Life in the UK Test. Exam day

The fundamental principles of British life

• The fundamental principles of British life include democracy and the rule of law
• Individual liberty is a fundamental principle of British life
• Tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs is a fundamental principle of British life
• Participation in community life is a fundamental principle of British life
• There is no place in British society for extremism or intolerance
• At the citizenship ceremony new citizens pledge to uphold these values

Responsibilities and freedoms

• Residents should respect and obey the law
• Residents should respect the rights of others, including their right to their own opinions
• Residents should treat others with fairness
• Residents should look after themselves and their family
• Residents should look after the area in which they live and the environment
• The UK offers freedom of belief and religion
• The UK offers freedom of speech and freedom from unfair discrimination
• The UK offers a right to a fair trial
• The UK offers a right to join in the election of a government

Becoming a permanent resident

• To apply for permanent residence or citizenship you need to speak and read English and have a good understanding of life in the UK
• Applicants must pass the Life in the UK test
• Evidence of English speaking and listening at B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference is required of applicants
• B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference is equivalent to ESOL Entry Level 3
• At a citizenship ceremony new citizens pledge to uphold the values of the UK

Taking the Life in the UK test

• Twenty-four questions on important aspects of life here make up the Life in the UK test
• Questions are based on all parts of the handbook, including the introduction
• You will not need to remember dates of birth or death
• Candidates sitting together in one session each receive a different set of 24 questions
• The test is usually taken in English, although special arrangements can be made for Welsh or Scottish Gaelic
• There are over 30 registered Life in the UK test centres in the UK
• You can only book your test online
• You need to take identification and proof of your address to the test

The countries of the UK

• The UK is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Officially the country is named the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Great Britain refers only to England, Scotland and Wales
• Great Britain does not include Northern Ireland
• The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are Crown dependencies and are not part of the UK
• The Crown dependencies have their own governments
• St Helena and the Falkland Islands are British overseas territories linked to the UK but not part of it
• The UK is governed by the parliament sitting in Westminster

Capital cities and geography

• London is the capital city of the UK
• Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland
• Cardiff is the capital city of Wales
• Belfast is the capital city of Northern Ireland
• The UK is located in the north west of Europe
• The longest distance on the mainland is from John O'Groats in Scotland to Land's End in England
• The distance from John O'Groats to Land's End is about 870 miles, approximately 1,400 kilometres

Early Britain

• The first people to live in Britain were hunter-gatherers in the Stone Age
• About 10,000 years ago the Channel cut Britain off from the continent for good
• The first farmers arrived in Britain 6,000 years ago
• Stonehenge in Wiltshire was probably a special gathering place for seasonal ceremonies
• Skara Brae on Orkney is the best preserved prehistoric village in northern Europe
• Bronze Age homes were roundhouses, and the dead went into tombs called round barrows
• In the Iron Age people learned how to make weapons and tools out of iron
• Maiden Castle in Dorset is an impressive Iron Age hill fort
• The language of the Iron Age was part of the Celtic language family
• The first coins to be minted in Britain were made in the Iron Age

The Romans

• Julius Caesar led a Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BC, which was unsuccessful
• The Emperor Claudius led a new Roman invasion in AD 43
• Boudicca was the queen of the Iceni in what is now eastern England and fought against the Romans
• There is a statue of Boudicca on Westminster Bridge in London
• Areas of what is now Scotland were never conquered by the Romans
• To keep the Picts out, the Emperor Hadrian walled the north of England
• The Picts were the ancestors of the Scottish people
• Hadrian's Wall included the forts of Housesteads and Vindolanda and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
• The Romans remained in Britain for 400 years
• Roman Britain gained roads, public buildings, a structure of law, and new plants and animals
• The first Christian communities began to appear in Britain during the 3rd and 4th centuries AD

The Anglo-Saxons

• The Roman army left Britain in AD 410 and never returned
• The Jutes, Angles and Saxons came to Britain after the Romans left
• The languages of the Jutes, Angles and Saxons are the basis of modern-day English
• By about AD 600 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were established in Britain, mainly in what is now England
• Sutton Hoo in modern Suffolk was the burial place of an Anglo-Saxon king
• The Anglo-Saxon king at Sutton Hoo was buried with treasure and armour in a ship covered by a mound of earth
• Anglo-Saxon rule never reached much of present-day Wales, nor Scotland
• St Patrick became the patron saint of Ireland
• St Columba founded a monastery on the island of Iona
• St Augustine led missionaries from Rome and spread Christianity in the south
• St Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury

The Vikings

• The Vikings came from Denmark, Norway and Sweden
• AD 789 brought the first Viking visit, raiding coastal towns for goods and slaves
• Alfred the Great united England's Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and beat the Vikings
• The Danelaw was the name for the eastern and northern area where many Viking invaders settled
• Place names such as Grimsby and Scunthorpe come from the Viking languages
• The first Danish king to rule what is now England was Cnut, also called Canute
• In the north the threat of Viking attack encouraged the people to unite under one king, Kenneth MacAlpin
• The term Scotland began to be used to describe that country under Kenneth MacAlpin

The Norman Conquest

• In 1066 William, Duke of Normandy, defeated Harold, the Saxon king of England, at the Battle of Hastings
• Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings
• William became king of England and is known as William the Conqueror
• The Norman Conquest was the last successful foreign invasion of England
• The Battle of Hastings is commemorated in the Bayeux Tapestry, which can still be seen in France
• English developed under the influence of Norman French, spoken by the new ruling class
• The Normans initially conquered Wales but the Welsh gradually won territory back
• The Normans took over some land on the border between England and Scotland but did not invade Scotland
• The Domesday Book listed all the towns and villages of England, who lived there, who owned the land and what animals they owned

The Middle Ages: war at home and abroad

• A thousand years separate the end of the Roman Empire in AD 476 from 1485, the span of the Middle Ages
• Wales was annexed to the Crown of England by Edward I's Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284
• Huge castles including Conwy and Caernarvon were built to maintain English power in Wales
• Welsh rebellion was finally put down by the middle of the 15th century
• Bannockburn in 1314 saw Robert the Bruce lead the Scottish to victory over the English
• Scotland remained unconquered by the English
• Around Dublin lay the Pale, English-ruled by 1200
• Knights joined the Crusades in numbers, European Christians fighting for the Holy Land
• The Hundred Years War with France actually lasted 116 years
• At the Battle of Agincourt in 1415 King Henry V's vastly outnumbered English army defeated the French
• The English largely left France in the 1450s

Feudalism and the Black Death

• The Normans used a system of land ownership known as feudalism
• Land came to lords from the king under feudalism, the return being help in war
• Most peasants were serfs, who had a small area of their lord's land and had to work for their lord and could not move away
• In the north of Scotland and in Ireland land was owned by members of the clans, which were prominent families
• In 1348 a disease, probably a form of plague, came to Britain and was known as the Black Death
• One third of the population of England died in the Black Death, and a similar proportion in Scotland and Wales
• The Black Death was one of the worst disasters ever to strike Britain
• After the Black Death there were labour shortages and peasants began to demand higher wages
• New social classes appeared after the Black Death, including owners of large areas of land later called the gentry
• Growing wealth in the towns led to the development of a strong middle class

Magna Carta and the rise of Parliament

• Magna Carta was agreed in 1215
• King John was forced by his noblemen to agree to Magna Carta
• Magna Carta means the Great Charter
• Even the king answered to law: that was Magna Carta's idea
• Magna Carta guarded the nobility's rights and curbed the king's power over taxes and over making or changing law
• The nobility, great landowners and bishops sat in the House of Lords
• Election to the Commons went to knights and to wealthy townspeople
• Electing members of the Commons was open to only a small part of the population
• The Scottish Parliament had three Houses called Estates: the lords, the commons and the clergy
• In England judges developed common law by a process of precedence and tradition
• In Scotland the laws were codified, that is, written down

