The Prime Minister Of Great Britain :: essays research papers fc

The Prime Minister of Great Britain There are a lot of political issues in Great Britain today. United Kingdom is a large, industrialized democratic society and as such it has to have politics and therefore political issues. One of those issues how should executive branch work and whether the Prime Minister has too much power. Right now in Great Britain there is a great debate on this issue and I am going to examine it in detail. The facts I have used here are from different writings on British politics which are all listed in my bibliography, but the opinions are my own and so are the arguments that I used to support my views. First let me explain the process through which a person becomes a Prime Minister. The PM is selected by the sovereign. He (or she) chooses a man who can command the support of majority of the members of the House of Commons. Such a man is normally the leader of the largest party in the House. Where two are rivals in a three party contest such as those which occurred in the 1920s he is usually selected from the party which wins the greatest number of seats. The Prime Minister is assumed to be the choice of his party and nowadays, so far as he can be ascertained, participation of a monarch is a pure formality. Anyone suggested for this highest political office obviously has to be a very smart and willing individual, in fact it has been suggested that he be an "uncommon man of common opinions"(Douglas V. Verney). Not all Prime Ministers fitted this bill exactly, but every on of them had to pass one important test: day-to-day scrutiny of their motives and behavior by fellow members of Parliament before they were ultimately elected to the leadership of their party. Unlike Presidents of the United States all Prime Ministers have served a long apprenticeship in the legislature and have been ministers in previous Cabinets. Many Presidents of our country have been elected and on many occasions they have never even met some of their future co-workers, such as case of Kissinger and Nixon who have never even met prior to Nixon's appointment. Let's now examine the statutory duties and responsibilities of the Prime Minister. Unlike the United States where the President's duties are specifically written out in the Constitution, the powers of the Prime Minister are almost nowhere spelled out in a statute. Unlike his fellow ministers he does not receive the seals of office: he merely kisses the hands of the monarch like an ambassador.