Hello hello, hello and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
I'm Alastair Budge, and today we are going to be talking about something that millions of people have strong opinions about, yet surprisingly few could explain clearly.
British politics.
We'll talk about how the British political system works, where it comes from, why it looks the way it does and some of the quirky features that make it very different to politics in other countries.
From how voting works to why this means British politics has historically been dominated by two parties, as well as where Scotland and Wales all fit in.
I'm going to try to make it all make a little more sense.
And perhaps oddly enough, in an episode about politics.
I'm going to make this as apolitical as possible.
So this isn't about saying one party is good and another is bad, but rather explaining how the entire system works.
But before we get right into all of that good stuff, let me quickly remind you that you can become a member of Leonardo English and follow along with the interactive transcript, subtitles and instant translations, as well as unlock our entire bonus catalogue over on the website, which is leonardoenglishcom.
Okay then, let's not waste a minute and get right into it.
If you asked someone from outside the UK to describe British politics, you might hear something like this
There's a Prime Minister and a King and Lords and something called Westminster and people shouting at each other across an old room that looks far too small, and Scotland wants independence.
And then there was Brexit, and there seems to be a new Prime Minister every five minutes.
And to be fair, that's not an entirely inaccurate summary.
British politics is unusual.
It's old, it's full of quirky traditions and it's based far more on customs and conventions than on a single written rulebook.
So over the next 20 minutes or so, I will try to explain how it works.
So the next time you hear about an MP or the commons, or devolution well, it might just be a little clearer.
The first thing to talk about is a little history, as there are two key events that shaped the modern political system.
The first was all the way back in 1215, when the then King John I was forced by a group of powerful English barons to sign a document called the Magna Carta.
What this did was establish the principle that the king or queen was not above the law, that the monarch couldn't just do whatever they wanted.
I mean, they were still the most powerful person in the country, but it was the first time that there were limits placed on this power.
50 years later, in 1265, the first semi-modern parliament was called when an English earl called for representatives from counties or districts up and down the country to come to the Palace of Westminster to discuss the management of the country.
And this, more than 760 years ago, was the basis for the political system that still exists today.
It has evolved significantly since then, with power shifting steadily from the monarch to parliament, through civil wars, reforms and revolutions.
But...
Today, the country still has a monarch.
There is still a parliament which meets at Westminster and is formed of representatives from up and down the country.
So let's talk about Westminster, where it all began, and the tiny area of the country that is still, for better or for worse, the centre of British political power.
If you've been to London, you'll probably have seen the British Parliament.
It's in the Palace of Westminster, beside the River Thames.
It's the big building with Big Ben, the clock tower, at one end.
Inside, Parliament has two what's called chambers.
The first is the House of Commons.
And here, common is short for commoner, just meaning a normal, non-titled or royal person.
This is the heart of British politics, and where the 650 elected Members of Parliament, or MPs, sit.
The other chamber is called the House of Lords, which has around 800 members.
Importantly, these lords are not elected by the public.
They can only be appointed by the monarch, the king or queen, but they are typically proposed by the prime minister.
Historically, they were chosen because they were lords.
Your father was a lord, so you would inherit his title after he died.
This, clearly, was not a very democratic system.
So it was reformed, and the number of what's called hereditary peers was greatly reduced.
Most members are now life peers, so people appointed for their expertise or their long public service.
And importantly, appointed for life.
That's why there isn't a fixed number of them.
They might be former politicians, scientists, lawyers, business people, campaigners or academics.
Unlike hereditary peers, they cannot pass their title on to their children and they usually serve until retirement or death.
So, although the House of Lords still sounds aristocratic and it's clearly less democratic than the Commons, the modern version is more like a chamber of appointed specialists.
And the business of governing the country is split between these two houses, the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
The House of Commons will propose new laws, and it's the House of Lords' job to review and approve them.
But crucially, it cannot block legislation indefinitely, forever.
If the elected House of Commons insists, its decision ultimately wins.
And then there is a third part of this political system.
And that's the monarch, the sitting king or queen.
To an outsider, it might look like the monarch's job is just to turn up in fancy clothes and a crown.
And there is an element of truth to that.
But the monarch still technically appoints the prime minister, opens parliament, dissolves parliament, meets the Prime Minister every week to discuss the state of the country and gives the final say on any new laws.
But, and this is an important but, the monarch will never go against Parliament.
To do so would be suicidal for the monarchy.
And it has been more than three centuries since a British monarch went against an Act of Parliament.
So it is essentially ceremonial, although officially the monarch could say no.
Supporters of this monarchical system argue that it provides stability, continuity and a sense of national identity that's above party politics.
Critics say it's outdated and fundamentally undemocratic to have a king or queen that is in any way involved in the political system.
Whatever your view, the practical reality is straightforward.
