The prime minister of the United Kingdom, until 1801 known as the prime minister of Great Britain, is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister directs both the executive and the legislature, together with their Cabinet is accountable to the monarch, to Parliament, to their party, to the electorate, for the government's policies and actions; the office of Prime Minister is not established by any statute or constitutional document but exists only by long-established convention, whereby the reigning monarch appoints as prime minister the person most to command the confidence of the House of Commons. The position of Prime Minister was not created; the office is therefore best understood from a historical perspective. The origins of the position are found in constitutional changes that occurred during the Revolutionary Settlement and the resulting shift of political power from the Sovereign to Parliament. Although the sovereign was not stripped of the ancient prerogative powers and remained the head of government, politically it became necessary for him or her to govern through a prime minister who could command a majority in Parliament.

By the 1830s, the Westminster system of government had emerged. The political position of Prime Minister was enhanced by the development of modern political parties, the introduction of mass communication and photography. By the start of the 20th century the modern premiership had emerged. Prior to 1902, the prime minister sometimes came from the House of Lords, provided that his government could form a majority in the Commons; however as the power of the aristocracy waned during the 19th century the convention developed that the prime minister should always sit as a Member of Parliament in the lower house, making them answerable only to the Commons in Parliament. As leader of the House of Commons, the prime minister's authority was further enhanced by the Parliament Act 1911 which marginalised the influence of the House of Lords in the law-making process; the prime minister is ex officio First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. Indeed, certain privileges, such as residency of 10 Downing Street, are accorded to prime ministers by virtue of their position as First Lord of the Treasury.

The status and executive powers of the British prime minister means that the incumbent is ranked as one of the most powerful and influential people in the world. The prime minister is the head of the United Kingdom government; as such, the modern prime minister leads the Cabinet. In addition, the prime minister leads a major political party and commands a majority in the House of Commons; the incumbent wields both significant legislative and executive powers. Under the British system, there is a unity of powers rather than separation. In the House of Commons, the prime minister guides the law-making process with the goal of enacting the legislative agenda of their political party. In an executive capacity, the prime minister appoints all other Cabinet members and ministers, co-ordinates the policies and activities of all government departments, the staff of the Civil Service; the prime minister acts as the public "face" and "voice" of Her Majesty's Government, both at home and abroad. Upon the advice of the prime minister, the Sovereign exercises many statutory and prerogative powers, including high judicial, political and Church of England ecclesiastical appointments.

The British system of government is based on an uncodified constitution, meaning that it is not set out in any single document. The British constitution consists of many documents and most for the evolution of the office of the prime minister, it is based on customs known as constitutional conventions that became accepted practice. In 1928, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith described this characteristic of the British constitution in his memoirs:In this country we live... under an unwritten Constitution. It is true that we have on the Statute-book great instruments like Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights which define and secure many of our rights and privileges, they rest on usage, convention of slow growth in their early stages, not always uniform, but which in the course of time received universal observance and respect. The relationships between the prime minister and the sovereign and Cabinet are defined by these unwritten conventions of the constitution. Many of the prime minister's executive and legislative powers are royal prerogatives which are still formally vested in the sovereign, who remains the head of state.

Despite its growing dominance in the constitutional hierarchy, the premiership was given little formal recognition until the 20th century.

Jim Shepard is an American novelist and short story writer, who teaches creative writing and film at Williams College. Shepard was born in Connecticut, he received a B. A. at Trinity College in 1978 and an MFA from Brown University in 1980. He teaches creative writing and film at Williams College, his wife, Karen Shepard, is a novelist. They are on the editorial board of the literary magazine The Common, based at Amherst College. Shepard's work has been published in McSweeney's, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares and Playboy, his short story collection — Like You'd Understand, Anyway — won the Story Prize in 2007, was nominated for a National Book Award in 2007. The novel Project X won the 2005 Massachusetts Book Award. Along with writing novels and short stories, Shepard has drafted two screenplays, one about Kenneth Donaldson and the O'Connor v. Donaldson case, the other a movie adaptation of Project X. Several features characterize Shepard's writings, including a tendency to finish his stories with what Charles Baxter called an "in medias res ending", or an ending in the middle of the plot's events.