A distinct identity and the Wars of the Roses

• Norman French and Anglo-Saxon gradually combined to become one English language
• English was in use for official documents by 1400, and preferred at the royal court and in Parliament
• Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a collection of poems about a group of people going to Canterbury on a pilgrimage
• William Caxton was the first person in England to print books using a printing press
• The Canterbury Tales was one of the first books to be printed by William Caxton
• John Barbour wrote The Bruce about the Battle of Bannockburn in the Scots language
• Windsor and Edinburgh are castles built in the Middle Ages that are still in use
• The stained glass in York Minster is a famous example
• English wool became a very important export in the Middle Ages
• The Wars of the Roses began in 1455 as a civil war to decide who should be king of England
• The Wars of the Roses was fought between the House of Lancaster and the House of York
• A red rose stood for Lancaster, a white rose for York
• The Wars of the Roses ended with the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485
• King Richard III of the House of York was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field
• Henry Tudor, leader of the House of Lancaster, became King Henry VII
• Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, uniting the two families
• Tudor's badge set a white rose inside a red one

Henry VIII and the Reformation

• Two things made Henry VIII famous: six marriages, and the break with the Church of Rome
• Henry VIII established the Church of England when the Pope refused to approve his divorce
• In the Church of England the king, not the Pope, had the power to appoint bishops and order how people should worship
• Papal authority, and Roman Catholic ideas and practices, were what the Reformation set itself against
• Protestants read the Bible in their own languages instead of in Latin
• Protestants did not pray to saints or at shrines
• For Protestants, a person's own relationship with God outweighed submission to Church authority
• Wales became formally united with England during the reign of Henry VIII by the Act for the Government of Wales
• Welsh representatives went to the Commons, and Welsh law was reformed

The six wives of Henry VIII

• The six wives of Henry VIII were Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr
• Catherine of Aragon was a Spanish princess and the mother of Mary
• Anne Boleyn was English and the mother of Elizabeth, and was executed at the Tower of London
• Jane Seymour gave Henry VIII the son he wanted, Edward, but died shortly after the birth
• Anne of Cleves was a German princess whom Henry VIII married for political reasons and divorced soon after
• Catherine Howard was a cousin of Anne Boleyn and was executed
• Catherine Parr was a widow who married Henry VIII late in his life and survived him

Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I

• Edward VI was strongly Protestant and during his reign the Book of Common Prayer was written for use in the Church of England
• Just over six years of rule ended with Edward VI's death at 15
• Mary was a devout Catholic who persecuted Protestants and became known as Bloody Mary
• Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
• Elizabeth I was a Protestant who re-established the Church of England as the official Church in England
• Elizabeth I found a balance between the views of Catholics and the more extreme Protestants and avoided serious religious conflict within England
• In 1588 the English defeated the Spanish Armada, a large fleet of ships sent by Spain to conquer England and restore Catholicism

The Reformation in Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots

• Papal authority in Scotland was abolished in 1560 by a mainly Protestant Scottish Parliament
• Roman Catholic religious services became illegal in Scotland in 1560
• Scotland's new Protestant Church had elected leadership and, unlike England's, no status as a state Church
• Mary Stuart, often now called Mary, Queen of Scots, was a Catholic
• A week old at her father's death, Mary, Queen of Scots became queen as an infant
• Much of Mary, Queen of Scots' childhood was spent in France
• Mary, Queen of Scots gave her throne to her Protestant son, James VI of Scotland
• Mary, Queen of Scots was Elizabeth I's cousin and was kept a prisoner for 20 years
• Mary, Queen of Scots was eventually executed, accused of plotting against Elizabeth I

Exploration, Shakespeare and James I

• Sir Francis Drake was one of the commanders in the defeat of the Spanish Armada and one of the founders of England's naval tradition
• Among the first ships to circumnavigate the world was Sir Francis Drake's Golden Hind
• America's eastern coast first saw English settlers under Elizabeth I
• William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and was a playwright and actor
• Among Shakespeare's most famous plays: Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Shakespeare was one of the first to portray ordinary Englishmen and women
• Shakespeare shaped English deeply and coined many words still in use
• The playhouses Shakespeare's plays first appeared in are copied in London's modern Globe Theatre
• Elizabeth I never married and had no children of her own to inherit her throne
• When Elizabeth I died in 1603 her heir was James VI of Scotland, who became King James I of England, Wales and Ireland
• Scotland remained a separate country when James VI became King James I of England
• A new translation of the Bible into English during James I's reign is known as the King James Version or the Authorised Version

Ireland under Elizabeth I and James I

• During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, Ireland was an almost completely Catholic country
• Henry VIII took the title King of Ireland
• Local leaders in Ireland were expected to follow the instructions of the Lord Lieutenants in Dublin
• Ulster, Ireland's northern province, was settled by Scottish and English Protestants at the English government's urging
• The settlements of Protestants in Ulster were known as plantations
• Many of the new settlers in Ulster came from south-west Scotland
• Long-term consequences for English, Scottish and Irish history alike flowed from the plantations

The English Civil War

• Divine Right of Kings — appointment to rule directly by God — was the belief of James I and Charles I
• Charles I ruled without Parliament at all for 11 years
• Charles I tried to impose a revised Prayer Book on the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, which led to serious unrest
• In 1640 Charles I recalled Parliament to ask it for funds
• Strict, simple doctrine and worship was what the Puritans, a Protestant group, wanted
• Five parliamentary leaders had been warned and were absent when Charles I came into the Commons to arrest them
• No monarch has set foot in the House of Commons since Charles I tried to arrest five parliamentary leaders
• The English Civil War began in 1642
• Those who supported the king were called the Cavaliers and those who supported Parliament were called the Roundheads

Cromwell and the English republic

• Marston Moor and Naseby were the battles that broke the king's army
• Charles I was executed in 1649
• England declared itself a republic, called the Commonwealth, with no monarch
• Oliver Cromwell was sent to Ireland, where he established the authority of the English Parliament with such violence that he remains a controversial figure in Ireland today
• The Scots declared Charles II to be king and he led a Scottish army into England
• Cromwell defeated the Scottish army at the Battles of Dunbar and Worcester
• Charles II escaped from Worcester, famously hiding in an oak tree, and eventually fled to Europe
• Lord Protector was Oliver Cromwell's title, and he held it until he died in 1658
• Britain was a republic for 11 years
• Cromwell's son Richard became Lord Protector but was not able to control the army or the government

The Restoration

• Exile in the Netherlands ended for Charles II in May 1660, on Parliament's invitation
• Charles II was crowned King of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland
• During the Restoration the Church of England again became the established official Church
• In 1665 there was a major outbreak of plague in London
• A great fire destroyed much of London the year after the plague, including many churches and St Paul's Cathedral
• A great fire destroyed much of London the year after the plague, including many churches and St Paul's Cathedral
• Samuel Pepys wrote about the plague and the great fire in a diary which is still read today
• The Habeas Corpus Act became law in 1679
• Habeas corpus is Latin for 'you must present the person in court'
• The Habeas Corpus Act guaranteed that no one could be held prisoner unlawfully and that every prisoner has a right to a court hearing
• The Royal Society was formed during the reign of Charles II to promote natural knowledge
• The Royal Society is the oldest surviving scientific society in the world
• Sir Edmund Halley successfully predicted the return of the comet now called Halley's Comet
• Isaac Newton was born in Lincolnshire and his most famous published work was Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica
• Gravity acting across the whole universe was Newton's demonstration, and he also found white light to hold the rainbow's colours