The real political power in the UK lies with Parliament and the elected government, not with the Crown.
The monarch is the constitutional figurehead, the symbolic centre of the system, but not the one making decisions.
They reign but not rule, so the expression goes.
So, who does rule?
Well, the government.
And here we must talk about how the British voting system works, how a party gains power and how the prime minister is chosen.
Unlike many democratic systems where citizens directly vote for the national leader, in the UK people do not vote for a prime minister, not directly at least.
The British Prime Minister, as of the time of recording this episode, is Keir Starmer.
And in the 2024 national elections, he received a grand total of 18,884 votes.
You didn't mishear that.
18,884.
Now, you might be wondering...
How that's possible?
A country of 70 million people, and the Prime Minister only received enough votes to fit a small football stadium.
Well, the British voting system is different.
The country is split into 650 areas, or constituencies as they're called.
These are divided broadly by the number of people in each area.
So Greater London has 75, but the whole of Scotland only has 57.
And at an election, British citizens registered in that constituency vote for candidates in that constituency, in that area.
Typically, Each political party will propose one candidate per constituency, and the candidate who receives the most votes is elected the Member of Parliament for that constituency.
So, going back to Keir Starmer for a moment.
He is the Labour MP for an area of London called Holborn and St Pancras.
That constituency only has around 75000 registered voters and he received just shy of 19000 votes in the last election.
He didn't even receive a majority of votes in his own constituency.
So you have 650 constituencies, each of which votes for its MP, and most MPs are part of a political party.
A party has a leader and the leader of the party with the most MPs will become Prime Minister.
So in practice yes, Keir Starmer might have only got fewer than 19000 votes directly, but everyone voting for a Labour MP in their constituency was indirectly voting for him as Prime Minister, because he was the Labour leader.
The consequence of this system, the so-called first-past-the-post system, is that it disproportionately rewards larger parties.
For example if theoretically, one large party wins 51 of the votes in every constituency and the remaining 49 of the votes are split between two smaller parties, that large party would receive 100 of the MPs and the smaller parties would receive zero.
And this advantage shows up in a few different ways.
First, millions of votes can end up making no difference at all.
A party whose support is spread thinly across the whole country might get a respectable share of the national vote but still fail to win a single parliamentary seat, simply because it never comes first in any constituency.
Second, the opposite can also be true.
A party with support concentrated in one region can win a large number of seats with a relatively small share of the national vote.
This is why regional parties like the Scottish National Party often do well under the first-past-the-post system.
Third, the system means that the national vote share and the number of MPs a party wins can look wildly out of proportion.
A party might win a comfortable majority in parliament with well under half of the popular vote, while another might win millions of votes and end up with almost no representation at all.
This actually happened in the last election in 2024.
The Labour Party won what was called a landslide victory with 63 of the seats, but only won 34 of the popular vote.
These are all variations of the same point.
First Past, the Post rewards parties that can win lots of constituencies, not necessarily lots of votes.
Supporters say this delivers clear winners and stable governments.
In the UK coalitions are quite rare, with only 19 of the past 100 years having a coalition in government.
Critics, on the other hand, say it's unfair and distorts the democratic will.
And this debate comes up at almost every election.
Whatever your opinion, First Past, the Post is one of the defining features of British politics and it shapes almost everything about how politicians campaign, governments are formed and how power changes hands.
So, there is a national election, or general election, which typically happens every five years.
British citizens vote for their regional MP, the results come in and typically one political party will win a majority more than 325 of the electoral seats.
Its leader will become prime minister and he or she will appoint ministers to various positions of power.
Of course, this is politics, so they'll choose this strategically, based on alliances, rewarding supporters, punishing critics and perhaps putting rivals in token positions of responsibility from where they cannot mount an attack.
But this certainly isn't unique to British politics.
Now, let's talk about what these MPs actually do.
Every MP, whether that is the Prime Minister, a government MP or a member of a minor party.
They are the elected representatives of the people in their constituency.
This means that they have a duty to represent the interests and concerns of the people living in their area.
They aren't just representing their party or the country.
How this works in practice is that anyone can write to their MP about a concern they have, whether that's something as weighty as government foreign policy or simply that the local post office is closing down.
And it's the MP's job to take these concerns to Parliament through some sort of filtering system, of course.
And if you've seen clips of people standing up in an old-looking room with wooden benches with green fabric, shouting at each other, this is what's happening.
The highlight of this is every Wednesday at 12pm, Prime Minister's Questions, or PMQs.
This is when MPs have the chance to ask the Prime Minister questions, questions that are typically intended to catch them out.
It's here that you have the most heated debate, and this is all broadcast live for anyone to see.
It's a fundamental part of the British political system requiring the Prime Minister to respond to unscripted questions about his or her government's performance every week that Parliament is open.
It certainly keeps the government on its toes.
And this isn't the only thing.
