1.
Order of the Companions of Honour
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The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. Founded on the date as the Order of the British Empire. The order consists of the Sovereign plus no more than 65 members, additionally, foreigners from outside the realms may be added as honorary members. Membership confers no title or precedence, but those inducted into the order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters CH. Appointments can be made on the advice of Commonwealth realm prime ministers, for Canadians, the advice to the Sovereign can come from a variety of officials. The quota numbers were altered in 1970 to 47 for the United Kingdom,7 for Australia,2 for New Zealand, the quota was adjusted again in 1975 by adding 2 places to the New Zealand quota and reducing the 9 for the other countries to 7. While able to nominate candidates to the Order, New Zealand, as of 2016 those countries have nominated only politicians who have served as Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister. Men wear the badge on a ribbon and women on a bow at the left shoulder. Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II List of Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour List of honorary British Knights List of people who have declined a British honour
2.
Order of the British Empire
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There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were at first made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, occasionally, honorary appointees are, incorrectly, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bill Gates or Bob Geldof, for example. In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War, when first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was divided into Military. The Orders motto is For God and the Empire, at the foundation of the Order, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the British Empire Medal, in addition, the BEM is awarded by the Cook Islands and by some other Commonwealth nations. The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, and appoints all members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary, and the current Grand Master, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross,845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the number of members of the fourth and fifth classes. Foreign recipients, as members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, and so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, and second-lowest of knighthood. Because of this, Dame Commander is awarded in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor, for example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges become Knights Bachelor. The Order has six officials, the Prelate, the Dean, the Secretary, the Registrar, the King of Arms, the Bishop of London, a senior bishop in the Church of England, serves as the Orders Prelate. The Dean of St Pauls is ex officio the Dean of the Order, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, as are many other heraldic officers. From time to time, individuals are appointed to a higher grade within the Order, thereby ceasing usage of the junior post-nominal letters
3.
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
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Her Majestys Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises senior politicians, who are present or former members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, the Council also holds the delegated authority to issue Orders of Council, mostly used to regulate certain public institutions. The Council advises the sovereign on the issuing of Royal Charters, which are used to grant special status to incorporated bodies, otherwise, the Privy Councils powers have now been largely replaced by the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The Judicial Committee consists of judges appointed as Privy Counsellors, predominantly Justices of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The Privy Council of the United Kingdom was preceded by the Privy Council of Scotland, the key events in the formation of the modern Privy Council are given below, Witenagemot was an early equivalent to the Privy Council of England. During the reigns of the Norman monarchs, the English Crown was advised by a court or curia regis. The body originally concerned itself with advising the sovereign on legislation, administration, later, different bodies assuming distinct functions evolved from the court. The courts of law took over the business of dispensing justice, nevertheless, the Council retained the power to hear legal disputes, either in the first instance or on appeal. Furthermore, laws made by the sovereign on the advice of the Council, powerful sovereigns often used the body to circumvent the Courts and Parliament. During Henry VIIIs reign, the sovereign, on the advice of the Council, was allowed to enact laws by mere proclamation, the legislative pre-eminence of Parliament was not restored until after Henry VIIIs death. Though the royal Council retained legislative and judicial responsibilities, it became an administrative body. The Council consisted of forty members in 1553, but the sovereign relied on a smaller committee, by the end of the English Civil War, the monarchy, House of Lords, and Privy Council had been abolished. The remaining parliamentary chamber, the House of Commons, instituted a Council of State to execute laws, the forty-one members of the Council were elected by the House of Commons, the body was headed by Oliver Cromwell, de facto military dictator of the nation. In 1653, however, Cromwell became Lord Protector, and the Council was reduced to thirteen and twenty-one members, all elected by the Commons. In 1657, the Commons granted Cromwell even greater powers, some of which were reminiscent of those enjoyed by monarchs, the Council became known as the Protectors Privy Council, its members were appointed by the Lord Protector, subject to Parliaments approval. In 1659, shortly before the restoration of the monarchy, the Protectors Council was abolished, Charles II restored the Royal Privy Council, but he, like previous Stuart monarchs, chose to rely on a small group of advisers. Under George I even more power transferred to this committee and it now began to meet in the absence of the sovereign, communicating its decisions to him after the fact. Thus, the British Privy Council, as a whole, ceased to be a body of important confidential advisers to the sovereign and it is closely related to the word private, and derives from the French word privé
4.
Nick Clegg
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Clegg was the Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015 and has been the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam since 2005. In 2007 he was elected Leader of the Liberal Democrats, leading his party into a government with the Conservative Party in 2010. In 2015, he resigned as leader of the Liberal Democrats following that years general election at which his party was defeated and lost 49 MPs. Clegg is a fluent speaker of five European languages including English, German, Spanish, French and his English grandfather was Hugh Anthony Clegg, editor of the British Medical Journal for 35 years. Cleggs Dutch mother, Hermance van den Wall Bake, was interned, along with her family and she met Cleggs father during a visit to England in 1956, and they married on 1 August 1959. Clegg is multilingual, he speaks English, French, Dutch, German and his background has informed his politics. He says, There is simply not a shred of racism in me, as a person whose whole family is formed by flight from persecution and its one of the reasons I am a liberal. His Dutch mother instilled in him a degree of scepticism about the entrenched class configurations in British society. He has said of languages that The danger is that we can afford to be lazy about languages, because they all want to speak English – English is the most useful, the global language bar none. But I dont think we should allow that luxury to be a sort of not to learn languages. As a 16-year-old exchange student in Munich, he and a friend drunkenly set fire to what he called the collection of cacti in Germany. When news of the incident was reported during his time as Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman and he was arrested and not formally charged, but performed a kind of community service. He spent a gap year working as a instructor in Austria, before going on to Cambridge University in 1986. He was active in the student theatre at Cambridge, acting in a play about AIDS and he was also captain of his colleges tennis team, and campaigned for the human rights organisation Survival International. Clegg spent the summer of 1989 as a junior in Postipankki bank in Helsinki. It has been alleged that Clegg joined the Cambridge University Conservative Association between 1986 and 1987, Clegg has maintained he has no recollection of that whatsoever. However, Conservative MP Greg Hands has a record of CUCA members for 1986–1987, Hands noted that for the avoidance of any doubt, there was only one N Clegg at Robinson College. Is listed in the Robinson College Record, under Freshmen 1986 and he graduated with an upper second class honours degree in social anthropology
5.
Willie Rennie
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William Cowan Rennie is a Scottish politician and current Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats after he succeeded the post in May 2011. After college, Rennie spent most of his career as a Liberal Democrat election campaigner. He became the Member of Parliament for Dunfermline and West Fife after a win in February 2006. He later lost this seat to Labour in the May 2010 UK general election and he briefly served as a Special Government Adviser for the Liberal Democrat Scottish Secretaries of State Danny Alexander MP and Michael Moore MP at the Scotland Office. He was then elected to the Scottish Parliament in the May 2011 election, despite the overall collapse of the party in the election, he was elected as an additional member for the Mid Scotland and Fife region. He was soon after elected unopposed as leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, since the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, Rennie has held the constituency seat of North East Fife. Rennie was born in Fife and grew up in Strathmiglo, where his family ran the village shop and his mother was secretary of the local community association and his grandfather was the local Minister. Rennie went to Bell Baxter High School in Cupar, Fife, before going to Paisley College of Technology, after that, he received a Diploma in Industrial Administration at Glasgow College. Rennie lives in Kelty with his wife Janet and their two sons, Alexander and Stephen and he is a keen runner and is a member of Dunfermlines Carnegie Harriers. He was also runner-up in the 2006 Scottish Coal-Carrying Championships held in Kelty, Rennie was one of the 50 MPs who ran a mile to raise money for Sport Relief finishing close behind the winner, David Davies. While a student at the Paisley College of Technology he was president of the student union. Rennie ran the Scottish Young Liberal Democrats and after went on to work for the English Liberal Democrats in Cornwall. He then went on to work for the Liberal Democrats campaigns department, in the House of Commons, he was a member of the Liberal Democrat shadow defence team, chair of their parliamentary campaigns unit, and a member of the Commons Defence Select Committee. In the General Election of 6 May 2010, Rennie lost his seat to the Labour candidate Thomas Docherty and he was then for a time Special Adviser to the new Liberal Democrat Scottish Secretary Michael Moore MP. He was the only new Liberal Democrat MSP to win a seat in this election, after the resignation of the Scottish Liberal Democratss leader Tavish Scott, Willie Rennie stood in the resulting leadership election. He was the candidate to be nominated, and was declared elected when the nominations closed on 17 May. He vowed to stand up to the SNP bulldozer majority, in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, the Liberal Democrats again elected five MSPs, while gaining two constituency seats and holding their existing two with increased majorities. Rennie was elected in North East Fife, gaining it from the SNP with a 9. 5% swing, Willie Rennie was appointed as an honorary patron of Armed Forces Legal Action in April 2014
6.
