The United Kingdom Today: General Outlook

A. Pre-Reading Activities

TaskI. Study the meaning of the words from the text which may cause difficulty of understanding:

affairs (n) – дела, вопросы

ages-old (adj) – очень древний, столетний

bilingual (adj) – двуязычный, говорящий на двух языках

charge (v) – поручать, возлагать ответственность

commandmajoritysupport – пользоваться поддержкой большинства

comparatively (adv) – сравнительно, относительно

compile (v) – составлять (книгу, сборник)

densely (adv) – густо, плотно

deprive (v) – отнимать, лишать

dissolve (v) – распускать (партию, парламент)

exercise (v) – осуществлять, применять

exhibition (n) – выставка

fertile (adj) – плодородный

fleet (n) – военно-морской флот

flourish (v) – процветать

general election – всеобщиевыборы

glorious (adj) – прославленный, выдающийся

grant (n) – денежное вознаграждение, грант

hereditarypeer – наследственный пэр

holdup (v) – приостанавливать

lifepeer – пожизненный пэр

link (n) – связь, соединение

merging (n) – слияние, объединение

moderate (adj) – умеренный

moneybill – финансовый законопроект

picturesque (adj) – живописный

plain (n) – равнина

predominantly (adv) – преимущественно

reign (v) – царствовать

retain (v) – сохранять

royalassent – королевская санкция

summon (v) – созывать (собрание)

survive (v) – продолжать существовать, сохраняться

treaty (n) – договор, соглашение, конвенция

Task II. Mind the following proper nouns:

ArtsCouncilofGreatBritain – Совет по искусствам Великобритании

Commonwealth of Nations (the Commonwealth) – СодружествоНаций

Court of Appeal – Апелляционныйсуд

European Economic Community – Европейскоеэкономическоесообщество

House of Commons – Палатаобщин

House of Lords – Палаталордов

Judicial Committee of the Privy Council – СудебныйкомитетТайногосовета

LawLords – судебные лорды, лорды-судьи

LordChancellor – лорд-канцлер

LordsSpiritual – ‘духовные’ члены палаты лордов (архиепископы и епископы)

LordsTemporal – светские члены палаты лордов

NorthAtlanticTreatyOrganisation – Организация Североатлантического договора (НАТО)

Speaker – спикер (впарламенте)

B. Reading and Comprehension Activities

Task III. Read the text carefully and check your general comprehension:

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the official name of the BritishKingdom, including England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The country is situated on the British Isles which lie off the northwest coast of Europe and comprise a group of over 5,000 islands. Politically the British Isles are divided into two countries – the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or just the UK, and the southern part of Ireland, or the IrishRepublic, or Eire. The total area of the British Isles is 322,246 square kilometres, whereas that of the UK is 244,100 square kilometres, which is half the size of France or Spain. The UK occupies the 75^th place in the world in terms of area. The country is washed by the Atlantic Ocean in the northwest, north and southwest, and is separated from the European continent by the North Sea, the Straight of Dover and the English Channel. Nevertheless, Britain has a direct transport link with Europe by means of the Channel Tunnel built across the English Channel. The geographical position favoured the development of the United Kingdom as a great sea country. It’s famous for great geographical discoveries and glorious victories of the British Fleet.

Britain is comparatively small, but there is hardly any country in the world where such a variety of scenery and landscape can be found. England, which is the richest, the most fertile and the most populated part of the country, is a vast plain. It is separated from Scotland by the Cheviot Hills running from east to west. In Northwest England there is the famous Lake District, a region of picturesque lakes and mountains that includes England’s largest lake, Windermere, and highest mountain, Scafell Pike (977 m). Wales and Scotland are mountainous areas; by the way, the Highlands of Scotland are among the oldest mountains in the world. The highest mountain peaks are Ben Nevis (1343 m) in Scotland and Snowdon (1085 m) in Wales. Scotland is a land of famous lakes. They are called ‘lochs’ there. The beautiful Loch Lomond is the largest one in Scotland and Loch Ness attracts millions of tourists by its legendary monster. The largest lake in the British Isles, Lough Neagh, is in Northern Ireland. The rivers are not long in Britain. The longest river is the Severn (350 km), while the Thames (346 km) is the most important waterway as the capital of the United Kingdom, London, stands on it. Woodlands cover about 8 % of the country. As for the climate of Britain it is moderate and mild due to the influence of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. The weather in Britain is very changeable and the English even say they have no climate but only weather which through centuries has become a favourite topic of conversation with the British.

