Welsh Assembly

right The National Assembly for Wales (or NAW) (Welsh: Cynulliad Cenedlaethol Cymru) is a devolved assembly (not a full legislature) with power to make regulations in Wales, and also is responsible for most UK government departments in Wales. It was formed under the Government of Wales Act 1998, by the Labour Party, after a referendum narrowly approved it.

Powers and status

The National Assembly consists of 60 members, 40 of which are elected to represent constituencies, with the other 20 being elected by the Additional Member System. Members use the title AM (Assembly Member) or, in Welsh, AC (Aelod y Cynulliad). The Assembly has delegated most of its powers to a committe called the Welsh Assembly Government, led by First Minister. The executive and civil servants are based in Cardiff's Cathays Park while the Assembly Members, the Assembly Parliamentary Service and Ministerial support staff are based in Cardiff Bay where a new £60 million debating chamber has been built by Richard Rogers. The Assembly is not a legislature, it cannot pass its own primary legislation, nor can it raise its own taxes, as these powers remain with Westminster. This is largely because Wales has had the same legal system as England since 1536, when it was annexed by England (and therefore became part of England). Ireland and Scotland were never annexed by England, and so always retained a greater degree of autonomy. The Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly, have stronger powers. The Assembly inherited the powers and budget of the Secretary of State for Wales and most of the functions of the Wales Office. It has power to vary laws passed by Westminster using secondary legislation.

Electoral system

Under the Additional Member System, 40 of the AMs are elected from single-member constituencies on a First Past the Post (more accurately termed single-member district plurality or SMDP) basis, the constituencies being equivalent to those used for the House of Commons, while the remaining 20 AMs are elected from regional closed lists using an alternative party vote. There are five regions (Mid and West Wales, North Wales, South Wales Central, South Wales East and South Wales West), each of which returns four members, under the d'Hondt method. To date there have been two elections to the Assembly, the first taking place in 1999 and the second in 2003. The second election produced the first ever democratically elected legislature in the world in which 50% of the members were women.

History

It was established following a referendum on 18 September 1997. The Labour Government's proposals for devolution were passed by a majority of just 0.6% of the 50% of the Welsh electorate who took part. The endorsement came 18 years after Welsh voters defeated similar proposals by a majority of 4:1 In its 1997 White Paper "A Voice for Wales" the Labour Government argued the Assembly would be more democratically accountable than the Welsh Office, which was represented in the British Cabinet by a Secretary of State who often did not even represent a Welsh constituency at Westminster. After three years of using their powers AMs complained the settlement was too limited and confusing. In July 2002 the Welsh Assembly Government established an independent commission, with Lord Richard (former leader of the House of Lords) as chair, into the powers and electoral arrangements of the National Assembly in order to ensure that it is able to operate in the best interests of the people of Wales. The Richard Commission reported in March 2004. It recommended that the National Assembly should have powers to legislate in certain areas, whilst others would remain the preserve of Westminster. It also recommended changing the electoral system to the single transferable vote (STV) which can produce more proportional representation . In the white paper Better Government for Wales - published on 15 June 2005 - the UK Government rejected Richard's recommendation to change the electoral system, whilst proposing a half-way house between the status quo and the National Assembly having full Scottish Parliament-style legislative powers.
- The current number of Labour Party AMs is 29, after Peter Law stood against the Labour candidate in Blaenau Gwent in the General Election 2005 and was automatically expelled from the party.
References
# [http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/publications/leaflets/welshassembly.htm Electing the Welsh Assembly]. Electoral Reform Society information regarding Additional member system elections. Retrieved 9 December 2005 # [http://www.richardcommission.gov.uk/content/template.asp?ID=/index.asp The Richard Commission]. Richard Commission Website, includes copy of Commission report. Retrieved 9 December 2005 # [http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/topstories/wales.htm Electoral Reform for Wales]. Electoral Reform Society responce to rejection of Richard Commission recomendations. Retrieved 9 December 2005 # [http://www.walesoffice.gov.uk/2005/better_governance_for_wales_report.pdf Better Governance for Wales White Paper]. Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Wales in June 2005. Downloadable PDF. Retrieved 9 December 2005
See also

- Welsh Assembly Election 2003
- Welsh Assembly Election 1999
- UK topics
- Members of the National Assembly for Wales
- Government of Wales Act 1998
External links

- [http://www.wales.gov.uk/ National Assembly for Wales] (official WWW site)
- [http://www.famouswelsh.com/05_politics/politics1.html Welsh Politicians] Including those of Welsh descent in other countries
- [http://www.wales.gov.uk/who/amconst_e.htm NAW: Constituencies and Electoral Regions] (map of the constituencies showing current members)
- [http://www.wales.gov.uk/who/constit_e.htm NAW: Who? - Elected Members] (list of members by constituency)
- [http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980038.htm Government of Wales Act 1998] Category:Politics of Wales Category:Government of Wales Category:Politics of the United Kingdom Category:Legislatures of subnational entities