Greg Mulholland
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Gregory Thomas Mulholland is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom and Member of Parliament for Leeds North West. Before his parliamentary career, he served as a councillor for Headingley and he has served as a Liberal Democrat spokesman for Health, Schools and International Development. Born in Manchester, Mulholland attended St. Ambrose College near Altrincham and studied politics at the University of York, going on to achieve an MA in Public Administration and Public Policy. While at York University he played at centre for the university rugby team in matches against Bradford, Leeds, Manchester. He then worked in marketing for five years, including two years spent in Edinburgh, working on several promotional campaigns. His first experience in politics was canvassing in the Knowsley North by-election in 1986 and he had a long-standing interest and involvement in international development, trade justice and debt campaigns. He was an member of the campaigning groups Trade Injustice and Debt Action Leeds. In 2003, he was elected as a Leeds City Councillor for Headingley ward, from 2004 to 2005 he was the lead member for corporate services, until his election to Parliament in 2005. He was also the Liberal Democrat groups spokesperson on the Leeds Supertram, Mulholland was elected to Parliament at the 2005 general election for the constituency of Leeds North West. This West Yorkshire constituency extends from inner-city Leeds through suburban and rural areas to the towns of Otley, the seat had been held by the Conservative party from 1950 to 1997 and by the Labour party from 1997 to 2005. In the general election of 2010 the seat was retained by the Liberal Democrats with an increased majority, in the 2015 general election the seat was again retained by the Liberal Democrats, leaving Greg Mulholland as one of eight Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament. In the 2006 Liberal Democrat leadership election Mulholland backed Chris Huhne, in the 2007 Liberal Democrat leadership election he supported Nick Clegg. In 2006 he was appointed Shadow Spokesperson on Schools, and in 2007 he became Shadow Spokesperson on Health and he was also a member of the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee. Mulholland is a member of 27 all-party parliamentary groups including 4 as chair or co-chair and 7 as vice chair and he did, however, have two claims rejected, for a cot and playpen, then later to have photographs reframed. Mulholland was the MP with the highest expense claims in the 2011–12 financial year, in November 2005, Mulholland proposed the Sale of Green Belt Land Bill to prevent land banking. However, the bill did not receive a reading and was dropped without becoming law. As a Roman Catholic, Mulholland describes himself as holding pro-life views and has a voting record against abortion, embryology. Mulholland is one of three Liberal Democrat MPs to have supported MP Nadine Dorriess attempts to reduce the number of weeks at which a woman can legally have an abortion
7.
High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina
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The purpose of the High Representative and the OHR is to oversee the civilian implementation of the Dayton agreement. They also serve to represent the countries involved in the implementation of the Dayton Agreement through the Peace Implementation Council, to the present, all of the High Representatives named have been from European Union countries, while their principal deputies have been from the United States. The Principal Deputy High Representative serves as International Supervisor for Brčko, the Dayton Agreement created the legal basis for the OHR. The OHR was requested to, adopt binding decisions when local parties seem unable or unwilling to act, remove from public officials who violate legal commitments or, in general. The Bonn powers were used by the OHR in the following decade. After the 2002 elections, the OHR scrutinised all political candidates for ministerial positions at Entity. Removals may in some cases also impose a life-ban on public offices, between 2002 and 2011 the High Representative also served as the European Union Special Representative to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Under Christian Schwarz-Schilling, the OHR seemed to soften its invasiveness, thanks to pressures from the Council of Europe, the number of OHR legislative initiatives and of dismissed officials lowered. On 27 February 2008, the PIC decided to end the High Representatives mandate on 30 June 2008, the EU decision to shut down the OHR by June 2007 unexpectedly aroused disappointment and concern in the Bosnian population, NGOs, and politicians. However, since the PIC February 2008 review, it was decided to extend that mandate indefinitely until a set of positive benchmarks have been fulfilled. The double hatting between EUSR and OHR was discontinued in 2011, when the EU representative post was fused between the EUSR and the head of the EU delegation, in February 2008 the Peace Implementation Council set the conditions for closure of the OHR. The most critical issues will be considered objectives to be achieved by the BiH authorities before transition from OHR to a European Union presence can take place, EUFOR Althea - European peacekeeping force for overseeing the military implementation of the Dayton agreement
8.
Wolfgang Petritsch
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Wolfgang Petritsch is an Austrian diplomat of Slovene ethnicity. He was born to a Carinthian Slovene family in Klagenfurt and spent his childhood in a partially Slovene- and he has a PhD from the University of Vienna and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Petritsch’s experience in the former Yugoslavia stretches back to 1997 when he was appointed Austrian Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, petritsch’s diplomatic career also has seen him serve in Paris and New York. In this role, Petritsch was the authority on civilian implementation of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. While living in Bosnia and Herzegovina – one of the most mine-infested countries in the world – Petritsch witnessed firsthand the humanitarian impact of anti-personnel mines. This was an opportunity for Austria to lead the substantive preparations for the Summit, after leaving Geneva, Petritsch went to Paris as Ambassador of Austria to the OECD until 2013. Later he became a Joseph A. Schumpeter Fellow at Harvard University and he is currently serving as chair of the Board of the European Cultural Foundation. Currently serves as the President of the Austrian Marshall Plan Foundation, the fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an exclusive interview of Christophe Solioz with Wolfgang Petritsch. Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans
9.
Christian Schwarz-Schilling
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Professor Dr. Christian Schwarz-Schilling, is a German politician, entrepreneur, philanthropist and media and telecommunications innovator. He is the son of the composer Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling and is married to the author Marie-Luise Schwarz-Schilling with whom he has two children, in 1950, Schwarz-Schilling got his Abitur at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt Gymnasium in Berlin. He continued to study History and East Asian Languages and Culture at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, in 1956 he was granted a Ph. D. for his thesis on Chinese History, Der Friede von Shan-Yüan 1005 n. Chr. und seine Auswirkungen auf die Beziehungen zwischen dem Chinesischen Reich und dem Liao-Reich der Kitan, in 1957, he became manager of the battery manufacturer Accumulatorenfabrik Sonnenschein in Büdingen in Hesse, which he remained until 1982. 1993-2002 he was CEO of Dr. Schwarz-Schilling & Partner GmbH, in 1971, he became a member of the Television Council of the ZDF, one of Germanys two public service TV stations, which he left in 1982. In 1964, he joined the board of the CDU in Hesse. In 1966, Schwarz-Schilling was elected into the parliament of Hesse. Since 1971, Schwarz-Schilling became involved in politics, becoming member of several councils. In 1976 Schwarz-Schilling was elected into the Bundestag and remained a member until 2002, during this time he served as the vice-chairman of the Small Business Union of the CDU/CSU between 1977 and 1997. In 1979, he became president of the Executive Bureau of the European Small Business Union, between 1981 and 1982, he was chairperson of the Research Committee on New Information and Communication Technology of the Bundestag furthering innovative communications technology. In 1982, he was appointed Federal Minister for Post and Communication and he retained his post for the next three cabinets Kohl, Schwarz-Schilling was never part of Kohls inner circle and is, by some, regarded as unremarkable minister. Others see him as minister who pursued a long-term strategy of modernisation. Under his ministry cable television was introduced in Germany and commercial television was allowed to broadcast, deutsche Post was privatised, including its Telecom business. By the time he left office, Germany had one of the most modern communications infrastructures in the world, the Munich daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung later commented that most notable act in office was leaving it. In 1995, he became chairperson of the sub-committee on Human Rights, in 1998 the sub-committee became a full committee and Schwarz-Schilling became its vice-chairperson, serving until 2002. On January 31,2006 he was appointed as such, Schwarz-Schilling was nominated by the Bosniak and Bosnian Serb presidents. Under Schwarz-Schilling, the OHR seemed to soften its invasiveness, thanks to pressures from the Council of Europe, the number of OHR legislative initiatives and of dismissed officials lowered. The EU decision to shut down the OHR by June 2007 unexpectedly arose disappointment and concern in the Bosnian population, NGOs and it also showed that several policies implemented by national politicians and the international community were out of step with what the population wanted
10.