A Catholic king and the Glorious Revolution

• Charles II died in 1685 and his Roman Catholic brother became King James II
• Roman Catholics were favoured by James II, who made them army officers in defiance of an Act of Parliament
• Mary, the elder daughter of James II, had married her cousin William of Orange, Protestant ruler of the Netherlands
• In 1688 important Protestants in England asked William of Orange to invade England and proclaim himself king
• When William reached England there was no resistance and James fled to France
• William ruled jointly with Mary as William III in England, Wales and Ireland
• The event was called the Glorious Revolution because there was no fighting in England
• The Glorious Revolution guaranteed the power of Parliament and ended the threat of a monarch ruling on his or her own
• The Boyne, fought in Ireland in 1690, was where William beat James II
• The Battle of the Boyne is still celebrated by some in Northern Ireland today
• An armed rebellion in support of James was quickly defeated at Killiecrankie
• The MacDonalds of Glencoe were late in taking the oath to accept William as king and were all killed
• James II's supporters became known as Jacobites

The Bill of Rights and constitutional monarchy

• Parliament's rights, and the limits on the king, were set out in the 1689 Bill of Rights
• Who could reign became Parliament's to decide, and a Protestant was required
• A new Parliament had to be elected at least every three years, which later became seven years and is now five years
• Funding for army and navy had to be renewed by the monarch's annual request to Parliament
• The two main groups in Parliament were known as the Whigs and the Tories
• The modern Conservative Party is still sometimes referred to as the Tories
• From 1695 newspapers were allowed to operate without a government licence
• Constitutional monarchy begins with the laws passed after the Glorious Revolution
• Men holding property of a certain value could vote; women could not vote at all
• Constituencies controlled by a single wealthy family were called pocket boroughs
• Constituencies which had hardly any voters were called rotten boroughs

The Act of Union and the first Prime Minister

• London received Britain's first Jewish settlers since the Middle Ages in 1656
• Between 1680 and 1720 many refugees called Huguenots came from France
• The Huguenots were Protestants who had been persecuted for their religion
• 1707 brought the Act of Union — Scotland calls it the Treaty of Union — and with it the Kingdom of Great Britain
• Scotland kept its own legal and education systems and Presbyterian Church after the Act of Union
• When Queen Anne died in 1714 Parliament chose George I to be the next king because he was her nearest Protestant relative
• Ministers mattered more to George I because his English was poor
• The most important minister in Parliament became known as the Prime Minister
• The first man to be called Prime Minister was Sir Robert Walpole, who was Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742

The rebellion of the clans and the Enlightenment

• In 1745 Charles Edward Stuart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, landed in Scotland to put a Stuart king back on the throne
• Bonnie Prince Charlie was the grandson of James II
• Culloden in 1746 was where George II's army beat Bonnie Prince Charlie
• After Culloden the clans lost a lot of their power and influence
• Small farms called crofts were destroyed by Scottish landlords in the Highland Clearances, to clear space for large flocks of sheep and cattle
• Robert Burns was a Scottish poet known in Scotland as The Bard
• Three registers served Robert Burns: Scots, standard English, and English carrying Scottish words
• Robert Burns' best-known work is probably the song Auld Lang Syne
• Auld Lang Syne is sung when people celebrate the New Year, called Hogmanay in Scotland
• The Enlightenment was a period in the 18th century when new ideas about politics, philosophy and science were developed
• Adam Smith developed ideas about economics which are still referred to today
• David Hume's ideas about human nature continue to influence philosophers
• Steam power, worked on by James Watt, sped the Industrial Revolution along
• A central Enlightenment principle: political and religious belief belongs to the individual, and the state should not dictate it

The Industrial Revolution

• Agriculture employed more people than anything else in Britain before the 18th century
• Cloth, lace and similar goods made at home were the work of cottage industries
• Industry developed rapidly across Britain's 18th and 19th centuries — the Industrial Revolution
• Britain was the first country to industrialise on a large scale
• Machinery and steam power together made the Industrial Revolution possible
• Steel mass-produced by the Bessemer process gave rise to shipbuilding and to the railways
• Manufacturing jobs became the main source of employment in Britain
• Richard Arkwright improved the original carding machine and developed horse-driven spinning mills
• Efficient, profitable factory management is what Richard Arkwright is chiefly remembered for
• Canals connected the factories to towns, to cities and to the ports
• Working conditions during the Industrial Revolution were very poor and there were no laws to protect employees
• Children worked during the Industrial Revolution and were treated in the same way as adults, and sometimes even more harshly
• Captain James Cook mapped the coast of Australia
• Large parts of India fell under the East India Company, first established for trade

The slave trade and its abolition

• Slavery was illegal within Britain itself but by the 18th century it was a fully established overseas industry
• Slaves came primarily from West Africa and were taken to America and the Caribbean
• Slaves were made to work on tobacco and sugar plantations
• Quakers formed Britain's first formal anti-slavery groups in the late 1700s
• William Wilberforce was an evangelical Christian and a member of Parliament who played an important part in changing the law
• Trading slaves in British ships, or out of British ports, was outlawed in 1807
• In 1833 the Emancipation Act abolished slavery throughout the British Empire
• Slave ships of other countries were stopped by the Royal Navy, which freed those aboard and punished the traders
• Freed slaves were replaced after 1833 by 2 million Indian and Chinese workers

The American War of Independence and war with France

• The American colonists argued there should be no taxation without representation in the British Parliament
• In 1776 thirteen American colonies declared their independence
• Britain recognised the independence of the American colonies in 1783
• Revolution came to France in 1789, and its new government declared war on Britain
• Napoleon became Emperor of France and continued the war against Britain
• Britain's navy won the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 against combined French and Spanish fleets
• Command of the British fleet at Trafalgar belonged to Admiral Nelson, who died in the battle
• Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London, is a monument to Admiral Nelson
• Nelson's ship HMS Victory can be visited in Portsmouth
• Waterloo in 1815 closed the French Wars, the Duke of Wellington defeating the Emperor Napoleon
• The Duke of Wellington was known as the Iron Duke and later became Prime Minister

The Union Flag

• Following the Act of Union of 1800, Ireland joined England, Scotland and Wales from 1801
• The Act of Union of 1800 created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
• The Union Flag is often called the Union Jack and is still the official flag of the UK
• England's St George brings a red cross on white ground
• Scotland's St Andrew brings a diagonal white cross on blue ground
• Ireland's St Patrick brings a diagonal red cross on white ground
• There is an official Welsh flag which shows a Welsh dragon
• Wales is absent from the Union Flag because the Principality had already joined England by 1606, when the first version was made
• Scotland's and England's flags were combined into the first Union Flag in 1606

The Victorian Age and the British Empire

• Aged 18, Victoria took the throne of the UK in 1837
• Queen Victoria reigned until 1901, almost 64 years
• Australia, all of India and much of Africa came within the British Empire during Victoria's reign
• The British Empire became the largest empire the world has ever seen
• The British Empire had an estimated population of more than 400 million people
• Emigration between 1853 and 1913 took as many as 13 million British citizens overseas
• Persecution drove around 120,000 Russian and Polish Jews to Britain between 1870 and 1914
• Many Russian and Polish Jews settled in London's East End and in Manchester and Leeds
• The Boer War of 1899 to 1902 was fought in South Africa against settlers from the Netherlands called the Boers
• Empire had largely given way to Commonwealth by the later 20th century, and the transition was mostly orderly
• Rudyard Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907

Victorian trade, industry and the Crimean War

• The Corn Laws, which had prevented the import of cheap grain, were repealed in 1846
• A legal cap of 10 hours a day on the work of women and children arrived in 1847
• George and Robert Stephenson, father and son, pioneered the railway engine
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an engineer who built tunnels, bridges, railway lines and ships
• Isambard Kingdom Brunel was responsible for constructing the Great Western Railway, the first major railway built in Britain
• From Paddington the Great Western Railway runs to Wales, the West Midlands and England's south west
• Over half the world's iron, coal and cotton cloth came from the 19th-century UK
• The UK became a centre for financial services, including insurance and banking
• Hyde Park held the Great Exhibition of 1851, staged inside the Crystal Palace — iron and glass on a huge scale
• Russia was the enemy in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856, with Britain alongside Turkey and France
• News stories and photographs covered the Crimean War at length, a first for any conflict
• Queen Victoria introduced the Victoria Cross medal during the Crimean War, which honours acts of valour by soldiers
• Florence Nightingale was born in Italy to English parents and trained as a nurse in Germany at the age of 31
• In 1854 Florence Nightingale went to Turkey and worked in military hospitals treating soldiers fighting in the Crimean War
• St Thomas' Hospital in London housed the Nightingale Training School for nurses, established in 1860
• Florence Nightingale is often regarded as the founder of modern nursing

