1.
The People's Budget (2011)
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Raúl Manuel Grijalva is an American politician who currently serves as the U. S. Representative for Arizonas 3rd congressional district, serving since 2003 and he is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 7th District from 2003 to 2013, includes the third of Tucson, part of Yuma and Nogales. Raúl Grijalvas father was a migrant worker from Mexico who entered the United States in 1945 through the Bracero Program, Grijalva was born in Tucson, Arizona, and graduated from Sunnyside High School in 1967. He is a 2004 inductee to the Sunnyside High School Alumni Hall of Fame and he attended the University of Arizona and earned a bachelors degree in sociology. While at the University, he was a member of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán which, Grijalva also served as a leader of the Chicano Liberation Committee and other Chicano groups. In addition, he was an Arizona leader of the Raza Unida Party, according to the standard history of the party by Dr. Armando Navarro, Grijalva was so militant that he alienated some members of Tucsons Mexican-American community. After losing in his first bid for office, a 1972 run for a seat on the school board. In 1974, he was elected to the Tucson Unified School District board, Grijalva Elementary School in Tucson was named for him in 1987. From 1975 to 1986, Grijalva was the director of the El Pueblo Neighborhood Center, Grijalva was a member of the Pima County Board of Supervisors from 1989 to 2002, and served as chairman from 2000 to 2002. A full list is available at his Web site, on the ideological map of all House members at GovTracks website, Grijalva is ranked farthest to the left. Liberal and progressive activist groups routinely give him high marks for his voting record, with the start of the 114th Congress, Grijalva became the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Natural Resources. Grijalva is an advocate of mining law reform and many environmental causes. In response, the Arizona Republican Party handed out bumper stickers reading Boycott Grijalva, after a federal judge stopped implementation of most of SB1070, Grijalva withdrew the boycott, saying that he had reacted to it very personally. In an interview regarding the situation, Grijalva said that to all of a sudden have a law that separates me from the whole, I found very offensive, the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave him an A rating for the 2007-2008 Congressional session. Grijalva has a voting record and voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. He was strongly critical of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which sought to place limits on taxpayer-funded abortions in the Affordable Health Care for America Act, the proposal was noted approvingly by some of the worlds leading economists, including Jeffrey Sachs—who called it a bolt of hope. Humane, responsible, and most of all sensible—and Paul Krugman, the proposal received 78 votes, all from Democrats, when the House considered it on March 29,2012
2.
David Lloyd George
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David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George was a key figure in the introduction of reforms which laid the foundations of the modern welfare state. His most important role came as the highly energetic Prime Minister of the Wartime Coalition Government, during and he was a major player at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 that reordered Europe after the defeat of the Central Powers. He made an impact on British public life than any other 20th-century leader. Furthermore, in foreign affairs he played a role in winning the First World War, redrawing the map of Europe at the peace conference. His main political problem was that he was not loyal to his Liberal party—he was always a political maverick, while he was Prime Minister he favoured the Conservatives in his coalition in the 1918 elections, leaving the Liberal party as a hopeless minority. He became leader of the Liberal Party in the late 1920s, by the 1930s he was a marginalised and widely mistrusted figure. He gave weak support to the Second World War amidst fears that he was favourable toward Germany, Lloyd George was born on 17 January 1863 in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, to Welsh parents, and was brought up as a Welsh-speaker. He is so far the only British Prime Minister to have been Welsh and his father, William George, had been a teacher in both London and Liverpool. He also taught in the Hope Street Sunday Schools, which were administered by the Unitarians, in March of the same year, on account of his failing health, William George returned with his family to his native Pembrokeshire. He took up farming but died in June 1864 of pneumonia, Lloyd George was educated at the local Anglican school Llanystumdwy National School and later under tutors. He added his uncles surname to become Lloyd George and his surname is usually given as Lloyd George and sometimes as George. The influence of his childhood showed through in his entire career, brought up a devout evangelical, as a young man he suddenly lost his religious faith. Biographer Don Cregier says he became a Deist and perhaps an agnostic, though he remained a chapel-goer and he kept quiet about that, however, and was hailed as one of the foremost fighting leaders of a fanatical Welsh Nonconformity. It was also during this period of his life that Lloyd George first became interested in the issue of land ownership, by the age of twenty-one, he had already read and taken notes on Henry Georges Progress and Poverty. This strongly influenced Lloyd Georges politics later in life through the Peoples Budget which heavily drew on the georgist tax reform ideas, the practice flourished, and he established branch offices in surrounding towns, taking his brother William into partnership in 1887. Although many Prime Ministers have been barristers, Lloyd George is to date the only solicitor to have held that office, by then he was politically active, having campaigned for the Liberal Party in the 1885 election, attracted by Joseph Chamberlains unauthorised programme of reforms. The election resulted firstly in a stalemate with neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives having a majority, William Gladstones proposal to bring about Irish Home Rule split the party, with Chamberlain eventually leading the breakaway Liberal Unionists
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Winston Churchill
