[Newsbot]

<strong>Filibuster Cartoon</strong>
<strong>Title: </strong> <a href="http://www.filibustercartoons.com/archive.php?id=20070511" target="_blank">Brown\'s Babies</a> (click to view)
<strong>Date: </strong> May 11, 2007

Hot on the heels of France getting a new President, it was announced yesterday that the UK will soon be getting a new PM as well. Anthony Blair, the longtime Prime Minister announced that he will finally resign his office, effective June 27. <br> <br>Gordon Brown, Blair\'s longtime Chancellor of the Ex-checker, is poised to be the new PM upon his resignation. He\'s considered to be the architect of Britain\'s economic successes during the 2000\'s, one of the few bits of the Blair legacy people still regard positively. <br> <br>Brown will arrive at 10 Downing Street at a time when odd people are coming to power in other parts of the United Kingdom. On Tuesday the ultraconservative anti-Catholic demagogue Ian Paisley became PM of Northern Ireland, following his party\'s sweep to power in the March elections. And a separatist could soon become PM of Scotland, too. The Scottish Nationalist Party won the most seats in the recent Scottish legislative elections; a particularly embarrassing setback for Brown himself, who is a Scotsman.

[Psudo]

British politics has always seemed absurdly complicated to me. Is it just bias due to insufficient information, or is the United Kingdom drenched a huge amount of political complication given it's size?

[Kjorteo]

I'm going to guess it's a combination of the Parliamentary system and the fact that the United Kingdom consists of many fiercely independent countries and factions. Picture Canada if every province was Quebec.

Also, the Braveheart caricature is cute. Hehe.

[ejacksonian]

Psudo wrote:

British politics has always seemed absurdly complicated to me. Is it just bias due to insufficient information, or is the United Kingdom drenched a huge amount of political complication given it's size?

Well, in a historical context, it's much streamlined and more simplie than it was in the past.

[GreatBriton]

The Prime Minister of Scotland is Tony Blair.

The guy who the Scots have just elected is just Scotland's First Minister.

It's just like Bush is the President of Oregon, but Oregon also has its leader known as its State Governor. Wales and Northern Ireland also have their own "governors."

Unfairly and undemocratically (especially when you consider that both Brown and Blair are Scots), England doesn't have its own "governor." In America, it would be the equivalent of 49 of the states having its own state governot except California.

One main reason that British politics is so complicated is that the UK is split into more administrative divisions than any other country in the world.

Once, just counties (or their equivalent in Scotland, Wales and NI) divided the UK. Now, in some areas, towns and cities have become independent of counties, becoming miniature counties in their own right. Also, London is divided.

Whereas the US is divided neatly into 50 states.....

England is divided into : 47 boroughs, 36 counties, 29 London boroughs, 12 cities and boroughs, 10 districts, 12 cities, 3 royal boroughs


boroughs: Barnsley, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Bolton, Bournemouth, Bracknell Forest, Brighton and Hove, Bury, Calderdale, Darlington, Doncaster, Dudley, Gateshead, Halton, Hartlepool, Kirklees, Knowsley, Luton, Medway, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, North Tyneside, Oldham, Poole, Reading, Redcar and Cleveland, Rochdale, Rotherham, Sandwell, Sefton, Slough, Solihull, Southend-on-Sea, South Tyneside, St. Helens, Stockport, Stockton-on-Tees, Swindon, Tameside, Thurrock, Torbay, Trafford, Walsall, Warrington, Wigan, Wirral, Wolverhampton

counties:Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Durham, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire, West Sussex, Wiltshire, Worcestershire

London boroughs: Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth

cities and boroughs which have their own councils: Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Salford, Sheffield, Sunderland, Wakefield, Westminster

districts: Bath and North East Somerset, East Riding of Yorkshire, North East Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire, North Somerset, Rutland, South Gloucestershire, Telford and Wrekin, West Berkshire, Wokingham

cities: City of Bristol, Derby, City of Kingston upon Hull, Leicester, City of London, Nottingham, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, York

royal boroughs: Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Windsor and Maidenhead
**********************************************

Northern Ireland is divided into: 24 districts, 2 cities, 6 counties (historic)

districts (similar to English counties): Antrim, Ards, Armagh, Ballymena, Ballymoney, Banbridge, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Coleraine, Cookstown, Craigavon, Down, Dungannon, Fermanagh, Larne, Limavady, Lisburn, Magherafelt, Moyle, Newry and Mourne, Newtownabbey, North Down, Omagh, Strabane

cities: Belfast, Londonderry (Derry)

counties (historic): County Antrim, County Armagh, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Londonderry, and County Tyrone are still referred to in common parlance, but do not constitute a level of administration
******************************************

Scotland is divided into: 32 council areas: Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Clackmannanshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Dundee City, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, City of Edinburgh, Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Falkirk, Fife, Glasgow City, Highland, Inverclyde, Midlothian, Moray, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Orkney Islands, Perth and Kinross, Renfrewshire, Shetland Islands, South Ayrshire, South Lanarkshire, Stirling, The Scottish Borders, West Dunbartonshire, West Lothian
*******************************************

Wales is divided into: 11 county boroughs, 9 counties, 2 cities and counties

county boroughs: Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Caerphilly, Conwy, Gwynedd, Merthyr Tydfil, Neath Port Talbot, Newport, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Torfaen, Wrexham

counties: Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Isle of Anglesey, Monmouthshire, Pembrokeshire, Powys, The Vale of Glamorgan

cities and counties: Cardiff, Swansea
****************

Britain is actually in the Guinness Book of Records for having the most administrative divisions.

[GreatBriton]

Kjorteo wrote:

I'm going to guess it's a combination of the Parliamentary system and the fact that the United Kingdom consists of many fiercely independent countries and factions. Picture Canada if every province was Quebec.

Also, the Braveheart caricature is cute. Hehe.

The UK doesn't consist of any independent nations. The only independent nation is the UK.

[Kjorteo]

Sorry, I meant independent-minded. AKA feisty. Like Quebec. I forgot a rather important word there.

[JJ]

I use the phrase "Prime Minister" just because its a term I assume most readers are more familiar with. One can either use the title in a generic or formal sense... the media refers to "prime ministers" of all sorts of foreign countries even though they rarely use that title... for example, there is no Prime Minister of Spain, just the "President of the Government." But the English media uses the term "PM" to simplify matters, and so do I.

[sasquatch2]

Yeah paisley and the guy in Scotland are not prime ministers---unless MCSquinty is.

BTW I believe it is Chancellor of the Exchequor...........

[JJ]

Technically all Premiers in Canada are "Prime Ministers." We only started calling them "Premiers" in the later half of the 20th Century to make things less confusing.

[Harminder]

While true the SNP is the biggest party in Scotland, you have to remeber they have only a one seat advantage with only 2 mps joinh their colition. this gives them 51 seats out of 129 Less than half, Their in a minority Govenment. They tried to get the liberals in but failed due to the Indepence agenda, The parties that have links to England control 77 Seats, there in positon to bring down the SNP if they get unpopular.