tribunals significantly accelerates the resolution of current and urgent issues (e.g. salary). Their decisions are not final and can be appealed to the court. Scotland has its own system of law and courts.
The UK civil service is a permanent, politically neutral organization that supports government ministries in the performance of their duties, regardless of the political party. Unlike other democracies, employees remain after the change of government.
The core of the civil service is organized in a variety of government departments. Each Department is headed by a single politically significant and insignificant small team of Ministers. In most cases, the Minister is called the Secretary of state and a member of the Cabinet. The Department's administration is headed by a senior civil servant, in most departments known as the permanent Secretary. The majority of civil service personnel actually work in Executive agencies, separate organizations accountable to the Department of state. Whitehall is often synonymous with the core of the Civil service because most departments have their headquarters at this or nearby addresses on Whitehall street.
Exercise 4. Answer the questions to the text.
1.What parts do the Supreme courts consist of?
2.What is the division of cases between branches of the High court determined by?
3.What is the Crown court? What duties does it have?
4.What cases can be considered minor?
5.Does Scotland have its own system of law and courts?
Exercise 5. Say what the following words and word combinations mean.
Barristers –
The Court of appeal – Tribunals – Whitehall –
Exercise 6. Fill in gaps in the following phrases.
1.The High court has … judges.
2.… consists of 18 judges, known as Lord Justices and headed by the custodian of the court archives.
3.The UK … is a permanent, politically neutral organization that … government ministries in the … their …, regardless of … .
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4.… – lawyers who … the exclusive right to speak in higher courts (also have the … to speak in …).
5.The courts of the counties … cases with claims up to … .
Exercise 7. Translate from Russian into English.
1.Суд короны – это новое учреждение, созданное в 1971 году.
2.Подразделения Гражданской службы организованы в разных государственных департаментах.
3.На этом уровне рассматриваются жалобы на решения Верховного суда.
4.Штаб-квартира Гражданской службы располагается в Уайт-
холле.
5.Они рассматривают дела в области налогообложения, здравоохранения, трудового права.
Unit 7. Political parties of Great Britain
Exercise 1. Read and give Russian equivalents of the following words and word combinations. Use them in your own phrases.
The representatives, membership, to be founded, a rival, to decline, to be supplanted, to reach a peak, to increase.
Exercise 2. Before reading tell about political parties that there are in your country. Ask your partner.
Exercise 3. Read the text below and translate it. Give a summary of what you have read.
The Conservative Party and the Labour Party are two main parties in the United Kingdom. The third party in terms of representatives elected and party membership is the Scottish National Party (SNP).
The Conservative Party appeared in 1834. It outgrew of the Tory movement the beginning of which went back to 1678. Today it is also known as the Tory party and its members as Tories. The Liberal Democrats, or «Lib Dems», appeared in 1988 by an amalgamation of the Liberal party and the Social Democratic party (SDP). The Liberals and the SDP had taken part in the elections together as the SDP–Liberal Alliance for seven years previously. The modern Liberal party had been founded in 1859 as an outgrowth of the Whig movement. Its history began at the same time as the Tories’ history. They always were rivals.
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The Liberal party was one of the two major parties (along with the Conservatives) from its founding until the 1920s. Then it declined in popularity and was supplanted on the left by the Labour party. This party was founded in 1900 and formed its first government in 1924. Since then both the Labour and Conservative parties have been the most popular and influential, along with the Liberals (later Liberal Democrats) which have been the third-largest party until 2015, when they lost 48 of their 57 seats. The Scottish National Party (SNP) increased from 6 seats to 56. The SNP was formed in 1934. It advocates for Scottish independence and has had continuous representation in the Parliament since 1967. It currently leads a minority government in the Scottish parliament.
There are also several minor parties that held seats in the Parliament. In the most recent general election in 2017, the Conservatives, despite the fact that they increased their vote share forfeited their overall majority in the House of Commons after previously commanding a
majority for two years between 2015 and 2017.