Leader of the Liberal Democrats
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The Liberal Democrats are a political party in the United Kingdom. Party members elect the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament also elect a Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats Group in the House of Commons, often colloquially referred to as the Deputy Leader. Under the federal constitution of the Liberal Democrats the leader is required to be a member of the House of Commons. In the event that the dies, resigns or loses his or her seat in Parliament. This has occurred twice, with Menzies Campbell serving as leader following the resignation of Charles Kennedy. Notes,1 Joint acting leader, as the last leader of the Liberal Party before the merger,2 Joint acting leader, as the last leader of the Social Democratic Party before the merger. 3 Acting leader between the resignation of Charles Kennedy on 7 January 2006 and his own election as leader on 2 March 2006,4 Acting leader between the resignation of Menzies Campbell on 15 October 2007 and the election of a new leader on 18 December 2007. 5 Deputy Prime Minister as part of the Liberal–Conservative Coalition, resigned on 8 May 2015 following the 2015 general election, the Liberal Democrat peers elect the Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. The first four Leaders had been members of the Labour Party who left to form the Social Democratic Party in 1981 before merging with the Liberal Party in 1988, lord Wallace of Tankerness had been a member of the Liberal Party before the merger. Lord Newby had been a civil servant before joining the SDP
11.
Russell Johnston
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David Russell Johnston was born in Edinburgh and educated at Portree High School on the Isle of Skye. He later attended Edinburgh University and Moray House College of Education, in 1961, he won The Observer Mace, speaking with David Harcus and representing The University of Edinburgh. In 1995, the competition was renamed the John Smith Memorial Mace and is now run by the English-Speaking Union. He was elected to the House of Commons and represented Inverness for the Liberal Party and Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber as a Member of Parliament for the Liberal Party and he also served as leader of the Scottish Liberal Party and as deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats. In October 1966, he proposed a bill of law in order to deal with the Scotland. In the 1992 election, he made history by holding his seat with just 26% of the vote in a close battle with Labour, the SNP. At the time, this was the lowest ever winning percentage for a candidate, in 2003 Alija Izetbegović described him as a great friend of Bosnia. Johnston married Joan Graham Menzies in 1967, at the time of his death, Lord and Lady Russell-Johnston had been estranged for over ten years, but remained close to one another. Lord Russell-Johnston died on the eve of his 76th birthday and he had been suffering from cancer, for which he was receiving chemotherapy, but had continued to work on human rights issues for the Council of Europe. He collapsed and died in a street in Paris, obituary, guardian. co. uk,29 July 2008, accessed 12 February 2016. Hansard 1803–2005, contributions in Parliament by Russell Johnston
12.
Alan Beith
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Alan James Beith, Baron Beith, PC is a British politician who represented the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed as its Member of Parliament from 1973 to 2015. Beith was elevated as a Life Peer in the 2015 Dissolution Honours List and took his title, the son of John Beith, of Scottish extraction, he was born in 1943 at Poynton in Cheshire. He was educated at The Kings School, Macclesfield before going up to Balliol College, Oxford and he then pursued postgraduate studies at Nuffield College receiving a Bachelor of Letters degree. In 1966 Beith began his career as a lecturer in the University of Newcastle. In 1969 he was elected as a Councillor on Hexham District Council and and he contested Berwick-upon-Tweed as the Liberal prospective parliamentary candidate at the 1970 general election but was heavily defeated by the sitting Conservative MP Antony Lambton. In 1973 Beith was elected to the North Tynedale District Council, at the ensuing by-election on 8 November 1973, Beith secured a famous victory, by a mere 57 votes, becoming Berwicks first Liberal MP since 1945. Just three months after his success, Beith was out canvassing his constituents again at the February 1974 general election. Beith was appointed to the BBC Advisory Council in 1974 serving as a member until 1984, on the election of David Steel as Liberal Leader in 1976, Beith became the Partys Chief Whip in the Commons. After the 1983 general election he was appointed Liberal Spokesman for Constitutional Affairs and he was elected as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in 1985, in both cases continuing his duties as a Commons Chief Whip. After the 1987 general election, Beith concentrated his efforts as Liberal Spokesman for Treasury Affairs, in 1988 the Liberal and Social Democratic parties joined forces as the SDP–Liberal Alliance. Beith stood against Paddy Ashdown in the first leadership election in 1988, Beith stayed on as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats following the 1992 general election under Ashdown until 2003, and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1992. In 1994, he became the Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary, after standing down from the Lib Dem frontbench he chaired the Commons Constitutional Affairs, and Justice Committees. Following Sir Menzies Campbells resignation as Leader of the Liberal Democrats on 15 October 2007, however, via his personal website, he announced his decision not to stand for election as party leader. Beith was knighted in the 2008 Birthday Honours, at the May 2010 general election he was returned as MP for Berwick, albeit his majority was reduced by a substantial swing to the Conservatives. On 7 August 2013, Beith announced his retirement as an MP at the 2015 election and he was announced as a life peer in the 2015 Dissolution Honours and was created Baron Beith, of Berwick-upon-Tweed in the County of Northumberland on the afternoon of 19 October. On 19 May 2009, Beith was the first MP to declare his candidacy to succeed Speaker Michael Martin, Beith pledged he was willing to take on the task of leading reform were he elected as Commons Speaker. Conservative MP John Bercow won, becoming the 23rd Speaker of the House Commons of the United Kingdom, Beith served as Chairman of the Commons Justice and of the Liaison Select Committees until retiring in 2015. He was one of only four Liberal Democrat MPs to vote against the reading of the Marriage Bill
13.
David Steel
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He served as a Member of Parliament from 1965 to 1997 and as a Member of the Scottish Parliament from 1999 to 2003, during which time he was the parliaments Presiding Officer. Since 1997, he has been a member of the House of Lords, Lord Steel was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, the son of a Church of Scotland minister also called David Steel, who would later serve as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. He was brought up in Scotland and Kenya, and educated at Dumbarton Academy, James Gillespies Boys School, Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales School, Nairobi, Steel was president of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement campaign from 1966 to 1970. He first took a part in Liberal politics at the University of Edinburgh. He represented this seat until 1983, when he was elected in Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale, as an MP he was responsible for introducing, as a Private Members Bill, the Abortion Act 1967, and advocated greater liberalisation of this legislation in recent years. He also became the Liberal Partys spokesman on employment, and in 1970 its Chief Whip, in 1976, after the downfall of Jeremy Thorpe and a short period in which Jo Grimond acted as caretaker leader, he won the Liberal leadership by a wide margin over John Pardoe. At only 38 years old, he was one of the youngest party leaders in British history and this pact lasted until August 1978. The unpopularity of the Labour government impaired the Liberals performance, and Steels first election as leader, in 1981, a group of Labour moderates left their party to form the Social Democratic Party. They were joined by the former Labour deputy leader Roy Jenkins, under Jenkins leadership, the SDP joined the Liberals in the SDP-Liberal Alliance. In its early days, the Alliance showed so much promise that for a time it looked like the Liberals would be part of a government for the first time in half a century. Opinion polls were showing Alliance support as high as 50% by late 1981, Steel was so confident that he felt able to tell delegates at the Liberal Assembly that year, Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government. Steel had genuine hopes at that stage that the Alliance would win the general election. However, the beginning of the Falklands War the following spring radically shifted the attitude of the electorate, the Alliance secured more than 25% of the vote at the 1983 general election, almost as many votes as Labour. However, its support was spread out across the country, and was not concentrated in areas to translate into seats under the first past the post system. This left the Alliance with only 23 seats—17 for the Liberals, Steels dreams of a big political breakthrough were left unfulfilled. Shortly afterwards David Owen replaced Jenkins as leader of the SDP, and it was never an easy relationship—Steels political sympathies were well to the left of Owens. Owen had an antipathy towards the Liberals, though he respected Steels prior loyalty to his own party contrasting it with Jenkins lack of interest in preserving the SDPs independence. The relationship was also satirised by Spitting Image which portrayed Steel as a squeaky voiced midget
14.