Ireland in the 19th century and the right to vote

• In the middle of the 19th century the potato crop failed and Ireland suffered a famine
• A million people died from disease and starvation in the Irish famine and another million and a half left Ireland
• Liverpool, London, Manchester and Glasgow all held large Irish populations by 1861
• The Fenians favoured complete independence for Ireland
• Home Rule, argued for by Charles Stuart Parnell, would have given Ireland its own parliament inside the UK
• The Reform Act of 1832 greatly increased the number of people with the right to vote and abolished the old pocket and rotten boroughs
• The Reform Act of 1832 gave more parliamentary seats to the towns and cities
• The Chartists were campaigners who presented petitions to Parliament demanding the vote for the working classes
• Urban seats multiplied and the property bar for voting came down under the Reform Act of 1867
• Until 1870 a woman's earnings, property and money automatically belonged to her husband when she married
• Wives won the right to keep their earnings and property through Acts of 1870 and 1882
• Women who campaigned for the right to vote formed the women's suffrage movement and became known as suffragettes
• Emmeline Pankhurst was born in Manchester in 1858 and set up the Women's Franchise League in 1889
• In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst helped found the Women's Social and Political Union, the first group whose members were called suffragettes
• The suffragettes used civil disobedience, chained themselves to railings, smashed windows and committed arson, and many went on hunger strike
• Voting rights and the right to stand for Parliament came to women over 30 in 1918
• The voting age for women fell to 21 in 1928, matching men

The First World War

• The early 20th century saw financial help for the unemployed, old-age pensions and free school meals introduced
• A salary for members of Parliament was introduced for the first time in the early 20th century
• On 28 June 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated
• The First World War lasted from 1914 to 1918
• Conditions for war were set by nationalism, rising militarism, imperialism, and Europe's major powers dividing into two camps
• Britain was part of the Allied Powers, which included France, Russia, Japan, Belgium and Serbia
• More than a million Indians fought on behalf of Britain and around 40,000 were killed
• Alongside the British fought men from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Africa and the West Indies
• The Central Powers were mainly Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and later Bulgaria
• There were more than 2 million British casualties in the First World War
• About 60,000 British casualties fell on the first day alone of the Somme attack in July 1916
• The First World War ended at 11.00 am on 11 November 1918 with victory for Britain and its allies

The partition of Ireland and the inter-war years

• In 1913 the British government promised Home Rule for Ireland
• In 1916 there was an uprising against the British in Dublin known as the Easter Rising
• The leaders of the Easter Rising were executed under military law
• A peace treaty in 1921 was followed by Ireland's division into two countries in 1922
• Northern Ireland was the name kept by the six mainly Protestant northern counties that stayed British
• The rest of Ireland became the Irish Free State and became a republic in 1949
• The Troubles is the usual name for the conflict between full Irish independence and loyalty to the British government
• Mass unemployment struck parts of the UK when the Great Depression began in 1929
• Traditional heavy industries such as shipbuilding were badly affected by the depression of the 1930s
• New industries including the automobile and aviation industries developed in the 1930s
• Between 1930 and 1939 the number of cars owned doubled, from 1 million to 2 million
• Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh were prominent writers between the wars
• The economist John Maynard Keynes published influential new theories of economics
• The BBC started radio broadcasts in 1922
• The BBC began the world's first regular television service in 1936

The Second World War

• Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933
• Britain and France declared war to halt Hitler's aggression after he invaded Poland in 1939
• The Axis powers were fascist Germany and Italy and the Empire of Japan
• Allied side, main countries: the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Poland and France
• Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and Britain's war leader in 1940
• More than 300,000 men were rescued from the beaches around Dunkirk
• Many civilian volunteers in small pleasure and fishing boats helped the Navy at Dunkirk
• The evacuation of Dunkirk gave rise to the phrase 'the Dunkirk spirit'
• Between late June 1940 and Germany's June 1941 attack on the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany was faced almost alone by Britain and the Empire
• Summer 1940 brought the decisive aerial battle with the Germans, won by the British and called the Battle of Britain
• Spitfire and Hurricane were the RAF's most important aircraft in the Battle of Britain
• The Spitfire and the Hurricane were designed and built in Britain
• The German bombing of London and other British cities at night-time was called the Blitz
• Coventry was almost totally destroyed in the Blitz
• Britons pulling together under adversity are still described by the phrase 'the Blitz spirit'

Allied victory and post-war reform

• December 1941 brought the United States into the war, after Japan bombed its naval base at Pearl Harbour
• On 6 June 1944 allied forces landed in Normandy, an event often referred to as D-Day
• The Allies comprehensively defeated Germany in May 1945
• Atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war against Japan in August 1945
• First to split the atom were scientists under New-Zealand-born Ernest Rutherford, at Manchester and later Cambridge
• Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 while researching influenza
• Penicillin was further developed into a usable drug by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain
• Alexander Fleming won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945
• In 1945 the British people elected a Labour government and Clement Attlee became Prime Minister
• Clement Attlee promised to introduce the welfare state outlined in the Beveridge Report
• Aneurin Bevan, as Minister for Health, brought the National Health Service into being in 1948
• Free at the point of use, the NHS guaranteed everyone a minimum standard of health care
• The post-war government nationalised the railways, coal mines and gas, water and electricity supplies
• Five Giant Evils — Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, Idleness — were what Beveridge's 1942 report told government to fight
• The Education Act 1944, often called the Butler Act, introduced free secondary education in England and Wales

Decolonisation, migration and the 1960s

• Nine countries gained independence in 1947, Ceylon — today Sri Lanka — along with India and Pakistan
• NATO, joined by the UK, allied nations against the perceived threat of Soviet invasion
• Britain had a Conservative government from 1951 to 1964
• Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was famous for his wind of change speech about decolonisation
• Reconstruction after the Second World War drew workers from Ireland and elsewhere in Europe at the government's encouragement
• In 1948 people from the West Indies were invited to come and work in the UK
• Bus drivers were recruited through centres opened in the West Indies
• Agents went to India and Pakistan for workers, sent by engineering and textile firms of the Midlands and northern England
• Roughly 25 years of arrivals came from the West Indies, India, Pakistan and, later, Bangladesh
• The 1960s was a period of significant social change known as the Swinging Sixties
• The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were two well-known pop music groups of the 1960s
• Parliament passed new laws giving women the right to equal pay and making it illegal for employers to discriminate against women because of their gender
• Britain and France developed the supersonic commercial airliner Concorde
• Expelled from Uganda, 28,000 people of Indian origin were admitted to Britain in the early 1970s

British inventions of the 20th century

• The television was developed by Scotsman John Logie Baird in the 1920s
• In 1932 John Logie Baird made the first television broadcast between London and Glasgow
• Radar was developed by Scotsman Sir Robert Watson-Watt, who proposed that enemy aircraft could be detected by radio waves
• The first successful radar test took place in 1935
• Sir Bernard Lovell built the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, which was for many years the biggest in the world
• A Turing machine is a theoretical mathematical device invented by the British mathematician Alan Turing in the 1930s
• The Scottish physician John Macleod was the co-discoverer of insulin, used to treat diabetes
• DNA's structure came to light in 1953, from work at universities in London and Cambridge
• Francis Crick, one of those awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA, was British
• Sir Frank Whittle developed the jet engine here in the 1930s
• Sir Christopher Cockerell invented the hovercraft in the 1950s
• Concorde first flew in 1969, began carrying passengers in 1976 and was retired from service in 2003
• The Harrier jump jet, an aircraft capable of taking off vertically, was designed and developed in the UK
• In the 1960s James Goodfellow invented the cash-dispensing ATM, or cashpoint
• Enfield in north London saw the first cashpoint installed, by Barclays Bank, in 1967
• IVF therapy for the treatment of infertility was pioneered in Britain by Sir Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe
• Oldham in Lancashire was the birthplace of the world's first test-tube baby, in 1978
• Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal, came in 1996 from a team led by Sir Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell
• Sir Peter Mansfield is the co-inventor of the MRI scanner
• The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, is British
• Information was successfully transferred via the World Wide Web for the first time on 25 December 1990