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Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG OM CH TD PC DL FRS RA was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his overall, in 1963, he was the first of only eight people to be made an honorary citizen of the United States. Churchill was born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough and his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a charismatic politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, his mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American socialite. As a young officer, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns, at the forefront of politics for fifty years, he held many political and cabinet positions. Before the First World War, he served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, during the war, he continued as First Lord of the Admiralty until the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign caused his departure from government. He then briefly resumed active service on the Western Front as commander of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He returned to government under Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, at the outbreak of the Second World War, he was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on 10 May 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister and he led Britain as Prime Minister until victory over Nazi Germany had been secured. After the Conservative Party suffered a defeat in the 1945 general election. He publicly warned of an Iron Curtain of Soviet influence in Europe, after winning the 1951 election, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His second term was preoccupied by foreign affairs, including the Malayan Emergency, Mau Mau Uprising, Korean War, domestically his government laid great emphasis on house-building. Churchill suffered a stroke in 1953 and retired as Prime Minister in 1955. Upon his death aged ninety in 1965, Elizabeth II granted him the honour of a state funeral and his highly complex legacy continues to stimulate intense debate amongst writers and historians. Born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the noble Spencer family, Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, like his father. His ancestor George Spencer had changed his surname to Spencer-Churchill in 1817 when he became Duke of Marlborough, to highlight his descent from John Churchill, Churchill was born on 30 November 1874, two months prematurely, in a bedroom in Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire. From age two to six, he lived in Dublin, where his grandfather had been appointed Viceroy, Churchills brother, John Strange Spencer-Churchill, was born during this time in Ireland
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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
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Chancellor of the Exchequer
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The office is a British Cabinet-level position. The chancellor is responsible for all economic and financial matters, equivalent to the role of Secretary of the Treasury or Minister of Finance in other nations. The position is considered one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is now always Second Lord of the Treasury as one of the Lords Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Treasurer. Formerly, in cases when the Chancellorship was vacant, the Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench would act as Chancellor pro tempore, the last Lord Chief Justice to serve in this way was Lord Denman in 1834. The earliest surviving records which are the results of the audit, date from 1129–30 under King Henry I. The Chancellor controlled monetary policy as well as fiscal policy until 1997, the Chancellor also has oversight of public spending across Government departments. The current Chancellor of the Exchequer is Philip Hammond and he is entrusted with a certain amount of misery which it is his duty to distribute as fairly as he can. The Chancellor has considerable control over other departments as it is the Treasury which sets Departmental Expenditure Limits, the amount of power this gives to an individual Chancellor depends on his personal forcefulness, his status within his party and his relationship with the Prime Minister. Gordon Brown, who became Chancellor when Labour came into Government in 1997, had a personal power base in the party. One part of the Chancellors key roles involves the framing of the annual year budget, as of 2017, the first is the Autumn Budget, also known as Budget Day which forecasts government spending in the next financial year and also announces new financial measures. The second is a Spring Statement, also known as a mini-Budget, britains tax year has retained the old Julian end of year,24 March /5 April. From 1993, the Budget was in spring, preceded by an annual autumn statement. This was then called Pre-Budget Report, the Autumn Statement usually took place in November or December. The 1997,2001,2002,2003,2006,2007,2008,2012 and 2016 Budgets were all delivered on a Wednesday, although the Bank of England is responsible for setting interest rates, the Chancellor also plays an important part in the monetary policy structure. He sets the target which the Bank must set interest rates to meet. Under the Bank of England Act 1998 the Chancellor has the power of appointment of four out of nine members of the Banks Monetary Policy Committee – the so-called external members. The Act also provides that the Government has the power to give instructions to the Bank on interest rates for a period in extreme circumstances. This power has never officially used. At HM Treasury the Chancellor is supported by a team of four junior ministers
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Liberal welfare reforms