Liberal Party (UK)
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The Liberal Party was a liberal political party which was one of the two major parties in the United Kingdom in the 19th and early 20th century. The party arose from an alliance of Whigs and free-trade Peelites and Radicals favourable to the ideals of the American, by the end of the nineteenth century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite splitting over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to power in 1906 with a landslide victory, by the end of the 1920s, the Labour Party had replaced the Liberals as the Conservatives main rival. The party went into decline and by the 1950s won no more than six seats at general elections, apart from notable by-election victories, the partys fortunes did not improve significantly until it formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance with the newly formed Social Democratic Party in 1981. At the 1983 General Election, the Alliance won over a quarter of the vote, at the 1987 General Election, its vote fell below 23% and the Liberal and Social Democratic parties merged in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats. A splinter group reconstituted the Liberal Party in 1989 and it was formed by party members opposed to the merger who saw the Lib Dems diluting Liberal ideals. Prominent intellectuals associated with the Liberal Party include the philosopher John Stuart Mill, the economist John Maynard Keynes, the Liberal Party grew out of the Whigs, who had their origins in an aristocratic faction in the reign of Charles II, and the early 19th century Radicals. The Whigs were in favour of reducing the power of the Crown, although their motives in this were originally to gain more power for themselves, the more idealistic Whigs gradually came to support an expansion of democracy for its own sake. The great figures of reformist Whiggery were Charles James Fox and his disciple, after decades in opposition, the Whigs returned to power under Grey in 1830 and carried the First Reform Act in 1832. The Reform Act was the climax of Whiggism, but it brought about the Whigs demise. As early as 1839 Russell had adopted the name of Liberals, the leading Radicals were John Bright and Richard Cobden, who represented the manufacturing towns which had gained representation under the Reform Act. They favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England, avoidance of war and foreign alliances, for a century, free trade remained the one cause which could unite all Liberals. This allowed ministries led by Russell, Palmerston, and the Peelite Lord Aberdeen to hold office for most of the 1850s and 1860s, a leading Peelite was William Ewart Gladstone, who was a reforming Chancellor of the Exchequer in most of these governments. The formal foundation of the Liberal Party is traditionally traced to 1859 and this was brought about by Palmerstons death in 1865 and Russells retirement in 1868. After a brief Conservative government Gladstone won a victory at the 1868 election. The establishment of the party as a membership organisation came with the foundation of the National Liberal Federation in 1877. John Stuart Mill was a Liberal MP from 1865 to 1868, for the next thirty years Gladstone and Liberalism were synonymous. William Ewart Gladstone served as prime minister four times, called the Grand Old Man later in life, Gladstone was always a dynamic popular orator who appealed strongly to the working class and to the lower middle class
15.
Bob Maclennan, Baron Maclennan of Rogart
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Robert Adam Ross Maclennan, Baron Maclennan of Rogart, PC is a British Liberal Democrat life peer. He was the last leader of the Social Democratic Party, serving during the negotiations led to its merger with the Liberal Party in 1988. He then became joint interim leader of the new party, known as the Social and Liberal Democrats before later becoming the Liberal Democrats, macLennans father, Sir Hector MacLennan, was a renowned gynaecologist and obstetrician. His mother, Isobel Adam, was also a doctor and public health activist and he was educated at Glasgow Academy, Balliol College, Oxford, Trinity College, Cambridge, and Columbia University, New York City. He is the brother to David MacLennan, Elizabeth MacLennan, and he was first elected as a member of the Labour Party and served as a junior minister in the Labour government of 1974–1979, but in 1981 defected to become a founder member of the SDP. He was one of the few SDP MPs to keep their seats in the 1983 general election, after his stint as SDP Leader in 1988, he served as a front bench spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, and as their president from 1994 until 1998. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1997, after his retirement at the 2001 General Election, he was raised to the House of Lords, elevated to a life peer as Baron Maclennan of Rogart, of Rogart in Sutherland. He is now the partys Cabinet Office spokesman in the House of Lords
16.
Social Democratic Party (UK)
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The Social Democratic Party was a centrist political party in the United Kingdom. The SDP was founded on 26 March 1981 by four senior Labour Party moderates, dubbed the Gang of Four, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams, who issued the Limehouse Declaration. The four left the Labour Party as a result of the January 1981 Wembley conference which committed the party to unilateral nuclear disarmament, for the 1983 and 1987 General Elections, the SDP formed a political and electoral alliance with the Liberal Party, the SDP–Liberal Alliance. The party merged with the Liberal Party in 1988 to form the Social and Liberal Democrats, now the Liberal Democrats, although a minority left to form a continuing SDP led by David Owen. In some areas, the Militant tendency were held to be systematically targeting weak local party branches in safe areas in order to have their own candidates selected. In Tavernes case, he had been fighting efforts by the Lincoln Constituency Labour Party to deselect him largely over his support for British membership of the European Communities. In October 1972 he resigned his seat to force a by-election in which he fought as a Democratic Labour candidate against the party candidate. Taverne won by a large margin. He founded the short lived Campaign for Social Democracy thereafter, and wrote a book about events surrounding the by-election called The Future of the Left – Lincoln, but the CFSD failed to gain nationwide support, and Taverne lost the seat at the October 1974 General Election. Some independent Social Democrats contested the October 1974 and 1979 General Elections, Tavernes Lincoln by-election campaign was also helped to a lesser degree by problems with the Conservative and Unionist Party candidate, Conservative Monday Club chairman Jonathan Guinness. Many original members of the future Social Democratic Party had been members of The Manifesto Group within the Labour Party and they argued that a new type of political force was needed to challenge the Conservative Party. They were also opposed to unilateral nuclear disarmament, an increasingly popular policy amongst members of the party. He bluntly told those assembled to vote for him and answered their questions uninformatively, at the end, one asked him why they should vote for him, and Healey answered You have nowhere else to go. Healeys arrogance convinced many that their days as members of the Labour Party were now over, ivor Crewe and Anthony King found five defectors who claimed to have voted for Foot in order to saddle Labour with an unelectable leader and make life easier in their new party. One defector, Mike Thomas, said he was tempted to send a telegraph to Healey reading Have found somewhere else to go, one notable Manifesto Group exception was its secretary, future Defence Secretary George Robertson, who was the only officer to remain. The constitution set out the establishment of a Council for Social Democracy which was, in effect, each area party was entitled to elect delegates to the CSD. A number of internal groups flourished within the new party, the most notable of which was the Tawney Society, twenty-eight Labour MPs eventually joined the new party, along with one member of the Conservative Party, Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler, MP for North West Norfolk. Williams and Jenkins were not at the time MPs, but were elected to the Commons in by-elections at Crosby, much of the partys initial membership came from the Social Democratic Alliance
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Charles Kennedy
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Kennedy was a member of three political parties. At the age of fifteen, he joined the Labour Party, followed in 1981 by the newly formed SDP, and in 1988, the Liberal Democrats, at the 1983 general election, Kennedy was elected for the SDP at the age of 23. In 1999, after the resignation of Paddy Ashdown, Kennedy was elected leader and he led the party through two general elections increasing their seats in the House of Commons to their highest level since 1923, and led his partys opposition to the Iraq War. A charismatic and affable speaker in public, he appeared extensively on television while leader, during the latter stages of Kennedys leadership, there was concern about both his leadership and his health. From December 2005 some within the party were openly questioning his position and this admission damaged his standing and 25 MPs signed a statement urging him to resign immediately, which he did on 7 January, he was replaced by Menzies Campbell. After resigning as party leader Kennedy remained in office as a backbench MP, after the 2010 general election he voted against Nick Cleggs decision to form a coalition with the Conservative Party. On constitutional reform he was a supporter of full home rule for Scotland within a federal United Kingdom within a federal Europe. He lost his seat at the 2015 general election, and died less than a later from a haemorrhage linked to his alcoholism. Kennedy was born in Inverness, the son of Mary and Ian and he was raised as a Roman Catholic, and was educated at Lochaber High School in Fort William. He went on to study for a Master of Arts degree in Politics, at university he became politically active, joining the SDP, as well as the Dialectic Society. In 1982 he won the Observer Mace debating competition, speaking with Clark McGinn, upon graduation in 1982 Kennedy went to work for BBC Scotland as a journalist. He later received a Fulbright Fellowship which allowed him to carry out research at Indiana University in the United States. While studying in America, Kennedy received the SDP nomination to stand for the Scottish seat of Ross, Cromarty and Skye in the 1983 general election, in a shock result, he won the seat becoming the youngest sitting Member of Parliament, aged 23. He served on the Social Services select committee from 1985–87, retained his seat at the 1987 general election, in 1988 they merged to form the Social and Liberal Democratic Party, later renamed the Liberal Democrats. He moved into politics in 1989 becoming the partys spokesperson for Health. After retaining his seat in the 1992 general election he served as the spokesperson for Foreign and he retained his seat in the 1997 general election and served on the Standards and Privileges select committee from 1997 to 1999. He was Liberal Democrat Party President from 1990 to 1994 and Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the office of the Leader of the House of Commons from 1997 to 1999, on 9 August 1999 Kennedy was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats after the retirement of Paddy Ashdown. He won 57% of the vote under the Hughes Alternative Vote system beating the runner-up Jackie Ballard, Malcolm Bruce, Simon Hughes
18.
Yeovil (UK Parliament constituency)
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Yeovil is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election and it has been represented since 2015 by Marcus Fysh, a Conservative. 1918-1983, The Municipal Boroughs of Chard and Yeovil, the Urban Districts of Crewkerne and Ilminster, and the Rural Districts of Chard, Langport, the constituency covers the towns of Yeovil, Chard, Crewkerne and Ilminster in Somerset. As part of changes implemented following the review by the Boundary Commission for England. From 1918 until 1983, Yeovil always returned a Conservative MP, at the 2015 election, the seat returned to its former Conservative allegiance as Marcus Fysh defeated Laws by over 5,000 votes. Another general election was required to place before the end of 1940
19.
