BRITISH POLITICAL SYSTEM

Andrii Bugai

Cold Spring Harb Protoc 2013. doi: 10.11301/pdb.prot0732611

© 2013 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

All rights reserved.

Primary for family use. Slavic nationalities husbands highly recommended to be treated on borscht. Adapted from unpublished Ukrainian traditional receipt, authors are unknown.

Ingredients:

· H2O

· NaCl

· Fat acids mix

· Meat

· Potato

· Tomatoes

· Cabbage

· Carrot

· Beetroot

· Onion

· Flour

Important notes about ingredients:

Usage of miliQ-, RNAse free or other types of distilled H2O is prohibited. Typically tap water should be used.

NaCl is available from Sigma (7647-14-5) or from broad range of recognizable manufacturers.

Fat acids mix or vegetable oil as well as other ingredients could be obtained in the shop (distributors in Finland: Prisma, Alepa, K-, S-Market, LiDL).

Meat should be a beef or pork, fresh of defreezed from -20C.

We recommend using canned homogenized tomatoes in this protocol.

When choose cabbage, touch it. Proper cabbage should be firm in touch.
Ingredients could not be tested on GMO because it doesn’t flue on main borscht functions.

Store Borsht kit in +4, meat in -20.

Important! Number of borscht kits is available from Invitrogen (cat. n. xxxx-xxx).

Borcsht Protocol

All ingredients must be clean, vegetables must be cleaned from the peel.

Reaction volume – 2500ml

Bouillon preparation:

• Fill 3000ml pot by 2150,5 ml of room temperature water and put 450g of meat into the reaction. Put on a plate and wait when temperature reaches 100C. Boil during 40min. Add water to 2150,5ml if volume decrease.
• Add suitable amount of NaCl. Final concentration could be determined by taste buds of investigator.
• Carefully chop 150g of potato with knife to 10/15/20mm pieces and put into the pan.

WARNING! Knife could cause serious damage of fingers! Follow manufacturer’s manuals during equipment usage.

• Boil for additional 20 minutes, mix reaction mixture every 2 minutes.

Sauce:

• With assistance of grater chop 100g of carrot and 150g of beetroot into 20/2/3 blocks and put on the pan with heated sunflower oil and roast gently with mixing during 10-15min.

Important! Vegetables should NOT be roasted to the end! Final stage could be determined by observation of mitigation of material, microscope could be used for fixation of changes on cellular level.

• Add 100ml of homogenized tomatoes into the pan with vegetables, mix it thoroughly and put all mixture to the pot with boiled bouillon, mix it carefully.

Important! Do not overload the pot! It could cause contamination of workplace by borscht ingredients.

Final stage

• Carefully chop 250g of cabbage with knife and put it into the reaction mixture and mix it. Boil gently during additional 15-20 minutes.
• Chop 50g of onion with knife into 2/2/3 pieces and roast it during 3 minutes on the separate pan.

OPTIONAL: add 10g of flour to the pan after 3 minutes with onion and mix.

• Put onion into reaction pot and mix gently
• Boil for an additional 5-10 minutes. Gustative test is needed on this stage for NaCl concentration determination. Be careful! Hot! Add NaCl if needed.

Borscht could be used immediately or stored at +4 for 36 hours, recommended to heat after taking out from freezer.

CAUTION! The content of this document is a joke, all links to organizations or distributors are spoof by author without goal to advertise or flue public opinion about these organizations.

BRITISH POLITICAL SYSTEM

Contents

• Background History
• The Three Arms Of The State
• The UK Parliament
• The Legislative Process
• Political Parties
• The UK Government
• Devolved Government
• The UK Judiciary
• Civil Society
• Constitutional And Political Reform

BACKGROUND HISTORY

The single most important fact in understanding the nature of the British political system is the fundamental continuity of that system. Britain has not had a revolution of the kind experienced by so many other countries and Britain has not been invaded or occupied for almost 1,000 years. The last successful invasion was in 1066 by the Normans. Is this true of any other country in the world? I can only think of Sweden.

Some might argue that the English Civil War (1642-1651) was the nation's revolution but the main constitutional consequence - the abolition of the monarchy - only lasted 11 years and the Restoration of the Monarchy has so far lasted 350 years (although it is now, of course, a very different monarchy). There was a time in British history which we call the Glorious Revolution (1688) but it was a very English revolution, in the sense that nobody died, if a rather Dutch revolution in that it saw William of Orange take the throne.

So the British have never had anything equivalent to the American Revolution or the French Revolution, they have not been colonised in a millennium but rather been the greatest colonisers in history, and in neither of the two world wars were they invaded or occupied.

This explains why:

• almost uniquely in the world, Britain has no written constitution (the only other such nations are Israel & New Zealand)
• the political system is not neat or logical or always fully democratic or particularly efficient
• change has been very gradual and pragmatic and built on consensus

To simplify British political history very much, it has essentially been a struggle to shift political power and accountability from the all-powerful king - who claimed that he obtained his right to rule from God - to a national parliament that was increasingly representative of ordinary people and accountable to ordinary people. There have been many milestones along this long and troubled road to full democracy.

A key date in this evolution was 1215 when King John was forced to sign the Magna Carta which involved him sharing power with the barons. This is regarded as the first statement of citizen rights in the world - although Hungarians are proud of the Golden Bull of just seven years later.

The so-called Model Parliament was summoned by King Edward I in 1295 and is regarded as the first representative assembly. Unlike the absolute monarchs of other parts of Europe, the King of England required the approval of Parliament to tax his subjects and so, then as now, central to the exercise of power was the ability to raise funds.

The bicameral nature of the British Parliament - Commons and Lords - emerged in 1341 and the two-chamber model of the legislature has served as a template in very many other parliamentary systems.

The Bill of Rights of 1689 - which is still in effect - lays down limits on the powers of the crown and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament, the requirement for regular elections to Parliament, and the right to petition the monarch without fear of retribution.

It was the 19th century before the franchise was seriously extended and each extension was the subject of conflict and opposition. The great Reform Act of 1832 abolished 60 'rotten', or largely unpopulated, boroughs and extended the vote from 400,000 citizens to 600,000, but this legislation - promoted by the Whigs (forerunners of the Liberals) - was only carried after being opposed three times by the Tories (forerunners of the Conservatives). Further Reform Acts followed in 1867 and 1884. It was 1918 before the country achieved a near universal franchise and 1970 before the last extension of the franchise (to 18-21 year olds).

Another important feature of British political history is that three parts of the United Kingdom - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - have a special status and have local administrations with a wide range of responsibilities. However, England - which represents about 84% of the total UK population of around 63 million - does not have a clear and strong sense of regionalism. So the British political system does not have anything equivalent to the federal system of the 50 states in the USA.

The final important part of British political history is that, since 1973, we have been a member of what is now called the European Union (EU). This now has 28 Member States covering most of the continent of Europe. Therefore the UK Government and Parliament are limited in some respects by what they can do because certain areas of policy or decision-making are a matter for the EU which operates through a European Commission appointed by the member governments and a European Parliament elected by the citizens of the member states.

The year 2015 will be a special year for the British Parliament as it will be the 750th anniversary of the de Montfort Parliament (the first gathering in England that can be called a parliament in the dictionary sense of the word), along with the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, the document that set the scene for the later 1265 de Montfort Parliament.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1398