The 1970s onwards, Thatcher, Blair and Brexit

• Direct rule from the UK government followed the suspension of Northern Ireland's Parliament in 1972
• Northern Irish violence after 1969 cost some 3,000 lives over the following decades
• The European Economic Community was founded in 1957 by Italy, France, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands
• When the European Union formed in 1993 it absorbed the European Economic Community
• Full membership of the European Union never brought the UK into the Euro
• The UK formally left the European Union on 31 January 2020
• Margaret Thatcher was Britain's first woman Prime Minister and led the Conservative government from 1979 to 1990
• Margaret Thatcher was the longest-serving Prime Minister of the 20th century
• Privatising nationalised industries restructured the economy under Margaret Thatcher, whose government also placed legal controls on union powers
• Traditional industries such as shipbuilding and coal mining declined during the 1980s
• Argentina seized the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory of the South Atlantic, in 1982
• Recovery of the Falklands followed military action by a naval taskforce sent from the UK
• Following Mrs Thatcher came John Major, who helped set the Northern Ireland peace process going
• In 1997 the Labour Party led by Tony Blair was elected and introduced a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly
• The Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998
• The Northern Ireland Assembly was elected in 1999, suspended in 2002 and reinstated in 2007
• Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister in 2007
• In May 2010 no political party won an overall majority in the General Election, for the first time since February 1974
• The Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties formed a coalition in 2010 and David Cameron became Prime Minister
• The referendum on the UK's membership of the European Union was held on 23 June 2016
• Leaving the European Union carried by 51.9% against 48.1%
• Theresa May succeeded David Cameron as Prime Minister on 13 July 2016
• Boris Johnson succeeded Theresa May as Prime Minister on 24 July 2019

Population and diversity

• Nearly 10% of the population of the UK has a parent or grandparent born outside the UK
• The population of the UK was just over 4 million in 1600 and 5 million in 1700
• The population of the UK was 8 million in 1801 and 20 million in 1851
• The population of the UK was 40 million in 1901 and 50 million in 1951
• The population of the UK was just over 66 million in 2017
• Longer life expectancy, and arrivals from abroad, have both fed population growth
• England makes up 84% of the total population of the UK
• Wales makes up around 5% of the UK population and Scotland just over 8%
• Northern Ireland makes up less than 3% of the UK population
• People in the UK are living longer because of improved living standards and better health care
• There are a record number of people in the UK aged 85 and over
• White is the ethnic description most often chosen in surveys, taking in American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and European descent

An equal society

• Discrimination on grounds of gender, or of being married or unmarried, is barred by law for men and women alike
• Men and women have equal rights to work, own property, marry and divorce
• If they are married, both parents are equally responsible for their children
• Women in Britain today make up about half of the workforce
• On average, girls leave school with better qualifications than boys
• More women than men study at university
• High-level posts hold more women than ever, senior management in historically male trades included
• Staying at home rather than working is no longer what is expected of women

Religion in the UK

• In the 2011 Census 59% of people identified themselves as Christian
• In the 2011 Census 4.8% identified as Muslim, 1.5% as Hindu, 0.8% as Sikh and less than 0.5% as Jewish or Buddhist
• In the 2011 census 25% of people said they had no religion
• Choosing a religion, or choosing none, is a legal right belonging to everyone here
• In England there is a constitutional link between Church and state
• The official Church of the state in England is the Church of England
• Elsewhere the Church of England goes by Anglican, and in Scotland and the United States by Episcopal
• Protestant, and dating from the Reformation of the 1530s: that is the Church of England
• The monarch is the head of the Church of England
• Spiritual leadership of the Church of England belongs to the Archbishop of Canterbury
• Several Church of England bishops sit in the House of Lords
• Scotland's national Church, the Church of Scotland, is Presbyterian, run by ministers and elders
• A Moderator chairs the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, holding the post for one year
• There is no established Church in Wales or Northern Ireland
• Quakers, Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists are other Protestant Christian groups here
• The biggest of the other denominations of Christianity in the UK is Roman Catholic

Patron saints

• St David's Day, for Wales, is 1 March
• St Patrick's Day, for Northern Ireland, is 17 March
• St George's Day, for England, is 23 April
• St Andrew's Day, for Scotland, is 30 November
• Official holiday status for the patron saint's day belongs to Northern Ireland and Scotland alone
• The patron saints' days of England and Wales are no longer public holidays but are still celebrated
• The flower associated with England is the rose
• The flower associated with Scotland is the thistle
• The flower associated with Wales is the daffodil
• The flower associated with Northern Ireland is the shamrock

Christian festivals

• Christmas Day, 25 December, celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ and is a public holiday
• Christmas Eve is 24 December
• A traditional Christmas meal often includes roast turkey, Christmas pudding and mince pies
• Father Christmas is also known as Santa Claus
• A public holiday follows Christmas Day: Boxing Day
• Easter takes place in March or April
• Good Friday marks Christ's death and Easter Sunday his rising from the dead
• Good Friday and Easter Monday are both public holidays
• The 40 days before Easter are known as Lent
• The day before Lent starts is called Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day
• Eggs, fat and milk were used up in pancakes before the fast
• Ash Wednesday opens Lent, Christians receiving an ash cross on the forehead for death and sorrow for sin
• Chocolate Easter eggs are often given as presents at Easter as a symbol of new life

Other religious festivals

• Diwali normally falls in October or November and lasts for five days
• Diwali is often called the Festival of Lights and is celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs
• Diwali celebrates the victory of good over evil and the gaining of knowledge
• There is a famous celebration of Diwali in Leicester
• Hannukah is in November or December and is celebrated for eight days
• Hannukah remembers the Jews' struggle for religious freedom
• During Hannukah a candle is lit each day on a stand of eight candles called a menorah
• A month of Muslim fasting, Ramadan, is brought to a close by Eid al-Fitr
• The date of Eid al-Fitr changes every year
• Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his son at God's command is what Eid ul Adha recalls
• Many Muslims sacrifice an animal to eat during Eid ul Adha, which in Britain has to be done in a slaughterhouse
• The Khalsa's founding is celebrated by the Sikh festival Vaisakhi, also spelled Baisakhi
• Vaisakhi is celebrated on 14 April each year with parades, dancing and singing

Other festivals and bank holidays

• New Year, 1 January, is a public holiday
• Hogmanay is Scotland's name for 31 December, and 2 January is a public holiday there too
• For some Scottish people Hogmanay is a bigger holiday than Christmas
• Valentine's Day is 14 February, when lovers exchange cards and gifts
• April Fool's Day is 1 April, when people play jokes on each other until midday
• Mothering Sunday, or Mother's Day, is the Sunday three weeks before Easter
• Father's Day is the third Sunday in June
• Halloween, 31 October, is an ancient festival with roots in the pagan festival to mark the beginning of winter
• At Halloween young people often dress up in frightening costumes to play trick or treat, and people carve lanterns out of pumpkins
• Bonfire Night is 5 November, when people in Great Britain set off fireworks
• In 1605 Guy Fawkes and fellow Catholics planned to bomb the Houses of Parliament and kill the Protestant king, and failed — the origin of Bonfire Night
• Those who died fighting for the UK and its allies are commemorated on 11 November, Remembrance Day
• First World War dead were the original focus of Remembrance Day, that war having ended on 11 November 1918
• The poppy worn is the red flower of First World War battlefields
• Whitehall's Cenotaph receives wreaths, and a two-minute silence falls at 11.00 am
• Early May, late May or early June, and August: bank holidays, carrying no religious significance
• July's Battle of the Boyne anniversary is an additional public holiday in Northern Ireland