John Peyton, Baron Peyton of Yeovil
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John Wynne William Peyton, Baron Peyton of Yeovil, PC, FZS was a British politician. He was Conservative Member of Parliament for Yeovil for 32 years, from 1951 to 1983, and he served as Minister of Transport from 1970 to 1974. He was a candidate for leader of the Conservative Party in 1975, Peyton was educated at Eton College. As a member of the Eton OTC, he was a member of the honour guard within the grounds of Windsor Castle at the funeral of King George V in 1936. He read law at Trinity College, Oxford from 1937, and he was liberated by American troops later in 1945. A brother was killed at St Nazaire in 1942, Peyton studied law while confined, and became a barrister, being called to the bar in 1945. He accompanied Sir Walter Monckton, advisor to the Nizam of Hyderabad, to India in 1946 and 1947 and he became a broker at Lloyds of London in 1947, and then pursued a political career. Peyton was promoted to captain on 31 May 1949 and he married Diana, daughter of Douglas Clinch, in 1947, but was divorced in early 1966. They had two sons, one of whom died young, and a daughter and he remarried on 27 July 1966, to Mary Cobbold, daughter of Colonel Humphrey Wyndham. Peyton unsuccessfully contested the safe Labour seat of Bristol Central for the Conservative Party in the 1950 general election and he was subsequently elected a Member of Parliament for Yeovil in the 1951 general election. He became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Nigel Birch, a defence minister. He then served as Parliamentary Secretary to Richard Wood and Frederick Erroll and he remained opposition spokesman on power in opposition, until 1966. He became Minister of Transport in the government of Edward Heath after the 1970 general election and his ministerial office was renamed Minister of Transport Industries when it was combined into the new Department of the Environment in October 1970. He remained in position until the February 1974 general election. He was in office when the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board collapsed, he privatised British Rails travel agency, Thomas Cook & Son, in 1972 and he also delivered a Green Paper that proposed the Channel Tunnel. He became Shadow Leader of the House of Commons in opposition, in 1975, he sought to become leader of the Conservative Party, standing in the second ballot after Margaret Thatcher defeated Edward Heath in the first ballot. He gained only eleven votes in the election, coming bottom of the poll, Peyton stood down from the House of Commons at the 1983 general election, and Yeovil was won by Paddy Ashdown for the Liberal Party. Peyton was created a peer as Baron Peyton of Yeovil
20.
David Laws
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David Anthony Laws PC is a British Liberal Democrat politician. After a career in investment banking, Laws became an adviser and later Director of Policy. In 2001, he was elected as MP for Yeovil, succeeding former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, in 2004, he co-edited The Orange Book, Reclaiming Liberalism, followed by Britain After Blair in 2006. After the 2010 general election, Laws was a senior party negotiator in the agreement which underpinned the partys parliamentary five-year coalition government with the Conservative Party. His was among the six cabinet resignations during the expenses scandal, Laws was born in Farnham, Surrey, son of a Conservative-voting father who was a banker, and a Labour-voting mother. He would later joke that he was the perfect fusion as a Liberal Democrat and he has an older brother and a younger sister, both adopted. Regarded as a speaker in intellectual argument, he won the national Observer Schools Mace Debating Championship in 1984. Laws graduated in 1987 from Kings College, Cambridge, with a double first in economics and he left in 1994, to take up the role of economic adviser to the Liberal Democrats, on a salary of £15,000. He unsuccessfully contested Folkestone and Hythe in 1997 against Home Secretary Michael Howard, from 1997–99 he was the Liberal Democrats Director of Policy and Research. Following the 1999 Scottish Parliament election, Laws played an advisory role in the negotiation of the Scottish Parliament coalition agreement with Labour. Laws had joined the Liberal Democrat back office at the time as Nick Clegg while the party was led by Paddy Ashdown. When Ashdown resigned the leadership of the party and then decided to stand down as an MP, both would walk the constituency in what former Royal Marine Ashdown described as mufti attire, but on election day, Laws wore tailored suits. After his election to parliament, Laws became a member of the Treasury Committee, in 2002 he became his partys Treasury spokesman and issued an alternative spending review. He was the co-editor of the Orange Book, published in 2004 in so doing creating the term Orange Book liberalism and he was subsequently the Liberal Democrat spokesman on Children, Schools and Families. He wrote a book in 2006, Britain After Blair. Following the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell on 15 October 2007, in 2010, Laws wealth was estimated as £1-2 million. Following the 2010 general election, Laws was one of four negotiators for the Liberal Democrats who negotiated a deal to go into a coalition with the Conservatives. His account of the formation was published in November 2010 as 22 Days in May
21.
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
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Lords Temporal
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This article is about the secular members of the British House of Lords. For the fictional lords of time, see Time Lords, in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Lords Temporal are secular members of the House of Lords. Before the enactment of the House of Lords Act 1999, all peers were members of the House of Lords, membership of the Lords is now limited to life peers and a number of elected hereditary peers. The Lords Temporal are all members of the Peerage, formerly, they were all hereditary peers. A similar arrangement was made in respect of the Kingdom of Ireland when that nation merged with Great Britain in January 1801 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However, when most of Ireland left the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State in December 1922, by the Peerage Act 1963, the election of Scottish representative peers also ended, and all Scottish peers were granted the right to sit in Parliament. Under the House of Lords Act 1999, only life peerages automatically entitle their holders to seats in the House of Lords. Of the hereditary peers, only 92 – the Earl Marshal, the Lord Great Chamberlain and 90 elected by other peers – retain their seats in the House
23.
New Delhi
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New Delhi is the capital of India and one of Delhi citys 11 districts. The National Capital Region is a larger entity comprising the entire National Capital Territory along with adjoining districts. The foundation stone of the city was laid by George V and it was designed by British architects, Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker. The new capital was inaugurated on 13 February 1931, by Viceroy, New Delhi has been selected as one of the hundred Indian cities to be developed as a smart city under Prime Minister of India Narendra Modis flagship Smart Cities Mission. Calcutta was the capital of India during the British Raj until December 1911, Delhi had served as the political and financial centre of several empires of ancient India and the Delhi Sultanate, most notably of the Mughal Empire from 1649 to 1857. During the early 1900s, a proposal was made to the British administration to shift the capital of the British Indian Empire, as India was officially named, from Calcutta on the east coast, to Delhi. The Government of British India felt that it would be easier to administer India from Delhi in the centre of northern India. The land for building the new city of Delhi was acquired under the Land Acquisition Act 1894. The foundation stone of New Delhi was laid by King George V and Queen Mary at the site of Delhi Durbar of 1911 at Kingsway Camp on 15 December 1911, during their imperial visit. Large parts of New Delhi were planned by Edwin Lutyens, who first visited Delhi in 1912, the contract was given to Sobha Singh. The original plan called for its construction in Tughlaqabad, inside the Tughlaqabad fort, construction really began after World War I and was completed by 1931. The city that was later dubbed Lutyens Delhi was inaugurated in ceremonies beginning on 10 February 1931 by Lord Irwin, Lutyens designed the central administrative area of the city as a testament to Britains imperial aspirations. Soon Lutyens started considering other places, however, it was rejected by the Viceroy when the cost of acquiring the necessary properties was found to be too high. The central axis of New Delhi, which faces east at India Gate, was previously meant to be a north-south axis linking the Viceroys House at one end with Paharganj at the other. During the projects early years, many believed it was a gate from Earth to Heaven itself. Eventually, owing to space constraints and the presence of a number of heritage sites in the North side. A site atop the Raisina Hill, formerly Raisina Village, a Meo village, was chosen for the Rashtrapati Bhawan, then known as the Viceroys House. The reason for this choice was that the hill lay directly opposite the Dinapanah citadel, which was considered the site of Indraprastha
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British Raj
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The British Raj was the rule by the British Crown in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India, the resulting political union was also called the Indian Empire and after 1876 issued passports under that name. It lasted until 1947, when the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two sovereign states, the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The British Raj extended over almost all present-day India, Pakistan and this area is very diverse, containing the Himalayan mountains, fertile floodplains, the Indo-Gangetic Plain, a long coastline, tropical dry forests, arid uplands, and the Thar desert. In addition, at times, it included Aden, Lower Burma, Upper Burma, British Somaliland. Burma was separated from India and directly administered by the British Crown from 1937 until its independence in 1948, among other countries in the region, Ceylon was ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens. Ceylon was part of Madras Presidency between 1793 and 1798, the kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan, having fought wars with the British, subsequently signed treaties with them and were recognised by the British as independent states. The Kingdom of Sikkim was established as a state after the Anglo-Sikkimese Treaty of 1861, however. The Maldive Islands were a British protectorate from 1887 to 1965, India during the British Raj was made up of two types of territory, British India and the Native States. In general, the term British India had been used to also to the regions under the rule of the British East India Company in India from 1600 to 1858. The term has also used to refer to the British in India. The terms Indian Empire and Empire of India were not used in legislation, the monarch was known as Empress or Emperor of India and the term was often used in Queen Victorias Queens Speeches and Prorogation Speeches. The passports issued by the British Indian government had the words Indian Empire on the cover, in addition, an order of knighthood, the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, was set up in 1878. At the turn of the 20th century, British India consisted of eight provinces that were administered either by a Governor or a Lieutenant-Governor, during the partition of Bengal the new provinces of Assam and East Bengal were created as a Lieutenant-Governorship. In 1911, East Bengal was reunited with Bengal, and the new provinces in the east became, Assam, Bengal, Bihar, there were 565 princely states when India and Pakistan became independent from Britain in August 1947. The princely states did not form a part of British India, the larger ones had treaties with Britain that specified which rights the princes had, in the smaller ones the princes had few rights. Within the princely states external affairs, defence and most communications were under British control, the British also exercised a general influence over the states internal politics, in part through the granting or withholding of recognition of individual rulers. Although there were nearly 600 princely states, the majority were very small
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India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
26.