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The Liberal welfare reforms were a series acts of social legislation passed by the British Liberal Party after the 1906 General Election. They represent the emergence of the welfare state in Great Britain. By implementing the reforms outside of the Poor Law the stigma attached to claiming relief was also removed, during the 1906 General Election campaign neither of the two major parties made poverty an important election issue and no promises were made to introduce welfare reforms. Despite this, the Liberals led by Henry Campbell-Bannerman and later H. H. Asquith won a landslide victory and began introducing wide-ranging reforms as soon as they took office. Historically, liberalism emphasized a system of government to protect liberty, historically, liberalism viewed the threat to liberty as mainly coming from the force and coercion of the state. Modern liberalism was an ideology which promoted a government as the best guardian of liberty – both theoretical liberty and effective liberty – through government aid. The social investigations of Charles Booth and Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree and these investigations helped change attitudes towards the causes of poverty. Booth carried out research into the poor living conditions and poverty experienced in London. These investigations provided statistical evidence for genuine moral concern for the poor and they stated that illness and old age were greater causes of poverty than idleness and moral weakness. Rowntree was himself a friend of Lloyd George, after the two met in 1907 after Lloyd George became President of the Board of Trade. Rowntree himself hoped that his proposals could influence Liberal policy, the threat from the emerging Labour Party. Socialism was an increasingly popular ideology, if the Liberals did not put forward popular policies, they were in danger of losing votes and handing the House of Commons to the Conservatives. The trade union movement was growing especially during the period 1910–1912, unless living conditions were improved, there were genuine concerns that workers may turn to communism or rebellion. The condition of soldiers during the Boer War was considered unacceptable, the British government had trouble enlisting enough able-bodied recruits to the British army. The emergence of public works schemes set up to improve living conditions which were run by the Liberals raised the possibility that such schemes could occur on a national scale. The Conservative government in office before the Liberals came to power passed the Unemployed Workmen Act 1905, slum housing was also cleared for new houses to be built. Much of this legislation was left for local authorities to implement – their attitudes affected whether legislation was fully implemented, in 1902 Conservatives passed the Education Act that provided funds for denominational religious instruction in Church of England and Roman Catholic schools. The Nonconformists who formed a major Liberal constituency, were outraged at the help to their theological enemies, a favourite goal of Protestant nonconformists was to sharply reduce the heavy drinking by closing as many pubs as possible
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House of Commons of the United Kingdom
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The House of Commons of the United Kingdom is the lower house of the countrys parliament. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster, officially, the full name of the house is, The Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. The House is a body consisting of 650 members known as Members of Parliament. Members are elected to represent constituencies by first-past-the-post and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved, under the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The Government is primarily responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as he or she retains the support of a majority of its members. Although it does not formally elect the prime minister, the position of the parties in the House of Commons is of overriding importance, by convention, the prime minister is answerable to, and must maintain the support of, the House of Commons. Since 1963, by convention, the minister is always a member of the House of Commons. The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the Government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence, confidence and no confidence motions are sometimes phrased explicitly, for instance, That this House has no confidence in Her Majestys Government. Many other motions were considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such, in particular, important bills that form a part of the Governments agenda were formerly considered matters of confidence, as is the annual Budget. Parliament normally sits for a term of five years. Subject to that limit, the minister could formerly choose the timing of the dissolution of parliament. By this second mechanism, the government of the United Kingdom can change without a general election. In such circumstances there may not even have been a party leadership election, as the new leader may be chosen by acclaim. A prime minister may resign if he or she is not defeated at the polls. In such a case, the premiership goes to whoever can command a majority in the House of Commons, in practice this is usually the new leader of the outgoing prime ministers party. Until 1965, the Conservative Party had no mechanism for electing a new leader, when Anthony Eden resigned as PM in 1957 without recommending a successor and it fell to the Queen to appoint Harold Macmillan as the new prime minister, after taking the advice of ministers. By convention, all ministers must be members of the House of Commons or of the House of Lords, a handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they then entered Parliament either in a by-election or by receiving a peerage. Since 1902, all ministers have been members of the Commons
8.
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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President of the Board of Trade
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The President of the Board of Trade is head of the Board of Trade. The current holder is Liam Fox who is also the Secretary of State for International Trade, charles II established a Council of Trade on 7 November 1660 followed by a Council of Foreign Plantations on 1 December that year. The two were united on 16 September 1672 as the Board of Trade and Plantations, after the Board was re-established in 1696, there were 15 members of the Board - the 7 Great Officers of State, and 8 unofficial members, who did the majority of the work. The senior unofficial member of the board was the President of the Board, the board was abolished on 11 July 1782, but a Committee of the Privy Council was established on 5 March 1784 for the same purposes. On 23 August 1786 a new Committee was set up, more focused on commercial functions than the previous boards of trade. At first the President of the Board of Trade only occasionally sat in the Cabinet, but from the early 19th century it was usually a cabinet-level position
