Listening III.

Listen to the text and answer the following questions:

1. What kind of elections are by-elections? When are they held?

2. What are the main parties of the UK? What party gained advantage over Labour?

3. How big is the swing against Labour?

4. Who and how campaigned in this supposedly safe seat?

5. Why does the winner from Liberal Democrats Willy Rennie mention Downing street 10 and 11?

6. How comes that Gordon Brown lives in the constituency which they lost to the Liberal Democrats?

7. Why does the correspondent say that “the Liberal Democrat supporters have watched their party behave like a car crash in slow motion in recent months.”?

8. What questions do these by-election returns provide?

2) Now fill in the gaps:

Part 1

The British Prime Minister Tony Blair has suffered a shock defeat in_______ ___________, losing ___________________ supposedly on a path to self destruction driven by scandals over sex and alcohol. What's worse is the 16 per cent _______________Labour came in a supposedly __________________that's also the home of Tony Blair's Chancellor or Treasurer Gordon Brown, who campaigned ____________ in the _______________- to seemingly little effect.

Part 2

Number 11 _____________is where the _______________Gordon Brown lives, next door to the man whose job he'll take over within the next two years - after waiting with excruciating patience, just like his Australian contemporary Peter Costello. But that barbed message will sting. Because of _________electoral____________, Gordon Brown actually lives in the seat that Labour lost, and he'd _____________________________________a seat that Labor was sure they'd win.

Part 3

But it's only a by-election, and ___________________is still three and half years ____________at least - and ______________Labor comfortably_________. But since coming to power in 1997, Tony Blair had never ____________in Parliament, until recent ____________anti-terrorism were defeated. The latest was lost because so many ____________were busy campaigning in Scotland for this by-election that the party lost track of how many votes it had in_______________________. 100 years since the modern British Labour party was created, Tony Blair's supporters hope he won't lose track of how he managed to be the first Labor leader to win three____________________ elections.

3) Study the idioms: “to pull one’s punches”,“ to come as a thunderbolt” “ to lose track of”and make up your own sentences with them. Listening III (part 2)

1. Who is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?

2. What was the central theme of his electoral campaign?

3. How does the scheme of Big Society work?

4. Where does Big Society Bank capital come from?

5. How does the opposition interpret the scheme of Big Society?

6. What situation necessitated working out of the scheme of Big Society?

Lesson 5. Elections in the usa

Vote for the man who promised the least. He’ll be the least disappointing.

Bernard Mannes Baruch (1870 –1965)

American businessman and president adviser In M. Berger “New York”(1960)