British nationality law
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British nationality law is the law of the United Kingdom which concerns citizenship and other categories of British nationality. The law is due to the United Kingdoms historical status as an imperial power. Some thought the single Imperial status of British subject as increasingly inadequate to deal with a Commonwealth with independent member states. The British Nationality Act 1948 established the status of Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, the national citizenship of the United Kingdom and colonies on 1 January 1949. Until the early 1960s there was little difference, if any, in UK law between the rights of CUKCs and other British subjects, all of whom had the right at any time to enter and live in the UK. Independence Acts, passed when the colonies were granted independence. In general, these provisions withdrew the status of CUKC from anyone who became citizens of the independent country. Exceptions were sometimes made in cases where the colonies did not become independent, the principal British nationality law now in force is the British Nationality Act 1981, which established the current system of multiple categories of British nationality, viz. British citizens, British Overseas Territories citizens, British Overseas citizens, British Nationals, British subjects, only British citizens and certain Commonwealth citizens have the automatic right of abode in the UK. The 1981 Act ceased to recognise Commonwealth citizens as British subjects, British subjects connected with former British India lose British nationality if they acquire any other. There are currently six classes of British national, British citizen British citizens usually hold this status through a connection with the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man. British citizenship is the most common type of British nationality, other rights can vary according to how the British citizenship was acquired. In particular there are restrictions for British citizens by descent transmitting British citizenship to children born outside the UK and these restrictions do not apply to British citizens otherwise than by descent. British Overseas Territories citizen BOTC is the form of British nationality held by connection with a British Overseas Territory and it is possible to hold BOTC and British citizenship simultaneously. Nearly all are now also British citizens as a result of the British Overseas Territories Act 2002, the four residual categories are expected to become extinct with the passage of time. They can be passed to only in exceptional circumstances, e. g. if the child would otherwise be stateless. There is consequently little provision for the acquisition of these classes of nationality by people who do not already have them, British Overseas citizen In general, most BOCs are CUKCs who did not qualify for British citizenship or British Dependent Territories citizenship. This is fairly uncommon, most CUKCs lost their CUKC status upon independence, in 1997, BDTCs with a connection to Hong Kong became BOCs after they did not register as British Nationals and would become stateless after the withdrawal of BDTC status from Hong Kong residents
27.
Liberal Democrats (UK)
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The Liberal Democrats are a liberal political party in the United Kingdom. The party was formed in 1988 as a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, at the 2015 general election, the party was reduced to eight MPs. Nick Clegg resigned as leader and Tim Farron won the subsequent leadership election, the party currently has nine MPs, following the Richmond Park by-election. The Alliance was led by David Steel and Roy Jenkins, Jenkins was replaced by David Owen, the two parties had their own policies and emphases, but produced a joint manifesto for the 1983 and 1987 general elections. Following disappointing results in the 1987 election, Steel proposed to merge the two parties, although opposed by Owen, it was supported by a majority of members of both parties, and they formally merged in March 1988, with Steel and Robert Maclennan as joint interim leaders. The new party was initially named Social and Liberal Democrats with the short form The Democrats being used from September 1988. The name was changed to Liberal Democrats in October 1989. The new party logo, the Bird of Liberty, was adopted in 1989, the party is a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party and Liberal International. The then-serving Liberal MP Paddy Ashdown was elected leader in July 1988, at the 1989 European Elections, the party received only 6% of the vote, putting them in fourth place after the Green Party. They failed to gain a single Member of the European Parliament at this election, over the next three years, the party recovered under Ashdowns leadership. They performed better at the 1990 local elections and in by-elections—including at Eastbourne in 1990, Ribble Valley in 1991, the Lib Dems did not reach the share of national votes in the 1990s that the Alliance had achieved in the 1980s. At their first election in 1992, they won 17. 8% of the vote, in the 1994 European Elections, the party gained its first two Members of European Parliament. The election was, however, something of a point for the Liberal Democrats. Ashdown retired as leader in 1999 and the party elected Charles Kennedy as his replacement, the party improved on their 1997 results at the 2001 general election, increasing their number of seats to 52 and their share of the vote to 18. 3%. The party won seats from Labour in by-elections in Brent East in 2003 and Leicester South in 2004, under Kennedys leadership the majority of Pro-Euro Conservatives, a group of former members of the Conservatives, joined the Liberal Democrats on 10 December 2001. At the 2005 general election, the Lib Dems gained their highest share of the vote since the SDP–Liberal Alliance and won 62 seats. Many had anticipated that this election would be the Lib Dems breakthrough at Westminster, party activists hoped to better the 25% support of the 1983 election, or to reach 100 MPs. Much of the apparent lack of success resulted from the first-past-the-post electoral system, controversy became associated with the campaign when it became known that Michael Brown had donated £2.4 million to the Liberal Democrats
28.
Alma mater
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Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university or college. In modern usage, it is a school or university which an individual has attended, the phrase is variously translated as nourishing mother, nursing mother, or fostering mother, suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Before its modern usage, Alma mater was a title in Latin for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The source of its current use is the motto, Alma Mater Studiorum, of the oldest university in continuous operation in the Western world and it is related to the term alumnus, denoting a university graduate, which literally means a nursling or one who is nourished. The phrase can also denote a song or hymn associated with a school, although alma was a common epithet for Ceres, Cybele, Venus, and other mother goddesses, it was not frequently used in conjunction with mater in classical Latin. Alma Redemptoris Mater is a well-known 11th century antiphon devoted to Mary, the earliest documented English use of the term to refer to a university is in 1600, when University of Cambridge printer John Legate began using an emblem for the universitys press. In English etymological reference works, the first university-related usage is often cited in 1710, many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. The University of Bologna Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been called the Alma Mater of the Nation because of its ties to the founding of the United States. At Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, the ancient Roman world had many statues of the Alma Mater, some still extant. Modern sculptures are found in prominent locations on several American university campuses, outside the United States, there is an Alma Mater sculpture on the steps of the monumental entrance to the Universidad de La Habana, in Havana, Cuba. Media related to Alma mater at Wikimedia Commons The dictionary definition of alma mater at Wiktionary Alma Mater Europaea website
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Bedford School
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Founded in 1552, it is the oldest of four independent schools in Bedford run by the Harpur Trust. Bedford School is composed of the Preparatory School and the Upper School, there are around 1,100 pupils, of whom approximately a third are boarders. In 2014, James Hodgson succeeded John Moule as Headmaster, according to The Good Schools Guide, Bedford School is much-respected by those in the know and is an unpretentious school which has everything a boy could need. A school was established in Bedford as early as the thirteenth century, the driving force behind the establishment of the school was John Williams, Mayor of Bedford three times between 1546 and 1552, and MP for Bedford between 1554 and 1555. Born in Bedford in c1519, Williams had purchased several hundred pounds of former property in 1544-45 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Shortly thereafter, William Harper and his wife, Alice, set out to provide funds for an endowment in perpetuity for the poore chylders ther to be nurryshed and enformed. The endowment included buildings in Bedford and thirteen acres of land acquired by Harper in Holborn, elected Lord Mayor of London in 1561 and knighted by Queen Elizabeth I in 1562, William Harpers coat of arms and crest included the eagle which remains a symbol for Bedford School. In the 1680s, as a consequence of Londons rapid expansion in the seventeenth century. The rental value of the thirteen acres of land and three roods of meadow, purchased by Harper in 1564 for just £180 13s, soared, Harpers surname was changed to Harpur in 1764, nearly two centuries after his death. Whatever the truth of this story, in same year,1764. James Surtees Phillpotts was appointed as the twenty-second Headmaster of Bedford School in 1874, at the age of thirty-five, the new Main School Building, in Gothic Revival style, included a great hall with galleries opening to classrooms on the second and third floors. The ground floor included the Headmasters study, the Bell Room, common rooms for masters and, later, for monitors, access to the upper floors was by narrow staircases situated at each end of the building. Bedford Schools Main School Building remained in this form until a fire on 3 March 1979 destroyed all but the west end where the Bell Room. All that remained of the rest of the building was the shell which was incorporated in the restored building. The restored Main School Building was opened on 10 September 1981, in the interim the school functioned in twenty-two temporary huts and by using the Howard and Craig buildings on the school estate. In 2005, Bedford School was one of fifty of the leading private schools which were accused of running a price-fixing cartel which had allowed them to push up school fees. The school estate has seen many developments over the past century, work on the construction of a new school theatre is currently proceeding apace. The Main School Building, originally built in 1891, is a Gothic Revival Grade II listed building, on the night of 3–4 March 1979, much of the building was gutted by fire as a result of arson
30.
