ASSIGNMENT

Assignment

Assignment

The UK has no single constitutional document comparable to those of most other nations. It is therefore often said that the country has an "unwritten", uncodified, or de facto constitution. However, the majority of the British constitution does exist in the written form of statutes, court judgments and treaties. The constitution has other unwritten sources, including parliamentary constitutional conventions and the royal prerogatives.

The bedrock of the British constitution has traditionally been the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty, according to which the statutes passed by Parliament are the UK's supreme and final source of law. It follows that Parliament can change the constitution simply by passing new Acts of Parliament. There is some debate about whether this principle remains entirely valid today. One reason for the uncertainty derives from the UK's membership of the European Union.

After the 2005 General Election, Tony Blair declared his intention to stand down as Prime Minister before the end of the present Parliament. On 10 May, he formally announced 27 June as the date on which he will tender his resignation to the Queen, and hand over his seals of office. There is undeniably something satisfying about seeing a prime minister approach the end of his ministry, but, in Tony Blair's case, it is in a constitutional sense, a curious affair: few prime ministers in recent or past times have resigned with this happening.

Britain's politics are in many ways quite predictable, if only at least because of the traditions that guide so much political practice in our system. Much of the heavy politics of the UK takes place in a few square miles of Central London including within its radius, Downing Street, the Palace of Westminster (in which the Houses of Parliament and the Lord Chancellor's official residence are housed), Whitehall, and the central offices of the main parties.

Though arguably all political systems are unique in some aspects, Britain's political system is distinctive for reasons that result uniquely from Britain's history. Traditionally, Britain has always had a culture of liberty rooted in Common Law even before formal democratic institutions were created. One of the influences that most shape Britain's political system is the fact that due in part to the fact that we our revolution had come and gone by 1690, before the industrial revolution, Britain has never experienced a foundational reconstruction to its political system, instead reforming our democracy evolutionally rather than by revolution. This is one reason why many of our political processes seem so arcane and dated: in essence they are. Politics in the UK is built around certain constitutional conventions (to be discussed in greater detail elsewhere) which have at their centre three key principles: the sovereignty of the Parliament, collective responsibility of the Cabinet, and understanding that the Monarch is the fount of all power (in theory all the business of government is conducted not in the name of “the state” but of the Queen, and by her authority).

Under the British Constitution, sweeping executive powers, known as the royal prerogative, are nominally ...