Sport

• Many famous sports began in Britain, including cricket, football, lawn tennis, golf and rugby
• Three Olympic Games have been hosted here: 1908, then 1948, then 2012
• Stratford in East London held the main site of the 2012 Games
• The British team finished third in the medal table at the 2012 Olympic Games
• Dr Sir Ludwig Guttman, a German refugee working at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire, is where the Paralympics began
• Cricket began in England, and a game may run five days and still be drawn
• The most famous cricket competition is the Ashes, a series of Test matches played between England and Australia
• Most popular of British sports is football, its first professional clubs dating from the late 19th century
• One international football trophy has come England's way: the 1966 World Cup, held here
• Rugby originated in England in the early 19th century and has two types with different rules, union and league
• Union rugby's showpiece is the Six Nations, contested by Italy, France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and England
• The Super League is the most well-known rugby league club competition
• Three famous races: Royal Ascot; Ayr's Scottish Grand National; and Aintree's Grand National, near Liverpool
• Golf in its modern form goes back to Scotland in the 15th century
• St Andrews in Scotland is known as the home of golf
• The Open Championship is the only Major golf tournament held outside the United States
• Modern tennis evolved in England in the late 19th century and the first tennis club was founded in Leamington Spa in 1872
• Oldest tennis tournament anywhere, and the sole Grand Slam on grass, is Wimbledon
• Under four minutes for the mile was first achieved by Sir Roger Bannister, in 1954
• Bobby Moore captained the English football team that won the World Cup in 1966

Money, languages and traditional food

• The currency in the UK is the pound sterling, with the symbol £
• There are 100 pence in a pound
• UK coins are 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2
• UK notes are £5, £10, £20 and £50
• Notes issued by Scotland and Northern Ireland are good throughout the UK
• Shops and businesses do not have to accept Northern Irish and Scottish banknotes
• In Wales many people speak Welsh, a completely different language from English, taught in schools and universities
• Parts of the Scottish Highlands and Islands speak Gaelic
• In Northern Ireland some people speak Irish Gaelic
• A traditional English food is roast beef, served with potatoes, vegetables and Yorkshire puddings
• Yorkshire puddings are batter that is baked in the oven
• Welsh cakes are a traditional Welsh snack made from flour, dried fruits and spices
• Haggis is a traditional Scottish food, a sheep's stomach stuffed with offal, suet, onions and oatmeal
• Northern Ireland's Ulster fry combines bacon, eggs, sausage, black and white pudding, mushrooms, tomatoes, soda bread and potato bread

Arts, culture and leisure

• The Proms is an eight-week summer season of orchestral classical music organised by the BBC since 1927
• The Last Night of the Proms is the most well-known concert of the Proms
• Henry Purcell was the organist at Westminster Abbey and developed a British style distinct from that elsewhere in Europe
• George Frederick Handel was German-born and became a British citizen in 1727
• George I received Handel's Water Music; his son George II received the Music for the Royal Fireworks
• Handel wrote an oratorio, Messiah, which is sung regularly by choirs
• Gustav Holst wrote The Planets and adapted Jupiter as the tune for I vow to thee my country
• Sir Edward Elgar was born in Worcester and is best known for the Pomp and Circumstance Marches
• Land of Hope and Glory — Elgar's March No 1 — is a Last Night of the Proms fixture
• Ralph Vaughan Williams was strongly influenced by traditional English folk music
• Operas are what Benjamin Britten is best known for, Billy Budd and Peter Grimes among them
• Benjamin Britten founded the Aldeburgh festival in Suffolk
• The National Eisteddfod of Wales is an annual cultural festival largely in Welsh
• Each September the Mercury Prize goes to the best album out of the UK and Ireland
• London's West End is also known as Theatreland
• Agatha Christie's murder-mystery The Mousetrap has held the West End since 1952
• The Mousetrap has had the longest initial run of any show in history
• Gilbert and Sullivan wrote comic operas including HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado
• Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the music for shows including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera
• One of the traditional characters in a pantomime is the Dame, a woman played by a man
• The biggest and most well-known part of the Edinburgh Festival is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
• The Laurence Olivier Awards are named after the British actor Sir Laurence Olivier
• The Turner Prize was established in 1984 and celebrates contemporary art
• The Turner Prize is named after Joseph Turner
• The Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been awarded since 1968
• The British Academy Film Awards are hosted by BAFTA and are the British equivalent of the Oscars
• There are 15 national parks in England, Wales and Scotland
• The National Trust was founded in 1895 by three volunteers

Landmarks and places of interest

• Big Ben is properly the nickname of the great bell in the clock at London's Houses of Parliament
• Elizabeth Tower is the name given to the clock tower, honouring the 2012 Diamond Jubilee
• Cornwall, in England's south west, is where the Eden Project stands
• The biomes of the Eden Project are like giant greenhouses and house plants from all over the world
• Edinburgh Castle is looked after by Historic Scotland and dates back to the early Middle Ages
• The Giant's Causeway is located on the north-east coast of Northern Ireland
• Columns of volcanic lava make up the Giant's Causeway, formed some 50 million years ago
• Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park covers 720 square miles in the west of Scotland
• Loch Lomond is the largest expanse of fresh water in mainland Britain
• The London Eye is a Ferris wheel 443 feet tall on the southern bank of the River Thames
• Millennium celebrations were the reason the London Eye was built
• Snowdonia is a national park in North Wales covering an area of 838 square miles
• Snowdon is the highest mountain in Wales
• William the Conqueror raised the Tower of London on taking the throne in 1066
• Tours of the Tower of London are given by the Yeoman Warders, also known as Beefeaters
• The Crown Jewels can be seen at the Tower of London
• The Lake District is England's largest national park, covering 885 square miles
• The biggest stretch of water in the Lake District is Windermere
• In 2007 television viewers voted Wastwater as Britain's favourite view
• Coronations have taken place at Westminster Abbey since 1066, and many monarchs are buried there
• Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey holds the graves and memorials of many of the best-known poets

The development of British democracy

• Under democracy the whole adult population has a say in government
• At the turn of the 19th century only men over 21 who owned a certain amount of property could vote
• The franchise means the number of people who had the right to vote
• In the 1830s and 1840s the Chartists campaigned for six changes
• The Chartists wanted every man to have the vote and elections every year
• The Chartists wanted all regions to be equal in the electoral system and secret ballots
• The Chartists wanted any man to be able to stand as an MP and for MPs to be paid
• By 1918 most of the Chartists' reforms had been adopted
• In 1918 the voting franchise was extended to women over 30
• In 1928 the franchise was extended to men and women over 21
• Men and women alike could vote from 18 once the age was lowered in 1969

The British constitution

• A country is governed by a set of principles, and that set is its constitution
• Institutions that run the country, and the checks upon their power, both fall within a constitution
• The British constitution is not written down in any single document and is therefore described as unwritten
• No revolution here has ever permanently replaced the system of government, as happened in France or America
• Some people believe there should be a single constitutional document, while others believe an unwritten constitution allows for more flexibility and better government
• The main parts of government in the UK are the monarchy, Parliament, the Prime Minister, the cabinet, the judiciary, the police, the civil service and local government
• Powers to legislate on certain issues rest with devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