Britain is a densely populated country; besides, it is one of the most urbanized countries in the world. With the present population of some 60 million the UK ranks 14^th in the world. The English make up over 80% of the total population. The proportion of the Scotsmen, Welshmen and Irishmen is about 15%. Four out of every five people live in big industrial cities like London, the capital of England, Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, Cardiff, the capital of Wales, Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Glasgow. London, being the greatest city and port on the British Isles, is also the capital of the United Kingdom. It is its political, economic and commercial centre. London is one of the largest cities of the world; its population is about 7 million people. Besides, it is one of the oldest cities in the world – it is two thousand years old. London consists of the City (the financial part), the rich West End (the entertainment and major shopping centre) and the poor East End (the industrial and former dock area). One can say that the City is the money of London, the West End is the goods of London and the East End is the hands of London.

Today in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, English is the language predominantly spoken. Wales is officially bilingual, and the Welsh language is spoken by a fifth of its population. The Scottish and Irish forms of the Gaelic language survive in some parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The United Kingdom is one of the few developed countries of the world where a constitutional monarchy has survived with its ages-old customs and traditions. There is no written constitution in the UK; that is, the British Constitution is not compiled in any single document.

The present Sovereign is Queen Elizabeth II who reigns but does not rule. Being a constitutional monarch she acts on the advice of her Prime Minister and does not make any major political decisions. Although the Queen is deprived of actual power, she has retained many important, though formal, functions. She summons and dissolves Parliament, gives royal assent to bills passed by both Houses of Parliament. The Queen appoints the Prime Minister (usually the leader of the political party which has a majority in the House of Commons) to form a Government. As head of state she has the power to declare war and make peace, to conclude treaties, etc. The Queen is the head of the executive, an integral part of legislature, the head of the judiciary, the commander-in-chief of all armed forces, the ‘supreme governor’ of the established Church of England and the Head of the Commonwealth.

Britain does not have a very strict division and separation of powers. The legislative branch is Parliament where laws are passed and the most important political issues are debated; the executive (which puts laws into effect and plans policy) is the Cabinet of the Government consisting of the leading members of the political party in power; and the judiciary (which decides on cases that arise out of the laws) is the Law Lords and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The supreme legislative authority in the United Kingdom, Parliament, resides in WestminsterPalace, and its power is concentrated in the 651-seat House of Commons. Members of Parliament are elected at a general election which is usually held every five years. The candidates may be nominated by different parties, but the real contest is between the two big parties – the Conservative and the Labour. The chief officer of the House of Commons is the Speaker whose main duty is to preside over the House in its debate. The Speaker is elected by the House and, when elected, he must not belong to any party.

The House of Lords is composed of about 1,200 appointed members. They are the Lords Spiritual and the Lords Temporal, consisting of all hereditary peers (about 800), all life peers (about 350), and 21 Law Lords, to assist the House in its judicial duties, because the House of Lords is the Supreme Court of Appeal. The Lord Chancellor presides over the House. There is no Minister of Justice in Britain, but the Lord Chancellor performs some of the functions which would normally belong to a Minister of Justice if there was one. The powers of the House of Lords are now strictly limited. The main bills are introduced first in the Commons, and the Lords can only hold them up for one year, and they cannot do even this to money bills. The House of Lords is characterized as an anachronistic body of aristocracy in a modern, progressive democracy.

The executive body, the Government, is formed by the political party which can command majority support in the House of Commons. The leader of the majority party is appointed Prime Minister by the Sovereign, and all other ministers are appointed by the Sovereign on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. Most of the ministers are the members of the Commons, although there are always some ministers in the Lords. The Government is charged with the administration of national affairs. The Prime Minister has a considerable list of functions and powers. It is his duty to inform the Crown and Parliament of the general business of the Government, to exercise a general supervision over Departments, to speak in Parliament on the most important government bills, etc.

Still, there is a merging of roles in the British political system. The members of the Cabinet, as well as the Prime Minister, are members of the executive and the legislative who have the right to vote in Parliament. The Lord Chancellor is the Cabinet minister, the Speaker of the House of Lords and the head of the judiciary. The House of Lords has a right to vote on bills so they are part of the legislative but the Lords also contains the Law Lords who are an important part of the judiciary. Some have argued that this is needed for flexibility in a modern society.

The arts in Britain are flourishing, and present a varied and lively picture. London has become an international forum of the arts, with major exhibitions of painting and sculpture and theatre, opera and ballet companies and orchestras drawing large audiences. Throughout Britain there are festivals and centres of artistic activity – among them Eisteddfod, the Edinburgh International Festival, the music festivals at Aldeburgh, Windsor and others. There are over 900 museums and art galleries in Britain and art exhibitions are shown all over the country through the Arts Council of Great Britain, which distributes government grants for music, drama, painting and sculpture.