General Service Medal (1962)
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The General Service Medal, was introduced in 1962 to combine the General Service Medal, as awarded to the Army and RAF, and the Naval General Service Medal. The 1962 GSM was awarded until 2007, when it was replaced by the Operational Service Medal, in 2015 the General Service Medal was introduced. The 1962 GSM is a silver medal. The obverse shows the effigy of Queen Elizabeth II. The reverse bears the words ‘FOR CAMPAIGN SERVICE under a crown, the popular motto for this medal grouping is Against All Odds whereas the accurate motto is Against Adversity. The 32 mm wide ribbon is purple with two stripes of dark green. These are the colours as the GSM 1918–62, but with different proportions of these two colours being used for this medal. Awarded to personnel involved in a campaign or well fought operation when servicemen would on occasion have to shoot at the opposition. GSMs have the name, rank, service number and regiment or corps of the awardee annotated on the rim of the medal,14 Clasps were awarded to the 1962 GSM. The maximum awarded to any one individual appears to have been six and this conflict claimed the lives of 114 Commonwealth personnel with 180 wounded. Recipients were subsequently awarded the Malaysian Pingat Jasa Malaysia and they were quickly and effectively defeated. This campaign is related to the Radfan Campaign, because both were Egyptian-inspired attempts to end the British presence in Aden and end the embryonic Federation of South Arabia and this 3 year long campaign saw numerous terrorist attacks on both civilian and military targets. In both Rafan and Aden, the British Army suffered 90 personnel killed and 510 wounded, the qualifying period was 30 days service in the Federation of South Arabia between 1 August 1964 and 30 November 1967. This campaign was an extension of the conflict in Borneo where British, in 1964, the Indonesian President decided to attack the Malaysian mainland. Parachute landings were made in Johore while other troops managed to land across the Malacca Straits from Indonesian Sumatra and it was for operations in Malaysia and surrounding waters against these troops that this clasps was instituted, as opposed to the concurrent Borneo operations. The qualifying period was 30 days service in the Malaysian Peninsula-Singapore area between 17 August 1964 and 11 August 1966, however, the qualifying period does not include jungle training prior to deployment to combat operations even if the training took place in Borneo. Personnel based on Singapore from 8 August 1965 are also not qualified as Singapore, between 1963 and 1965, at least 68 members of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam and 232 members of the RAAF Transport Flight Vietnam qualified for the clasp. However, a decision of 1966 relating to the institution and award of the Vietnam Medal led to the stripping of the award from the RAAF personnel,1 day in the service of a land unit
31.
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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Royal Marines
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The Corps of Royal Marines is the United Kingdoms amphibious light infantry force, forming part of the Naval Service, along with the Royal Navy. The Royal Marines were formed in 1755 as the Royal Navys infantry troops, as a highly specialised and adaptable light infantry force, the Royal Marines are trained for rapid deployment worldwide and capable of dealing with a wide range of threats. The Royal Marines have close ties with allied marine forces, particularly the United States Marine Corps. Today, the Royal Marines are a fighting force within the British Armed forces. The Royal Marines can trace its origins back as far as 28 October 1664 when at the grounds of the Honourable Artillery Company the Duke of York and Albanys maritime regiment of foot was first formed. On 5 April 1755, His Majestys Marine Forces, fifty Companies in three Divisions, headquartered at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, were formed by Order of Council under Admiralty control. Initially all field officers were Royal Navy officers as the Royal Navy felt that the ranks of Marine field officers were largely honorary and this meant that the furthest a Marine officer could advance was to lieutenant colonel. It was not until 1771 that the first Marine was promoted to colonel and this attitude persisted well into the 1800s. During the rest of the 18th century, they served in numerous landings all over the world and they also served in the American War of Independence, being particularly courageous in the Battle of Bunker Hill led by Major John Pitcairn. In 1788 a detachment of four companies of marines, under Major Robert Ross, due to an error the Fleet left Portsmouth without its main supply of ammunition, and were not resupplied until the Fleet docked in Rio de Janeiro midway through the voyage. In 1802, largely at the instigation of Admiral the Earl St. Vincent, the Royal Marines Artillery was formed as a separate unit in 1804 to man the artillery in bomb ketches. These had been manned by the Armys Royal Regiment of Artillery, during the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Marines participated in every notable naval battle on board the Royal Navys ships and also took part in multiple amphibious actions. In the Caribbean theatre volunteers from freed French slaves on Marie-Galante were used to form Sir Alexander Cochranes first Corps of Colonial Marines and these men bolstered the ranks, helping the British to hold the island until reinforcements arrived. This practice was repeated during the War of 1812, where escaped American slaves were formed into Cochranes second Corps of Colonial Marines and these men were commanded by Royal Marines officers and fought alongside their regular Royal Marines counterparts at the Battle of Bladensburg. Throughout the war Royal Marines units raided up and down the east coast of America including up the Penobscot River and they fought in the Battle of New Orleans and later helped capture Fort Bowyer in Mobile Bay in what was the last action of the war. In 1855 the Infantry forces were renamed the Royal Marines Light Infantry, during the Crimean War in 1854 and 1855, three Royal Marines earned the Victoria Cross, two in the Crimea and one in the Baltic. In 1862 the name was altered to Royal Marine Light Infantry. The Royal Navy did not fight any other ships after 1850, in these Naval Brigades, the function of the Royal Marines was to land first and act as skimishers ahead of the sailor Infantry and Artillery
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Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)
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See Captain for other versions of this army and marines rank. Captain is an officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines. The rank is equivalent to a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, the rank of captain in the Royal Navy is considerably more senior and the two ranks should not be confused. In the 21st-century British Army, captains are appointed to be second-in-command of a company or equivalent sized unit of up to 120 soldiers. A rank of second captain existed in the Ordnance at the time of the Battle of Waterloo, from 1 April 1918 to 31 July 1919, the Royal Air Force maintained the junior officer rank of captain. RAF captains had a rank based on the two bands of a naval lieutenant with the addition of an eagle and crown above the bands. It was superseded by the rank of lieutenant on the following day. Badges of rank for captains were introduced on 30 January 1855 and were worn on shoulder epaulets, after the Crimean War a new rank system was introduced which contained the first complete rank insignia in British Army history. A captains rank insignia was worn on the collar and displayed a crown, the rank insignia were returned to the shoulder boards in 1880 for all officers in full dress, when the system of crowns and stars was reorganised. From this time, until 1902, a captain had just two stars, the 1902 change gave captains three stars, which continues to be used. In addition to the badges, officers ranks were also reflected in the amount. Based on equivalent naval ranks, captains had two rings of braid, in the case of Scottish regiments, the rings were around the top of the gauntlet-style cuff and the badges on the cuff itself. During World War I, some took to wearing similar jackets to the men, with the rank badges on the shoulder. This practice was frowned on outside the trenches but was given official sanction in 1917 as an alternative, being made permanent in 1920 when the cuff badges were abolished
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Special Boat Service
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The Special Boat Service is the special forces unit of the Naval Service of the United Kingdom. The Special Boat Service is described as the special forces of the United Kingdom. The operational capabilities of units are broadly similar. However, the SBS has the training and equipment to lead in the maritime, amphibious. Both units come under the command of HQ Directorate of Special Forces and undergo an identical selection process, enjoy significant interoperability in training. In times of armed conflict and war, the Special Boat Service and 22 Special Air Service Regiment are required to operate in small parties in enemy-controlled territory. Operations of this nature require men of courage and high morale who have excellent tactical awareness be it knowledge of tactics or simply knowing ones place in a polyvalent unit. Intelligence, reliability, determination and also being physically fit are key skills, the SBS also provide immediate response Military Counter Terrorism and Maritime Counter Terrorism teams. The SBS can trace its origins to the Second World War and they became the Special Boat Squadron after the Second World War and the Special Boat Service in the 1980s. The SBS is manned by ranks drawn mostly from the Royal Marines and carries out a role that is similar to the Special Air Service and their training involves parachute exercises, helicopter training and boat training, which recruits will get the chance to earn their licence for. All of the SBSs four squadrons, C, Z, M and X, are configured for general operations, the SBS also operates on land, with recent operations in the mountains of landlocked Afghanistan and in the deserts of Iraq. The Special Boat Section was founded in July 1940 by a Commando officer, Roger Courtney, Courtney became a commando recruit in mid-1940, and was sent to the Combined Training Centre in Scotland. He decided to infiltrate HMS Glengyle, a Landing Ship, Infantry anchored in the River Clyde, Courtney paddled to the ship, climbed aboard undetected, wrote his initials on the door to the captains cabin, and stole a deck gun cover. He presented the soaking cover to a group of high-ranking Royal Navy officers meeting at a nearby Inveraray hotel and he was promoted to captain, and given command of twelve men, the first Special Boat Service/Special Boat Section. It was initially named the Folboat Troop, after the type of folding canoe employed in raiding operations, attached to Layforce, they moved to the Middle East. In December 1941 Courtney returned to the United Kingdom where he formed No2 SBS, in June 1942, they took part in the Crete airfield raids. In September 1942, they carried out Operation Anglo, a raid on two airfields on the island of Rhodes, from only two men returned. Destroying three aircraft, a dump and numerous buildings, the surviving SBS men had to hide in the countryside for four days before they could reach the waiting submarine