Welsh language
Welsh (Cymraeg or y Gymraeg), not to be confused with Welsh English (the English language as spoken in Wales), is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic spoken natively in Wales (Cymru), and in the Chubut Valley, a Welsh immigrant colony in the Patagonia region of Argentina. There are also speakers of Welsh throughout the world, most notably in England, the United States and Australia.
Status
The 2001 census gives a figure of 20.5% of the population of Wales as Welsh speakers (up from 18.5% in 1991), out of a population of about 3 million; however, the same census shows that 25% of residents were born outside Wales. The number of Welsh speakers throughout the rest of Britain is uncertain, but numbers are high in the main cities and there are speakers along England's border with Wales. Even among the Welsh-speakers, few residents of Wales are monolingual in Welsh. However, a large number of Welsh speakers are more comfortable expressing themselves in Welsh than in English. A speaker's choice of language can vary according to the subject domain (known in linguistics as code-switching). Although Welsh is a minority language, and thus threatened by the dominance of English, support for the language grew during the second half of the 20th century, along with the rise of nationalist political organisations such as the political party Plaid Cymru and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society). Welsh as a first language is largely concentrated in the less urban north and west of Wales, principally Gwynedd, Denbighshire, Anglesey (Ynys Môn), Carmarthenshire, North Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion, and parts of western Glamorgan, although first-language and other fluent speakers can be found throughout Wales. Welsh is very much a living language. It is used in conversation every day by thousands and seen in Wales everywhere. The Welsh Language Act 1993 and the Government of Wales Act 1998 provide that the Welsh and English languages should be treated on a basis of equality. Public bodies are required to prepare and implement a Welsh Language Scheme. Thus local councils and the Welsh Assembly use Welsh as an official language, issuing official literature and publicity in Welsh versions (e.g. letters to parents from schools, library information, and council information) and all road signs in Wales should be in English and Welsh, including the Welsh versions of place names. Welsh also has a substantial presence on the Internet, but this is strongly biased towards public bodies: the ratio of search engine hit frequencies for Welsh words to their English equivalents tends to be about 0.1% for formal terms such as addysg/education, cymdeithas/society or llywodraeth/government, but only about 0.01% for everyday terms such as buwch/cow, eirlaw/sleet or cyllell/knife. Welsh Assembly The UK government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect to Welsh. The language has greatly increased its prominence since the creation of the television channel S4C in November 1982, which broadcasts exclusively in Welsh during peak viewing hours. The main evening television news provided by the BBC can be found [http://www.bbc.co.uk/cymru/live/newyddion.ram here] (Real Media). BBC Given the British Government's current plans (December 2001) to ensure that all immigrants know English, it remains to be seen if Welsh will be considered a separate case. At present, a knowledge of either Welsh, English or Scottish Gaelic is sufficient for naturalisation purposes and it is believed that this policy will be continued in any proposed changes to the law.
History and development
Like most languages, there are identifiable periods within the history of Welsh, although the boundaries between these are often indistinct. The earliest extant sources of a language identifiable as Welsh go back to about the 6th century, and the language of this period is known as Early Welsh. Very little of this language remains. The next main period, somewhat better attested, is Old Welsh (9th to 11th centuries); this was the language of the laws of Hywel Dda, as well as some poetry from both Wales and Scotland. As Anglo-Saxon colonisation of Great Britain proceeded, the Celtic-speakers in Wales were split off from those in northern England, speaking Cumbrian, and those in the south-west, speaking what would become Cornish, and so the languages diverged. Middle Welsh (or Cymraeg Canol) is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of nearly all surviving early manuscripts of the Mabinogion, although the tales themselves are certainly much older. Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. Modern Welsh can be divided into two periods. The first, Early Modern Welsh ran from the 14th century to roughly the end of the 16th century, and was the language used by Dafydd ap Gwilym. Late Modern Welsh began with the publication of William Morgan's translation of the Bible in 1588. Like its English counterpart, the King James Version, this proved to have a strong stabilising effect on the language, and indeed the language today still bears the same Late Modern label as Morgan's language. Of course, many minor changes have occurred since then. The language enjoyed a further boost in the 19th Century, with the publication of some of the first complete and concise Welsh dictionaries. Early work by Welsh lexicographic pioneers such as Daniel Silvan Evans ensured that the language was documented as accurately as possible, and modern dictionaries such as the Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru (the University of Wales Dictionary), are direct descendants of these dictionaries.
Grammar