The Prime Minister is only Prime Minister because he or she has the support of their party.
The moment they lose that support is the moment they lose their job.
This can happen in a couple of ways.
Most commonly, it comes from inside their own party.
Political parties in the UK can remove their leader if enough of the MPs decide they no longer support them.
Different parties have different internal rules.
But in practice it usually begins with a group of unhappy MPs writing to party authorities to demand a leadership contest.
If the leader loses that contest, they step down as party leader.
And because the prime minister must be the leader of the governing party, they automatically stop being prime minister as well.
Alternatively, a prime minister can lose support in the House of Commons itself.
The opposition can call what is known as a vote of no confidence a formal test of whether the government still has the backing of a majority of MPs.
If the government loses such a vote, convention says the prime minister must either resign or call a general election.
Both of these mechanisms internal revolts within the governing party or formal votes in parliament mean that a prime minister is never entirely secure.
They must constantly maintain the confidence of their colleagues and the support of the commons.
And it's this reliance on maintaining confidence that makes British politics so lively for want of a better word.
Governments that appear strong can unravel quickly, and prime ministers can go from untouchable to unemployed in a matter of days.
Or in the case of Liz Truss, who was prime minister back in 2022, she lasted a mere 44 days.
Now, let's move on and talk about the main political parties.
For much of the past 100 years, British politics has been dominated by two political parties.
The Labour Party, which is currently in power, and the Conservative Party, which was in power for the last decade.
No other party has had a majority since before the First World War.
The Labour Party is traditionally centre-left and is associated with workers' rights, social equality and public services.
The Conservative Party is centre-right and is associated with free markets, limited government and social conservatism.
For much of the 20th century British politics was a back-and-forth contest between these two giants.
One would win an election and govern for a decade.
Then the other would return and reverse many of the policies.
And depending on the mood at the time, both parties might shift slightly to the left or to the right.
This created a political rhythm.
Left, right, left, right.
And this comes from the first part of the post-voting system that we talked about a few minutes ago.
But it looks very possible that things might change.
The most popular political party, according to current polls, is not Labour or Conservatives, or even the historically small but sometimes important Liberal Democrats.
It's a relatively new party called Reform.
Now Reform was originally called the Brexit Party, a party which will stand up for British culture, identity and values.
Freeze immigration and stop the boats.
Restore law and order, repair our broken public services.
Cut taxes to make work, pay end government waste, slash energy bills, unlock real economic growth.
Its critics paint it as a far-right populist party, but its supporters say it is the only party capable of fixing a broken political system.
It certainly is increasingly popular and the most recent opinion poll has it far ahead with 27 vote share to Labour's 19 and the Conservatives' 18.
The next general election is not scheduled to be held until 2029, so there is a long time for those numbers to move and they most likely will have shifted by the time you listen to this.
But if it continues this way, it may just be the first time in a century that the UK will not have a Labour or Conservative Prime Minister.
Now there is one final thing to mention, and that is an additional complication to do with the unusual structure of the UK.
And this is something called devolution.
The United Kingdom is formed of four countries, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
In response to growing calls for greater autonomy, especially in Scotland, starting in the late 1990s, the UK started to transfer certain powers away from central government to regional parliaments.
This means that there are regional parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Each of these have slightly different powers to change laws, but they typically can pass laws on issues that affect that region, such as on education and health systems.
Interestingly enough England, which is by far the largest part of the UK, has no devolved parliament of its own.
Its laws are made by Westminster.
This creates a tension called the West Lothian question.
Scottish MPs can vote on laws that only affect England, such as English schools or hospitals, but English MPs cannot vote on similar laws for Scotland, because Scotland controls those matters itself.
It's a small but important question.
So, to wrap things up, the British political system is not perfect.
It's a patchwork of rituals, culture and history.
But at its core, there are some important principles.
Nobody is above the law.
Members of Parliament exist to serve the people.
And there are checks and balances to ensure that anyone not doing a good job is swiftly sacked.
It is imperfect but to quote the two-time British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe.
No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise.
Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Okay, then that is it for today's episode on the weird and wacky, and sometimes wonderful, world of British politics.
I hope it's been an interesting one and that you've learned something new.
As always, I would love to know what you thought of this episode.
What was surprising to you about British politics?
If you live in the UK, what do you think will happen in the next election?
And how does the political system in the UK differ from that in your country?
I would love to know, so let's get this discussion started.
Let me know in the comments below if you're listening to this somewhere where you can comment.
And for the members among you, you can head right into our community forum, which is at communityleonardoenglishcom, and get chatting away to other curious minds.
And as a final reminder, if you enjoyed this episode and you're wondering how to more than double the number of episodes you can get, plus learn with our interactive transcripts, subtitles and key vocabulary, then the place to go for that is leonardoenglishcom.
You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
I'm Alistair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