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Yugoslavia
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Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe during most of the 20th century. The Serbian royal House of Karađorđević became the Yugoslav royal dynasty, Yugoslavia gained international recognition on 13 July 1922 at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris. The country was named after the South Slavic peoples and constituted their first union, following centuries in which the territories had been part of the Ottoman Empire, renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 3 October 1929, it was invaded by the Axis powers on 6 April 1941. In 1943, a Democratic Federal Yugoslavia was proclaimed by the Partisan resistance, in 1944, the king recognised it as the legitimate government, but in November 1945 the monarchy was abolished. Yugoslavia was renamed the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946 and it acquired the territories of Istria, Rijeka, and Zadar from Italy. Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito ruled the country as president until his death in 1980, in 1963, the country was renamed again as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The constituent six socialist republics that made up the country were the SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, SR Croatia, SR Macedonia, SR Montenegro, SR Serbia, and SR Slovenia. Serbia contained two Socialist Autonomous Provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, which after 1974 were largely equal to the members of the federation. After an economic and political crisis in the 1980s and the rise of nationalism, Yugoslavia broke up along its republics borders, at first into five countries, eventually, Serbia and Montenegro accepted the opinion of the Badinter Arbitration Committee about shared succession. Serbia and Montenegro themselves broke up in 2006 and became independent states, the concept of Yugoslavia, as a single state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the late 17th century and gained prominence through the Illyrian Movement of the 19th century. The name was created by the combination of the Slavic words jug, Yugoslavia was the result of the Corfu Declaration, as a project of the Serbian Parliament in exile and the Serbian royal Karađorđević dynasty, who became the Yugoslav royal dynasty. The country was formed in 1918 immediately after World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and it was commonly referred to at the time as the Versailles state. Later, the government renamed the country leading to the first official use of Yugoslavia in 1929, on 6 January 1929 King Alexander I suspended the constitution, banned national political parties, assumed executive power and renamed the country Yugoslavia. He hoped to curb separatist tendencies and mitigate nationalist passions and he imposed a new constitution and relinquished his dictatorship in 1931. None of these three regimes favored the policy pursued by Alexander I, Alexander attempted to create a centralised Yugoslavia. He decided to abolish Yugoslavias historic regions, and new internal boundaries were drawn for provinces or banovinas, the banovinas were named after rivers. Many politicians were jailed or kept under police surveillance, the effect of Alexanders dictatorship was to further alienate the non-Serbs from the idea of unity. During his reign the flags of Yugoslav nations were banned, Alexander was succeeded by his eleven-year-old son Peter II and a regency council headed by his cousin, Prince Paul
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United Kingdom general election, 2015
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The United Kingdom general election of 2015 on 7 May 2015 elected the 56th Parliament of the United Kingdom. Each of the 650 parliamentary constituencies elected one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons and it was the first general election at the end of a fixed-term Parliament. Local elections took place in most of England on the same day, polls and commentators had predicted the outcome would be too close to call and would result in a second hung parliament similar to the 2010 election. Opinion polls were eventually proven to have underestimated the Conservative vote as they won an outright majority. Having governed in coalition with the Liberal Democrats since 2010, the Conservatives won 330 seats and 36. 9% of the vote, the British Polling Council began an inquiry into the substantial variance between opinion polls and the actual result. The Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband, saw an increase in its vote share to 30. 4%. This was its lowest seat tally since the 1987 election, senior Labour shadow cabinet members, notably Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander, and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, were defeated. The UK Independence Party came third in terms of votes with 12. 6%, the Green Party won its highest-ever share of the vote with 3. 8%, and held Brighton Pavilion with an increased majority, though did not win any additional seats. Labours Miliband and Murphy resigned, as did Clegg, Farage claimed that his resignation was rejected by his party, and he remained in post. In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party returned to the Commons with two MPs after an absence, while the Alliance Party lost its only seat despite an increase in total vote share. That renegotiation was followed by an in-out referendum a year later in June 2016, as a result, it is likely that this was the last general election to be held in the UK during its membership of the EU. There were local elections on the day in most of England. No other elections were scheduled to take place in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, all British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens over the age of 18 on the date of the election were permitted to vote. In general elections, voting takes place in all constituencies of the United Kingdom to elect members of parliament to seats in the House of Commons. Each parliamentary constituency of the United Kingdom elects one MP to the House of Commons using the first-past-the-post system, if one party obtains a majority of seats, then that party is entitled to form the Government. If the election results in no party having a majority. In this case, the options for forming the Government are either a minority government or a coalition government, the next boundary review is now set to take place in 2018, thus the 2015 general election was contested using the same constituencies and boundaries as in 2010. Of the 650 constituencies,533 are in England,59 in Scotland,40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland, in addition, the 2011 Act mandated a referendum in 2011 on changing from the current first-past-the-post system to an alternative vote system for elections to the Commons
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Polyglot
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Polyglotism or polyglottism is the ability to master, or the state of having mastered, multiple languages. The word is a synonym of multilingualism, but in recent usage polyglot is sometimes used to refer to a person who learns multiple languages as an avocation. The term hyperpolyglot was coined in 2008 by linguist Richard Hudson to describe individuals who speak, to some degree, Multilingualism, including multilingual societies as well as individuals who speak more than one language, is common. Individual polyglots or hyperpolyglots speak, study, or use large numbers of languages, in rare cases polyglot savants have mental disabilities but are able to learn many languages. Most nation states are home to ethnic groups and multiple languages. Likewise, most individuals use more than one language, at least to some extent, informal surveys suggest that the number of languages spoken in multilingual societies is typically between two and six languages. There is a lack of consensus on such numbers, however, due to the lack of shared definitions of multilingualism, some individuals speak, study, or otherwise use large numbers of languages. One of the most noted hyperpolyglots – speakers of many languages – was Cardinal Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, individuals who consider themselves polyglots generally speak, read, or otherwise use five or more languages, in some cases several dozen. Many polyglots and hyperpolyglots become multilingual by studying languages, Language proficiency and learning success varies among individuals. Neuroscience of multilingualism points to differences among learners. One theory suggests that a spike in a babys testosterone levels while in the uterus can increase brain asymmetry, study and motivation also affect learning. People learning multiple languages may optimize their learning strategies, making it easier to learn subsequent languages and they may also experience positive transfer – it becomes easier to learn additional languages if their grammar or vocabulary is similar to those of languages already learned. On the other hand, students may also experience negative transfer – interference from languages learned earlier while learning later ones, the International Association of Hyperpolyglots is the leading independent organisation to represent language experts with demonstrable hyperpolyglotic language proficiency. In 1991, for example, Neil Smith and Ianthi-Maria Tsimpli described Christopher and this facility with language and communication is considered unusual among savants. List of polyglots Polymath Amunts, Katrin, Schleicher, Axel, Zilles, Karl, Outstanding language competence and cytoarchitecture in Broca’s speech region, Brain and Language 89.2, data on multilingualism in India Non-profit Polyglot Community Multilingualism and Word Memorizing International federation of language exchange clubs
United Kingdom
Royal Marines
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 2000
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, 2006[57]
Companion of Honour, 2015.
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