Question about the U.K?

Question

Can anyone explain who is "in charge" in Britain? And what the role is of Prime Minister with a Queen? It is very confusing.

Answer 1

Principal Government Officials:

Head of State--Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Prime Minister (Head of Government)--The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs--The Rt. Hon. Margaret Beckett, MP
Ambassador to the U.S.--Sir David Manning
Ambassador to the UN--Sir Emyr Jones Parry, KCMG


Government
Type: Constitutional monarchy.
Constitution: Unwritten; partly statutes, partly common law and practice.
Branches: Executive--monarch (head of state), prime minister (head of government), cabinet. Legislative--bicameral Parliament: House of Commons, House of Lords; Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly. Judicial--magistrates' courts, county courts, high courts, appellate courts, House of Lords.
Subdivisions: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland (municipalities, counties, and parliamentary constituencies).
Political parties: Great Britain--Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats; also, in Scotland--Scottish National Party. Wales--Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales). Northern Ireland--Ulster Unionist Party, Social Democratic and Labour Party, Democratic Unionist Party, Sinn Fein, Alliance Party, and other smaller parties.
Suffrage: British subjects and citizens of other Commonwealth countries and the Irish Republic resident in the U.K., at 18.


The United Kingdom does not have a written constitution. The equivalent body of law is based on statute, common law, and "traditional rights." Changes may come about formally through new acts of Parliament, informally through the acceptance of new practices and usage, or by judicial precedents. Although Parliament has the theoretical power to make or repeal any law, in actual practice the weight of 700 years of tradition restrains arbitrary actions.

Executive power rests nominally with the monarch but actually is exercised by a committee of ministers (cabinet) traditionally selected from among the members of the House of Commons and, to a lesser extent, the House of Lords. The prime minister is normally the leader of the largest party in the Commons, and the government is dependent on its support.

Parliament represents the entire country and can legislate for the whole or for any constituent part or combination of parts. The maximum parliamentary term is 5 years, but the prime minister may ask the monarch to dissolve Parliament and call a general election at any time. The focus of legislative power is the 646-member House of Commons, which has sole jurisdiction over finance. The House of Lords, although shorn of most of its powers, can still review, amend, or delay temporarily any bills except those relating to the budget. The House of Lords has more time than the House of Commons to pursue one of its more important functions--debating public issues. In 1999, the government removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to hold seats in the House of Lords. The current house consists of appointed life peers who hold their seats for life and 92 hereditary peers who will hold their seats only until final reforms have been agreed upon and implemented. The judiciary is independent of the legislative and executive branches but cannot review the constitutionality of legislation.

Answer 2

The Prime Minister runs the government and is in charge. In general, although there are various differences between the ways the governments run, a UK Prime Minister has more power than an American President. The Queen, or King after Elizabeth II dies, has very limited powers and can't actually control much of anything.

Answer 3

They've got to maintain the royal figurehead for authority purposes, but the government runs the show.

Britain's authority for the numerous international dealings they're involved in require that the "crown" be intact. They are, after all, still an "empire". Their maritime and admiralty authority derives from the kingdom, not the civil government.
.

Answer 4

pm- in charge
queen- symbolic head