Britain is one of the world’s major industrialized and trading nations. It enjoys a long established democratic system of government which has provided political stability. The United Kingdom is a member of the European Economic Community, the United Nations Organisation, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Commonwealth of Nations.

It’s interesting to know …

ü The United Kingdom, the UK, and Britain are all proper terms for the entire nation, although the term ‘Britain’ is also often used when talking about the island of Great Britain. The use of the term ‘Great Britain’ to refer to the entire nation is now outdated; the term ‘Great Britain’, properly used, refers only to the island of Great Britain, which does not include Northern Ireland. The term ‘England’ should never be used to describe Britain, because England is only one part of the island. It is always correct to call people from England, Scotland, or Wales British, although people from England may also properly be called English, people from Scotland Scottish, and people from Wales Welsh.

ü The separation of Britain from the continent had a tremendous impact on the British nation. For centuries the British felt safe and secure protected by the Channel, and no foreign army has ever invaded the country since the Norman Conquest in the 11^th century.

ü In the UK there are nearly 105 females to every 100 males. The average life expectancy is 72 years for men and 78 years for women.

ü In Britain the Queen is not only the head of state, but also the ‘symbol of the nation’s unity’. The royal title of the Queen is: “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”.

ü The flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, adopted in 1801, is officially called the Union Flag, because it embodies the emblems of the three countries under one Sovereign. The flag is made up of three crosses on a blue and white ground. The central red cross on a white ground is the cross of St. George, the patron saint of England. The white diagonal cross on a blue ground is the cross of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland. The red diagonal cross on a white ground is the cross of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. St. David is the patron saint of Wales, but the symbol of Wales is not reflected in the Union Flag, as when the flag appeared Wales was already united with England. The Welsh flag, a red dragon on a white and green ground, dates from the 15^th century. The Union Flag is commonly known as the Union Jack. This name reflects the history of the state: ‘Union’ means the union of England and Scotland in 1606 and ‘Jack’ means the flag flown at the jack staff (a small flagstaff) of ships to show their nationality.

ü In the Royal Coats of Arms the shield shows the various royal emblems of different parts of Britain: the three lions of England in the first and fourth quarters, the lion of Scotland in the second and the harp of Ireland in the third. It is surrounded by a garter bearing the motto “Evil be to him who evil thinks”, which symbolizes the Order of the Garter, an ancient order of knighthood of which the Queen is Sovereign. The shield is supported by the English lion and the Scottish unicorn and is surmounted by the Royal crown. Below it appears the motto of the Sovereign, “God and my right”. The plant badges of the United Kingdom – rose, thistle and shamrock – are often displayed beneath the shield.

ü The British Constitution comes from a variety of sources. The main ones are: statutes such as the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Act of Settlement of 1701; laws and customs of Parliament, political conventions; case law; constitutional matters decided in a court of law. Amendments to Britain’s unwritten Constitution are made by a simple majority support in both Houses of Parliament to be followed by the Royal Assent.

ü Supporters of the unwritten constitution believe that it allows for flexibility and change to occur without too many problems. Those who want a written constitution believe that it should be codified so that the public has access to it – as opposed to just constitutional experts who know where to look and how to interpret it.

ü The British Parliament is often referred to as the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ because the UK was the first in the Western world to introduce a workable body, an assembly of elected representatives of the people with the authority to resolve social and economic problems by free debate leading to the making of law. The British Parliament was the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts created many other parliaments. Many nations with parliaments have to some degree emulated the British ‘three-tier’ model. Most countries in Europe and the Commonwealth have similarly organized parliaments with a largely ceremonial head of state who formally opens and closes Parliament, a large elected lower house and a smaller, upper house.

ü One of the fundamental principles of the British unwritten Constitution is the sovereignty of Parliament. It means that Parliament has unlimited power in the legislative and executive spheres and that there is no institution that can declare its acts unconstitutional. In other words, Parliament can act as it pleases: to make or change any law, to prolong its own life beyond the normal period without consulting the electorate, etc. But in practice, however, Parliament does not make use of its supremacy in this way. Its members bear in mind their responsibility to the electorate.

ü The Lord Chancellor presides over the House of Lords as its Speaker and is sitting on a large couch known as the Woolsack, a symbol surviving from the 14^th century when wool was England’s staple trade.

Task IV. Complete the table with missing derivatives:

Noun	Verb	Adjective
society
		comparative
advice
	appoint
justice
		hereditary
	influence
		commercial
variety
	compile

Task V. Look at the puzzle below. Go back to the text and scan it for the words which are equivalent in meaning to the following definitions. Complete the puzzle and find a key word in the centre boxes: