Theme: The Government of the Great Britain

History[edit]

The United Kingdom is a Constitutional Monarchy in which the reigning monarch (that is, the king or queen who is the head of state at any given time) does not make any open political decisions. All political decisions are taken by the government and Parliament. This constitutional state of affairs is the result of a long history of constraining and reducing the political power of the monarch, beginning with Magna Carta in 1215.
Since the start of Edward VII's reign in 1901, the prime minister has always been an elected Member of Parliament (MP) and thus directly answerable to the House of Commons. A similar convention applies to the chancellor of the exchequer. It would probably now be politically unacceptable for the budget speech to be given in the House of Lords, with members of Parliament unable to question the Chancellor directly, especially now that the Lords have very limited powers on money bills. The last chancellor of the exchequer to be a member of the House of Lords was Lord Denman, who served as interim chancellor of the exchequer for one month in 1834