
9.
European Union
–
The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2, the EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. Within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished, a monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002, and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency. The EU operates through a system of supranational and intergovernmental decision-making. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community, the community and its successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit. While no member state has left the EU or its antecedent organisations, the Maastricht Treaty established the European Union in 1993 and introduced European citizenship. The latest major amendment to the basis of the EU. The EU as a whole is the largest economy in the world, additionally,27 out of 28 EU countries have a very high Human Development Index, according to the United Nations Development Programme. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has developed a role in external relations and defence. The union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G7, because of its global influence, the European Union has been described as an emerging superpower. After World War II, European integration was seen as an antidote to the nationalism which had devastated the continent. 1952 saw the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the supporters of the Community included Alcide De Gasperi, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and Paul-Henri Spaak. These men and others are credited as the Founding fathers of the European Union. In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome and they also signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community for co-operation in developing nuclear energy. Both treaties came into force in 1958, the EEC and Euratom were created separately from the ECSC, although they shared the same courts and the Common Assembly. The EEC was headed by Walter Hallstein and Euratom was headed by Louis Armand, Euratom was to integrate sectors in nuclear energy while the EEC would develop a customs union among members. During the 1960s, tensions began to show, with France seeking to limit supranational power, Jean Rey presided over the first merged Commission. In 1973, the Communities enlarged to include Denmark, Ireland, Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum
10.
United Kingdom general election, 1987
–
The United Kingdom general election of 1987 was held on 11 June 1987, to elect 650 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservatives ran a campaign focusing on lower taxes, a strong economy and they also emphasised that unemployment had fallen below 3 million for the first time since 1981, and inflation was standing at 4%, its lowest level for some 20 years. The tabloid media also had support for the Conservatives, particularly The Sun. The Labour Party, led by Neil Kinnock, was moving towards a more centrist policy platform. Indeed, the Labour party succeeded in doing so with this general election, the Conservatives were returned to government, having suffered a net loss of only 21 seats, leaving them with 376 MPs. Labour succeeded in resisting the challenge by the SDP-Liberal Alliance to replace them as the main opposition, however, Labour still returned only 229 MPs to Westminster. The election was a disappointment for the SDP-Liberal Alliance, who saw their vote share fall and this led to the two parties eventually merging completely to become the Liberal Democrats. The election night was covered live on the BBC, and presented by David Dimbleby, Peter Snow and it was also broadcast on ITV and presented by Sir Alastair Burnet, Peter Sissons and Alastair Stewart. The 1987 General Election saw the election of the first post-war Black and Minority Ethnic Members of Parliament, Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant, and Ketih Vaz. The Conservatives campaign emphasized lower taxes, an economy, and defence. Norman Tebbit and Saatchi and Saatchi spearheaded the Conservative campaign and this was when, according to Youngs memoirs, Young got Tebbit by the lapels and shook him, shouting, Norman, listen to me, were about to lose this fucking election. In his memoirs Tebbit defends the Conservative campaign, We finished exactly as planned on the ground where Labour was weak and we were strong – defence, taxation, during the election campaign however Tebbit and Thatcher argued. The first Conservative party political broadcast played on the theme of Freedom and ended with a fluttering Union Jack, the hymn I Vow to Thee, My Country and the slogan, Its Great To Be Great Again. Labours first party political broadcast, dubbed Kinnock, The Movie, was directed by Hugh Hudson of Chariots of Fire fame, kinnocks personal popularity jumped 16 points overnight after the initial broadcast. The Conservatives were returned by a landslide victory with a comfortable majority. Yet the overall result of this proved that the policies of Margaret Thatcher retained significant support. Despite initial optimism and the professional campaign run by Neil Kinnock, in many southern areas, the Labour vote actually fell, with the party losing seats in London. However, it represented a victory against the SDP–Liberal Alliance