All political parties have special schemes for the membership which allow members of the public to make influence to the policy and direction of the party in various degrees, though particularly at a local level. The membership of British political parties is around 1 % in British electoral system. This percent is lower than in all European states except for Poland and Latvia. Overall membership to a political party has been in decline since the 1950s. In 1951 the Conservative party had 2.2 million members, and a year later in 1952 the Labour party reached their peak of 1 million members (of an electorate of around 34 million).
Exercise 4. Answer the questions to the text.
1.How many political parties are there in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
2.What are the main parties? What are the minor ones?
3.Who are their leaders?
4.What is the oldest political party?
5.What is the youngest political party?
Exercise 5. Say what these abbreviations mean.
The SNP –
The SDP –
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Exercise 6. Fill in gaps.
1.Membership of … political parties is around … of the British …
2.… was founded in 1834 and is an … of the Tory … (or party) which began in …
3.All … parties have … schemes that allow members to … .
Exercise 7. Make a project «Political parties of my native country». Choose one of the Russian political parties and tell about it, be ready to discuss it with your groupmates.
Unit 8. The Tories and the Whigs
Exercise 1. Read and give Russian equivalents of the following words and word combinations. Use them in your own phrases.
To trace the origin, an overall majority, aftermath, gentry, trade, expansion, discontent, the issue, to undergo, under the influence.
Exercise 2. Before reading try to remember what the major parties in the UK are, what their political programs are. Ask your partner about it.
Exercise 3. Read the text and translate it. Give a summary of what you have read.
Conservatives (The Tories)
The Conservative Party took the largest number of seats at the 2015 general election, returning 330 MPs. One more seat that is uncontested belongs to the Speaker that’s why the total number of MPs raises up to 331. It is enough for an overall majority. Since 2015 this party continued to make the first Conservative majority government since the 1992 general election.
The Conservative Party takes its origin in 1662, with the Court Party and the Country Party (soon known as the Tories) which were formed in the aftermath of the English Civil War. The term «Tory» originates from the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678–1681.The Whigs supported the exclusion of the Roman Catholic Duke of York from the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, while the Tories were those who opposed it. At the beginning both names were impolite and even insults: a «whiggamore» was a horse drover and a «tory» was an Irish term for an outlaw. Also a «tory» was later applied as a nickname to Irish Confederates and
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Irish Royalists, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In general, the Tories were associated with lesser gentry and the Church of England, while the Whigs were more connected with expansion and tolerance of Catholicism, money, trade, larger land holders (or «land magnates»).
The Tories had a fundamental transformation under the influence of Robert Peel after becoming associated with repression of popular discontent in the years after 1815. Robert Peel himself was an industrialist rather than a landowner. In his «Tamworth Manifesto» he tried to outline a new «Conservative» philosophy of reforming bad points while conserving the good ones. However Peel's supporters later split from their associates over the issue of free trade in 1846 and ultimately join the Whigs and the Radicals to form a coalition that some time after that would become the Liberal party. Nevertheless, Peel's version of the party's fundamental point of view was retained by the remaining Tories. They adopted his label of Conservative as the official name of their party.
The Conservative Party represented in the government for 18 years between 1979 and 1997, under the country's first ever female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and then under John Major. Their failure in the 1997 general election became the reason why the Conservative Party lost over half their seats gained in 1992 and the party realigned with public perceptions of them. In 2008, the Conservative Party formed a coalition with the Ulster Unionist Party to choose joint candidates for European and House of commons elections. The DUP did not like it as by splitting the Unionist vote, republican parties could be elected in some regions. After having been in the official opposition for thirteen years, the party returned to poweraspartofacooperationagreementwiththeLiberalDemocratsin2010, continuing forming a majority government in 2015. In 2016 David Cameron resigned and the country's second female Prime Minister Theresa May was appointed. The Conservative Party is the only one in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to have a female prime minister.
Before, the party's full name was the Conservative & Unionist Party. Historically it has been the mainland party most pre-occupied by British Unionism. This was a result of the merger between the Conservatives and Joseph Chamberlain's Liberal Unionist Party, composed of former Liberals opposing Irish home rule. Nowadays the unionist tendency is
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