Unskilled and semi-skilled working class

Traditionally, these people would work in blue collar jobs. They would typically have left school as soon as legally permissible and not have been able to take part in higher education. Many would go on to work semi-skilled and unskilled jobs on the assembly lines and machine shops of Britain's major car factories, steel mills-сталелитейн завод, foundries-литейная and textile mills in the highly industrialised cities in the West Midlands and North of England.

Stereotype -a standardized mental picture

the Irish are supposed to be great talkers, the Scots have a reputation for being careful with money, the Welsh are renowned for their singing abilities.

British people give a relatively high value to the everyday personal contacts. British desire ’to belong’, the pub, the working man’s club, clubs devoted to various sports and pastimes. British people try to appear as if they belong to as high class as possible, though nobody wants to be thought of as ’snobbish’.

The British are rather proud of being different. However, this does not mean that they like change. Their driving on the left-hand side of the road is a good example to this. Systems of measurement are another example. The British government has been trying for many years to get British people to use the same scales that are used nearly everywhere else in the world. But everybody in Britain still shops in pounds and ounces.

It is probably true that the British, especially the English, are more reserved than the people of many other countries. They find it comparatively difficult to indicate friendship by open displays of affection. For example, it is not the convention to kiss when meeting a friend.

The British are comparatively uninterested in clothes. They spend a lower proportion of their income on clothing than people in most European countries do. Many people buy second-hands clothes and are not at all embarrassed to admit this. on Sundays the British like to «dress down». They can’t wait to take off their respectable working clothes and slip into something really scruffy.

The English people are great pet lovers. Practically every family has a dog or a cat, or both. There are dog hairdressing saloons and dog cemeteries. Millions of families have ’bird-tables’ in their gardens. Perhaps, this overall concern for animals is part of the British love for nature.

The British are always talking about the weather. This is the result of the fact that, on the one hand, to ask personal questions would be rude while, at the same time, silence would also be rude. The weather is a very convenient topic with which to ’fill the gap’.

The UK. MONARCHY.LEGISLATURE+PARLIAMENT.

In a monarchy, the king or queen is head of state. The UK is a 'constitutional monarchy', meaning that a king or queen reigns, with limits to their power, alongside a governing body, Parliament. The United Kingdom’s current monarch is Elizabeth II. She is resident in and most directly involved with the UK (her oldest realm), although she is Queen (separately and equally) of 15 other independent states, their overseas territories and dependencies.

The UK's monarchy is considered the oldest of all modern constitutional monarchies (others exist in countries including Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain and Monaco). As a result of a long process of change during which the monarchy's absolute power has been gradually reduced, custom now dictates that the Queen follows ministerial advice.

The Queen performs a range of important duties, such as summoning and dissolving Parliament and giving royal assent to legislation passed by the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales or the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The Queen formally appoints important office holders, including the prime minister and other government ministers, judges, officers in the armed forces, governors, diplomats, bishops and some other senior clergy of the Church of England. She also grants peerages, knighthoods and other honours. In instances where people have been wrongly convicted of crimes, she is involved in pardoning them. In international affairs, the Queen (as head of state) has the power to declare war and make peace, to recognise foreign states, to conclude treaties and to take over or give up territory.

Legislature

The UK Parliament is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, and Government is drawn from and answerable to it. Parliament is bicameral, consisting of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. There is also a devolved Scottish Parliament and devolved Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland, with varying degrees of legislative authority.

The House of Commons, the lower Chamber of the Parliament,is the real governing body of the UK. It has greater powers thanthe second, upper parliamentary Chamber, the House of Lords.

Their main function is to make laws by passing Acts of Parliament, as well as to discuss current political issues.

The House of Commons is made up of 630 Members of Parliament who are called MP’s for short. Each member of Parliament represents a county or a borough ['bʌrə] of the UK. MP’s are elected by voters for a period of five years. The election is held in the form of the voting by secret ballot. The system whenthe winner is the candidate who gets more votes than any other single candidate is known as the-first-past-the-post-system. The Party which obtains the majority of seats in the House of Commons is called the Government and the others — the Opposition and its leader forms the so-called "Shadow Cabinet". The leader of the opposition is a recognized post in the H of C. The H of C is presided over by the Speaker. He seats on the Speaker’s chair. wearing a wig and a gown.

Every bill (a law in the process of making) has to go through several stages in order to become an Act of Parliament. First of all every bill has three readings in the House of Commons. If the majority of MP’s vote for the bill, it is sent to the House of Lords for discussion. If the Lords agree to the bill, it is sent to the Queen for signature. If any bill passes through three readings in the House of Commons, a discussion in the Houseof Lords and the Queen’s signature it becomes an Act of Parliament or a Law of the Land.

The main function of the upper Chamber, the House of Lords, is to examine and revise bills from the Commons. But the Lords cannot reject a bill. They can only delay it for a maximum of one year. Financial bills(i. e. bills related to money) cannot be delayed by the House of Lords. If the Lords approve a bill it is sent to the Queen for signature.

The members of the H of L are not elected. The Hof L is the only non-elected chamber of Parliament in the world.

It consists of Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual and includes more than 1,000 members. Lords Temporal are 830 Lords by the right of inheritance, 270 members are given life peerage (life peers). Lords Spiritual are 26 members of the House of Lordsand they are spiritual peers (bishops).

The House of Lords is represented by people of different gradesof nobility: dukes, marquesses ['ma:kwIsIz], earls, viscounts ['vaIkaunts]and barons.

The Lord Chancellor is the Chairman of the House of Lords. He sits on the throne upon the Woolsack, a large bag of wool covered with red cloth. The Woolsack is a reminder of the times when Britain’s commercial prosperity was founded on her wool exports.

The UK.ELECTIONS.PARTIES.EXECUTIVE.JUDICIARY.

Current voting systems