Additionally, Shepard writes from the point of view of characters of a wide variety of nationalities. Shepard's stories rely on substantial historical research based on real events, his recent collection, Like You'd Understand Anyway, includes stories about the Greek playwright Aeschylus, the Chernobyl disaster and the 1964 Alaska earthquake. The collection acknowledges over sixty non-fiction works that helped to shape the historical detail in the stories. Shepard's 2011 collection You Think That’s Bad cites an extensive bibliography, including Avalanches and Snow Safety, The Japanese Earthquake of 1923, Climate Changes and Dutch Water Management, Satanism and Witchcraft, his 2015 novel The Book of Aron involved massive research into the Holocaust, which he called "critically important." Non c'è ritorno is a unpublished collection of Jim Shepard's short stories for the Italian market. Shepard is the winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story for 2016. Novels Flights, ISBN 0-394-53265-1 Paper Doll, ISBN 0-394-55519-8 Lights Out in the Reptile House, ISBN 0-393-02784-8 Kiss of the Wolf, ISBN 0-15-147279-3 Nosferatu, ISBN 0-8032-9346-1 Project X, ISBN 1-4000-4071-X The Book of Aron Story collections Batting against Castro Love and Hydrogen Like You'd Understand, Anyway You Think That's Bad The World to Come Miscellaneous Editor, with Ron Hansen of You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe Editor, with Amy Hempel of Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs Editor, Writers at the Movies: Twenty-six Contemporary Authors Celebrate Twenty-six Memorable Movies

Diane Guerrero is a Colombian/American actress and author. She is known for her roles as inmate Maritza Ramos on the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black and Lina on Jane the Virgin. Guerrero remained there after the rest of her family was deported to Colombia, she is an advocate for immigration reform. Her role on Orange Is the New Black has contributed to three consecutive wins for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. Guerrero is the author of In the Country We Love: My Family Divided, a memoir about her parents being detained and deported when she was fourteen, she stars as "Crazy" Jane in the DC Universe action-drama series Doom Patrol. Guerrero was raised in Boston, Massachusetts; as the only member of her immediate family with United States citizenship, she remained in the U. S. at the age of 14 when her parents and older brother were deported back to Colombia after unsuccessfully pursuing legal citizenship. Guerrero has since become a strong advocate for immigration reform.

Guerrero was raised in the Jamaica Plain and Roxbury neighborhoods of Boston after being taken in by other Colombian families. She attended Boston Arts Academy, a performing arts high school, where she was in the music department. Among her high school activities was singing with a jazz group, but she anticipated pursuing political science and communications in college, her first job after college was in a law office. In 2010, at age 24, Guerrero decided to pursue a career in acting; that same year, she appeared in the music video for Boston-based R&B singer Louie Bello's song "Faces". In 2011, she moved to New York City and studied acting at the Susan Batson Studios, where she met her manager Josh Taylor. In 2012, Guerrero was cast in Orange is the New Black in the role of Maritza Ramos, a Bronx-bred character with Colombian roots. For season 2, she was part of the cast that earned recognition for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series at the 21st Screen Actors Guild Awards.

The cast earned recognition for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series again at the 22nd Screen Actors Guild Awards and 23rd Screen Actors Guild Awards. She remained part of the show through season 5, she returned for the final season in 2019. In 2014, Guerrero was cast in a recurring role on The CW series Jane the Virgin. In February 2015, Guerrero was cast as the female lead in CBS' television pilot for Super Clyde, but the show was not picked up for series. In 2017, Guerrero was cast in a regular role for season 2 of Superior Donuts. Guerrero has appeared in the films Emoticon. In 2018, she is due to appear in The Godmother. In 2016, Guerrero released In the Country We Love: My Family Divided, a memoir about her parents being detained and deported when she was 14; the book was published by Henry Holt and Co.. A drama based on her memoir was picked up by CBS, to be developed into a drama executive produced by Jennie Snyder Urman, Ben Silverman, Paul Sciarrotta, with Snyder attached as the showrunner.

Guerrero was set to play the lead. In 2017, CBS was picked up by Fox; as of January 2018, no pilot for the series has been ordered. Following the release of In the Country We Love: My Family Divided, Guerrero released My Family Divided, a memoir similar to her previous work but for younger children. One of the main reasons she wanted to cater this book to a younger audience is because she felt like kids who were in similar situations as her own had no knowledge on how to deal with it. In an interview with the Washington Post, she says "I never read anything close to my story. I had no reference point. I felt alone."In July 2018, Guerrero joined the cast of the DC Universe series Doom Patrol as Crazy Jane. The series debuted in 2019. Guerrero hosted the first two seasons of the Hello Sunshine podcast. After publicly speaking about her immigrant parents in an article for the Los Angeles Times, Guerrero became an advocate for the immigrant community, she volunteers and is an ambassador for the Immigration Legal Resource Center, a nonprofit organization, that aims to educate people about issues in the immigrant community.

She became a board member for Mi Familia Vote, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to engage communities for social justice. In September 2015, she was named one of the Presidential Ambassadors for Citizenship and Naturalization by Barack Obama. On May 24, 2018, she was recognized at the 2018 Phillip Burton Immigration & Civil Rights Awards for the work she continues to do. Diane Guerrero on IMDb Diane Guerrero at TV.com In the Country We Love: My Family Divided