The monarchy

• Under constitutional monarchy the king or queen appoints, rather than rules: the government is the one voters chose
• The monarch is the head of state of the UK and is also head of state for many countries in the Commonwealth
• An invitation to become Prime Minister goes to whoever leads the party holding most MPs, or leads a coalition
• Advising, warning and encouraging are open to the monarch in regular meetings with the Prime Minister
• Decisions on government policies are made by the Prime Minister and cabinet
• The monarch opens the new parliamentary session each year with a speech summarising the government's policies for the year ahead
• All Acts of Parliament are made in the monarch's name
• Ambassadors and high commissioners are received, visiting heads of state entertained, and state visits made overseas
• The monarch provides stability and continuity, and a focus for national identity and pride
• The National Anthem of the UK is played at important national occasions and at events attended by the monarch or the Royal Family
• New citizens swear or affirm loyalty to the monarch as part of the citizenship ceremony
• New citizens make either an oath of allegiance or an affirmation of allegiance

The House of Commons and the House of Lords

• The UK is divided into parliamentary constituencies, and voters in each elect their member of Parliament in a General Election
• All of the elected MPs form the House of Commons
• The party with the majority of MPs forms the government
• Where no single party takes a majority, two may combine into a coalition
• Being democratically elected is what makes the Commons the weightier of the two chambers
• Nearly all cabinet members, and the Prime Minister, sit in the Commons
• An MP's work: representing everyone in the constituency, helping make laws, scrutinising and commenting on government, and debating national questions
• Members of the House of Lords are known as peers and are not elected by the people
• Peers do not represent a constituency
• Until 1958 all peers were hereditary, or senior judges, or bishops of the Church of England
• Nomination of peers for their lifetime alone — life peers — has been the Prime Minister's power since 1958
• Appointment of life peers is made by the monarch, advised by the Prime Minister
• Non-party peers are nominated by an independent Appointments Commission
• Automatic attendance ended for hereditary peers in 1999, and they now elect a handful to speak for them
• Of the two chambers the Lords is usually the more independent of government
• The House of Lords can suggest amendments or propose new laws and checks laws passed by the House of Commons
• Powers to overrule the Lords exist in the Commons but see little use

The Speaker and elections

• Debates in the House of Commons are chaired by the Speaker, who is the chief officer of the House of Commons
• Party allegiance is set aside by the Speaker, who nonetheless remains an MP
• The Speaker represents a constituency and deals with constituents' problems like any other MP
• The Speaker is chosen by other MPs in a secret ballot
• The Speaker keeps order during political debates and makes sure the rules are followed
• Time to debate subjects of its own choosing is guaranteed to the opposition by the Speaker
• The Speaker also represents Parliament on ceremonial occasions
• A General Election, at which MPs are chosen, comes at least once every five years
• If an MP dies or resigns there will be a fresh election in his or her constituency, called a by-election
• MPs are elected through a system called first past the post
• Under first past the post the candidate who gets the most votes in each constituency is elected
• Whichever party takes most constituencies usually forms the government
• Local surgeries are held regularly by many MPs, MSPs and Assembly members, so constituents can talk to them face to face

The Prime Minister, the cabinet and the opposition

• The Prime Minister is the leader of the political party in power
• Cabinet membership is the Prime Minister's to appoint, along with many senior public appointments
• 10 Downing Street, in central London, is the Prime Minister's official home
• The Prime Minister has a country house outside London called Chequers
• Losing a General Election usually brings the Prime Minister's resignation
• Around 20 senior MPs are made departmental ministers by the Prime Minister
• The Chancellor of the Exchequer is responsible for the economy
• The Home Secretary is responsible for crime, policing and immigration
• The Foreign Secretary is responsible for managing relationships with foreign countries
• Other ministers are called Secretaries of State and are responsible for subjects such as education, health and defence
• Meeting weekly as a committee, the cabinet takes the important decisions on government policy
• Each department also has Ministers of State and Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State
• Opposition is what the Commons' second-largest party is called
• Should their party win next time, the leader of the opposition usually becomes Prime Minister
• Prime Minister's Questions takes place every week while Parliament is sitting
• The leader of the opposition appoints senior opposition MPs to be shadow ministers, who form the shadow cabinet
• The role of the shadow cabinet is to challenge the government and put forward alternative policies

Parties, pressure groups, the civil service and local government

• Anyone aged 18 or over can stand for election as an MP
• The major political parties are the Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and parties representing Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish interests
• MPs who do not represent any of the main political parties are called independents
• The main political parties hold policy-making conferences every year
• Pressure and lobby groups are organisations which try to influence government policy
• The CBI, the Confederation of British Industry, represents the views of British business
• Greenpeace campaigns on the environment and Liberty campaigns on human rights
• Civil servants support the government in developing and implementing its policies and deliver public services
• Civil servants are accountable to ministers, are chosen on merit and are politically neutral
• The core values of the civil service are integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality
• Democratically elected councils — commonly called local authorities — govern the towns, cities and rural areas
• Some areas have both district and county councils, which have different functions
• Local authorities are funded by money from central government and by local taxes
• A mayor appointed by a local authority is usually its ceremonial head
• Thirty-three authorities cover the capital, coordinated by the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority
• Councillor elections come round each May in most local authority areas

Devolved administrations

• Since 1997 some powers have been devolved from central government to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
• There has been a Welsh Assembly and a Scottish Parliament since 1999
• Policy and laws governing defence, foreign affairs, immigration, taxation and social security remain under central UK government control
• In the handbook the Welsh body is the National Assembly for Wales, meeting in the Senedd in Cardiff Bay
• The National Assembly for Wales has 60 Assembly members, known as AMs
• Elections to the National Assembly for Wales are held every four years using a form of proportional representation
• Members of the National Assembly for Wales can speak in either Welsh or English
• The National Assembly for Wales has the power to make laws for Wales in 21 areas
• Westminster's agreement has not been needed for Welsh laws on those topics since 2011
• The Scottish Parliament was formed in 1999 and sits in Edinburgh
• There are 129 members of the Scottish Parliament, known as MSPs, elected by a form of proportional representation
• The Scottish Parliament can legislate on civil and criminal law, health, education, planning and additional tax-raising powers
• A Northern Ireland Parliament was established in 1922 but was abolished in 1972
• The Troubles broke out in 1969
• 1998's Belfast Agreement — the Good Friday Agreement — was shortly followed by the Northern Ireland Assembly
• The Northern Ireland Assembly has 108 elected members, known as MLAs, members of the Legislative Assembly
• The Northern Ireland Assembly can make decisions on education, agriculture, the environment, health and social services
• The UK government has the power to suspend all devolved assemblies
• The devolved administrations each have their own civil service

Voting, standing for office and visiting Parliament

• The UK has had a fully democratic voting system since 1928
• The present voting age of 18 was set in 1969
• All public elections are open to adult UK citizens, and to resident citizens of Ireland and the Commonwealth
• Your name must appear on the electoral register before you can vote in a parliamentary or local election
• The electoral register is updated every year in September or October
• In Northern Ireland a system called individual registration operates, and all those entitled to vote must complete their own registration form
• Inspection of the electoral register must be allowed to anyone by law, under supervision
• People vote at places called polling stations, or polling places in Scotland
• Before the election you will be sent a poll card telling you where your polling station is and when the election will take place
• On election day the polling station is open from 7.00 am until 10.00 pm
• In Northern Ireland you have to show photographic identification at the polling station
• Which candidate you vote for cannot be forced on you by anyone
• If it is difficult to get to a polling station you can register for a postal ballot
• Public office is open to most citizens of the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth from the age of 18
• Members of the armed forces, civil servants and people found guilty of certain criminal offences cannot stand for public office
• Peers are barred from standing for the Commons, though eligible for every other public office
• Galleries in both Houses at the Palace of Westminster are open to the public free of charge
• Television carries proceedings in Parliament, and Hansard is the official printed report
• The UK has a free press, which means that what is written in newspapers is free from government control
• Balance is required by law of radio and television coverage of the parties, rival viewpoints receiving equal time

