Individual and the state in Britain is that both should leave each other alone as

much as possible. The duties of the individual towards the state are confined to not

breaking the law and paying taxes. There is no national service (military or

otherwise), people are not obliged to vote at elections, and people do not have to

register a change of address with a government authority.

The constitution

Britain is a constitutional monarchy. That is, it is a country governed by a king or

queen who accepts the advice of a parliament. It is also a parliamentary

democracy. That is, it is a country whose government is controlled by a parliament

elected by the people. In other words, the basic system is not so different from

anywhere else in Europe. The highest positions in the government are filled by

members of the directly elected parliament. In Britain, as in many European

countries, the official head of state, whether a monarch (e.g. Belgium, the

Netherlands, Denmark) or a president (e.g. Germany, Greece, Italy) has little real

power.

However, there are features of the British system of government which make it

different from other countries and which are not 'modern' at all. Most notably,

Britain is almost alone among modern states in that it does not have 'a constitution'.

Of course, there are rules, regulations, principles and procedures for the running of

the country - all the things that political scientists and legal experts study and

which are known collectively as 'the constitution'. But there is no single written

document which can be appealed to as the highest law of the land. Nobody can

refer to 'article 6' or 'the first amendment' or anything like that, because nothing

like that exists.

Instead, the principles and procedures by which the country is governed and from

which people's rights are derived come from a number of different sources. They

have been built up, bit by bit, over the centuries. Some of them are written down in

laws agreed by Parliament, some have been spoken and then written down

(judgments made in a court) and some have never been written down at all. For

example, there is no written law in Britain that says anything about who can be the

Prime Minister or what the powers of the Prime Minister are - even though that

person is probably the most powerful person in the country. Instead, these things

have been established, and are constantly being modified, by custom and practice.

Similarly, there is no single written document which asserts people's rights. Some

rights which are commonly accepted in modern democracies (for example, the

rights not to be discriminated against on the basis of sex or race) have been

formally agreed by Parliament in certain laws; but others (for example, the rights

not to be discriminated against on the basis of religion or political views) have not.

Nevertheless, it is understood that these latter rights are also part of the

constitution.

The party system

Britain is normally described as having a 'two-party system'. This is because

members of just two parties normally occupy more than 85% of all of the seats in

the House of Commons and one of them, by itself, controls the government. One

reason for the existence of this situation is the electoral system. The other is the

origin of British political parties. Unlike in most other countries, they were first

formed inside Parliament and only later extended to the public. During the

eighteenth century, MPs tended to divide into two camps, those who usually

supported the government of the time and those who usually did not. During the

nineteenth century, it became the habit that the party which did not control the

government presented itself as an alternative government. This idea of an

alternative government has received legal recognition. The leader of the second

biggest party in Parliament receives the title ‘Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition’,

and even gets an extra salary for this role. He or she chooses a 'shadow cabinet',

thereby presenting the image of a team ready to fill the shoes of the government at

a moment's notice.

As a result of these origins, neither party existed solely to look after the interests of

one particular group in society. Furthermore, although they differed broadly in

their general outlooks, the two parties did not exist to promote single, coherent

political philosophies. The main reason for their existence was to gain power by

forming an effective coalition of groups and opinions. It is true that the Labour

party - one of the present two big parties - was formed outside Parliament, and, as