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Chapter
The Approach to Russia for a Post-Brexit UK
Whilst the UK and Russia lack a common border, they nevertheless have a long history of interaction, often tense or hostile in nature, dating back as far as the imperial era when interests clashed over the Ott...
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Chapter
The United Kingdom Parliamentary Voting System Referendum of 2011
On 5 May 2011, voters across the United Kingdom (UK) took part in a referendum that posed the question: ‘At present, the UK uses the “first past the post” system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should th...
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Chapter
Religion
None of the available sources of statistics on the numbers belonging to or following Britain’s various religions and denominations are entirely satisfactory. No census in Great Britain between 1851 and 2001 in...
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Chapter
Referendums
Historically, were not used in Britain except to settle purely local issues, but a new precedent was set by the decision to hold a national referendum on British membership of the European Community in 1975....
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Chapter
Interest Groups, Pressure Groups, Etc
The distinction between ‘think-tanks,’ research organisations and pressure groups or interest groups is often a tenuous one; what all the organisations listed in this section have in common is that they attemp...
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Chapter
International Affairs
Main Territories Under British Rule Since 1900
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Chapter
Governments
The following list contains the names of all those who have held paid and political ministerial office since 1900; it should be read in conjunction with the (pp. XX–XXX), which gives full names for those lis...
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Chapter
Parties
In 1965 the Conservative Party introduced a procedure for the leader to be elected by a ballot of M.P.s.
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Chapter
Parliamentary Elections
Information on elections to the European Parliament can be found in the Europe section, pp. xxx–xxx, on elections to the , National Assembly of Wales, Northern Ireland Parliament and in the Local Gover...
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Chapter
Constitution and Rights
other countries internationally, the United Kingdom does not have a ‘written constitution.’
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Chapter
Justice and Law Enforcement
Poor Prisoners’ Defence Act 1903. This was the first Act which made provision for legal aid, which was limited to trials on indictment.
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Chapter
Investigation and Regulation
investigation of problems can take a number of forms: , Committees and special or committees. This chapter does not deal with purely Conferences
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Chapter
The Public Sector
Economic activity by the state—other than the core activity undertaken by the —takes a range of forms which defy easy categorisation. Whereas a public corporation (or a limited company in which the state is a...
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Chapter
The Media
For most of the twentieth century, the newspapers listed below printed in London only, except as otherwise indicated. (From the mid-1980s, new technology made printing in many different centres the norm rather...
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Chapter
Political Allusions
The student of political history becomes familiar with allusive references to places, events, scandals, phrases and quotations. This chapter attempts to collect the most outstanding of these allusions.
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Chapter
Devolution
Although the United Kingdom is sometimes described as a unitary state, it has always been characterised by considerable territorial diversity in its internal constitutional arrangements. The idea of Home Rule ...
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Chapter
The Civil Service
Permanent Secretary is the official head and usually the accounting officer of the Department and is responsible to the Minister for all the Department’s activities.
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Chapter
Parliament
Around 1900, sessions of Parliament lasted from February to July or August. Occasionally Parliament sat through the summer. In 1930 both Houses agreed that they should adjourn between July and October, and tha...
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Chapter
The 2016 European Union Referendum, Consociationalism and the Territorial Constitution of the UK
This chapter notes that the overall UK constitutional system is not generally classified as consociational in nature. However, the diversity of the UK state creates challenges with similarities to those diffic...
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Chapter
Social Conditions
The Standard Regions previously used have been superseded from the 1990s onwards —the principal difference being the separation of London from South East and the transfer of the northern Home Counties and Ess...