The UK and international institutions

• Countries supporting one another towards shared aims in development and democracy make up the Commonwealth
• Empire membership lies behind most Commonwealth states, though a few that were never part of it have joined
• The monarch is the ceremonial head of the Commonwealth
• The Commonwealth currently has 54 member states
• Membership of the Commonwealth is voluntary
• Suspending a member is as far as the Commonwealth's power over them goes
• Democracy, the rule of law and good government are the Commonwealth's core values
• The Council of Europe has 47 member countries, including the UK
• The Council of Europe is responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights in its member countries
• The Council of Europe has no power to make laws but draws up conventions and charters
• The best-known convention of the Council of Europe is the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms
• The United Nations has more than 190 countries as members
• Preventing war and promoting international peace and security were the aims behind founding the United Nations after the Second World War
• There are 15 members on the UN Security Council
• The UN Security Council recommends action when there are international crises and threats to peace
• The UK is one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council
• European and North American countries pledged to come to one another's aid if attacked make up NATO

Criminal and civil law

• Every person in the UK receives equal treatment under the law
• Crimes fall under criminal law and are normally investigated by police, or by another authority such as a council
• Civil law is used to settle disputes between individuals or groups
• Carrying any weapon at all is a criminal offence, self-defence being no excuse
• Heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis: buying or selling any of them is illegal here
• Causing harassment, alarm or distress over someone's religion or ethnic origin is a criminal offence
• It is illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18
• Smoking tobacco is unlawful in nearly any enclosed public place here
• Selling alcohol to an under-18, or buying it on their behalf, is a criminal offence
• With a meal in a hotel or restaurant, alcohol may be drunk from the age of 16
• Some places have alcohol-free zones where you cannot drink in public
• Repairs, eviction and similar landlord and tenant disputes fall under housing law
• Consumer rights cases include disputes about faulty goods or services
• Wages, unfair dismissal and workplace discrimination are the stuff of employment law cases
• People might be taken to court if they owe money to someone

The police and their duties

• Three police duties: protecting life and property; preventing disturbances; preventing and detecting crime
• Preventing disturbances is also known as keeping the peace
• Separate forces, each under its own Chief Constable, are how the police are organised
• The police are independent of the government
• In November 2012 the public first elected Police and Crime Commissioners in England and Wales
• Police and Crime Commissioners set local police priorities and the local policing budget
• Police and Crime Commissioners appoint the local Chief Constable
• Officers are bound by the law too — no misuse of authority, no false statement, no rudeness or abuse, no racial discrimination
• Corruption, or misuse of authority, brings severe punishment for officers
• Street patrol, work with the public, and support at crime scenes and major events are the usual duties of police community support officers
• Helping police prevent and detect crime, wherever they can, is expected of everyone here
• On arrest at a station you must be told why, and may seek legal advice
• A complaint about the police may be made at any station, or in writing to the force's Chief Constable

The courts

• Interpreting law, and keeping trials fair, is the work of judges — the judiciary
• The government cannot interfere with the judiciary
• Where a public body has failed someone's legal rights, judges may order changed practices, compensation, or both
• Minor crime goes to a Magistrates' Court in Northern Ireland, England and Wales
• A Justice of the Peace Court takes minor criminal offences in Scotland
• Magistrates and Justices of the Peace are members of the local community and usually work unpaid without legal qualifications
• Northern Ireland gives minor criminal cases to a paid, legally qualified District Judge or Deputy
• Judge and jury in a Crown Court try serious offences in Northern Ireland, England and Wales
• Scotland's serious cases go to a Sheriff Court, before a sheriff alone or a sheriff with a jury
• Murder and the gravest Scottish cases go to a High Court, before a judge sitting with a jury
• Members of the public drawn at random from the local electoral register make up a jury
• Twelve jurors sit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland; fifteen in Scotland
• A jury summons must be answered unless you are ineligible or offer a good reason to be excused
• In Scotland a third verdict of not proven is also possible
• On a guilty verdict from the jury, the penalty is the judge's to set
• In England, Wales and Northern Ireland an accused person aged 10 to 17 is normally heard in a Youth Court
• Youth Courts exclude the public, and neither the accused young person's name nor their photograph may be published
• Children and young people who have offended are dealt with in Scotland through the Children's Hearings System
• County Courts deal with civil disputes including money owed, personal injury, family matters, breaches of contract and divorce
• Bigger civil claims reach the High Court in Northern Ireland, England and Wales, and Edinburgh's Court of Session in Scotland
• Small claims cover under £10,000 in England and Wales, and under £3,000 in Scotland and Northern Ireland
• Advising on legal matters, acting for clients and appearing for them in court is the work of solicitors, who are trained lawyers

Fundamental principles and equal opportunities

• Three roots for British rights: Magna Carta, the Habeas Corpus Act, and 1689's Bill of Rights
• Drafting the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms owed much to British lawyers and diplomats
• The UK was one of the first countries to sign the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950
• Principles in the European Convention on Human Rights include the right to life and prohibition of torture
• The European Convention on Human Rights includes prohibition of slavery and forced labour and the right to liberty and security
• The European Convention on Human Rights includes the right to a fair trial and freedom of thought, conscience and religion
• UK law absorbed the European Convention on Human Rights through the Human Rights Act 1998
• Courts, public bodies and government alike are bound by the Convention's principles
• Unfair treatment is barred on grounds of sex, age, disability, race, religion or belief, sexuality, marital status, and pregnancy and maternity
• Brutality and violence in the home is a serious crime in the UK
• Anyone who is violent towards their partner, whether a man or a woman, married or living together, can be prosecuted
• A husband who forces his wife to have sex may be charged with rape, as may any man
• Safe places for people facing domestic violence are called refuges or shelters
• Female genital mutilation, also known as cutting or female circumcision, is illegal in the UK
• Practising female genital mutilation or taking a girl or woman abroad for it is a criminal offence
• Both people must give full and free consent for a marriage
• Where both parties agree to it, an arranged marriage is acceptable here
• Consent absent or impossible makes a marriage forced, and forcing someone to marry is a criminal offence
• England, Wales and Northern Ireland gained Forced Marriage Protection Orders in 2008
• Similar Protection Orders were introduced in Scotland in November 2011
• Breaching such an order can mean up to two years in jail for contempt of court

Taxation, driving and your role in the community

• Income tax in the UK is paid on wages from paid employment, profits from self-employment, taxable benefits, pensions, and income from property, savings and dividends
• Roads, education, police and the armed forces are among the services income tax pays for
• HM Revenue & Customs is the government department that collects taxes
• The system by which employers take the right amount of income tax from employment income is called Pay As You Earn
• Self-assessment, with a tax return to complete, is how the self-employed pay their own tax
• National Insurance Contributions are owed by almost anyone in paid work here, self-employed included
• State benefits and services — the NHS, the state retirement pension — are funded from National Insurance Contributions
• Fall short on contributions and certain contributory benefits go: a full state retirement pension, or Jobseeker's Allowance
• Shortly before a young person's 16th birthday a National Insurance number arrives
• Seventeen is the minimum age for driving a car or motor cycle here, and a licence is required
• Riding a moped starts at 16
• A licence runs to age 70, then needs renewing every three years
• Northern Ireland requires an R plate from a newly qualified driver for the first year after passing
• A licence from another country may be used in the UK for up to 12 months
• Residents must register a car or motor cycle with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
• It is a serious criminal offence to drive without insurance
• If a vehicle is over three years old it must be taken for an MOT test every year
• Shared values and responsibilities include obeying and respecting the law and treating others with fairness
• Jury service can fall to anyone on the electoral register aged 18-70, or 18-75 in England and Wales
• School governors must be 18 or over when elected or appointed, with no limit at the other end
• School governors have three key roles: setting the strategic direction of the school, ensuring accountability, and monitoring and evaluating school performance
• Volunteering with the police can mean becoming a special constable, or a lay representative
• Giving blood only takes about an hour to do