Phonology

Consonants
Welsh has the following consonant phonemes: occurs only in unassimilated loanwords; the voiceless nasals , , occur only as a consequence of the nasal mutation.
Vowels
The vowels and occur only in Northern dialects; in Southern dialects they are replaced by and respectively. In Southern dialects, the contrast between long and short vowels is found in stressed syllables only; in Northern dialects, the contrast is found only in stressed word-final syllables (including monosyllabic words). The vowel does not occur in the final syllable of words. The diphthongs containing occur only in Northern dialects; in Southern dialects is replaced by , are merged with , and are merged with .
Stress
Stress in polysyllabic words occurs most commonly on the penultimate syllable, more rarely on the final syllable. The positioning of the stress means that related words or concepts (or even plurals) can sound quite different, as syllables are added to the end of a word and the stress moves correspondingly, e.g.:
- Ysgrif — - an article or essay
- Ysgrifen — - writing
- Ysgrifennydd — - a secretary
- Ysgrifenyddes — - a female secretary (Note also how adding a syllable to ysgrifennydd to form ysgrifenyddes changes the pronunciation of the second "y". This is because the pronunciation of "y" depends on whether or not it is in the final syllable.) The connection between the Welsh word ysgrif and the Latin scribo 'I write', from which it is derived, is fairly clear, taking diachronic sound shifts into account.
Orthography

Alphabet

- h indicates voicelessness in mh, nh, and ngh.
- ph occurs occasionally in words derived from Greek (e.g. phenol) but more commonly as a result of aspirate mutation (e.g. ei phen-ôl)
- y indicates in unstressed monosyllabic words (e.g. y "the", fy "my") or non-final syllables, but (N) or (S) everywhere else.
- The digraphs (letters consisting of two characters) are treated as a single letter (with the collation order as listed above), although the same combinations of characters can sometimes also arise as a juxtaposition of two separate letters. For example, the digraph ng representing is alphabetised between g and h (alphabetical order llegach, lleng, lleiaf), but when ng is two letters representing it is alphabetised between nf and nh (alphabetical order danfon, dangos, danheddog).
- si indicates when followed by a vowel
- di and ti sometimes indicate and respectively when followed by a vowel. Otherwise and are spelled j and ts, but only in loanwords like jẁg "jug" and wats "watch".
Spelling the diphthongs

Diacritics
Welsh makes use of a number of diacritics. The circumflex is used to mark long vowels (although not all long vowels are marked with a circumflex). Thus â, ê, î, ô, û, ŵ, ŷ are always long, but a, e, i, o, u, w, y are not necessarily short. The grave accent is sometimes to mark vowels that should be short, when a long vowel would normally be expected, e.g. pas "a cough", pàs "a pass/permit"; mwg "smoke", mẁg 'a mug' [http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=35d8b6b4.955440%40news.portal.ca]. The acute accent is sometimes used to mark a stressed final syllable in a polysyllabic word. Thus the words gwacáu "to empty" and dicléin "decline" have final stress. However, not all polysyllabic words with final stress are marked with the acute accent. The diaeresis indicates that a vowel letter is to be pronounced fully, not as a semivowel, e.g. copïo (to copy) - pronounced , not
- .
Predicting vowel length from orthography
As mentioned above, vowels marked with the circumflex are always long, and those marked with the grave accent are always short. If a vowel is not marked with a diacritic, its length must be determined by its environment. An unmarked vowel is long:
- in a stressed monosyllabic word when no consonant follows, e.g. da "good"
- before b, ch, d, dd, g, f, ff, s, th, e.g. mab "son", hoff "favourite", peth "thing"
- before l, n, r (in the case of i, u), e.g. sgil "behind", llun "picture", hir "long"
- in Northern dialects, before clusters of two consonants when the first one is ll or s, e.g. gwallt "hair", tyst "witness" An unmarked vowel is short:
- in an unstressed (proclitic) word, e.g. a "and"
- before p, t, c, m, ng, e.g. cam "step", llong "ship"
- before l, n, r (in the case of a, e, o, w, y), e.g. tal "tall", llen "curtain", ffwr "fur"
- in Southern dialects, before clusters of two consonants, e.g. sant "saint", gwallt "hair", tyst "witness"
- in Northern dialects, before clusters of two consonants when the first one is n or r, e.g. sant "saint", perth "hedge"
- in Northern dialects, in any syllable that is not both stressed and word-final
- in Southern dialects, in any unstressed syllable
Morphology
Welsh morphology has much in common with that of the other modern Insular Celtic languages, such the use of initial consonant mutations, and the use of so-called "conjugated prepositions" (prepositions that fuse with the personal pronouns that are their object). Welsh nouns belong to one of two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine, but are not inflected for case. Welsh has a variety of different endings to indicate the plural, and two endings to indicate the singular of some nouns. In spoken Welsh, verb inflection is indicated primarily by the use of auxiliary verbs, rather than by the inflection of the main verb. In literary Welsh, on the other hand, inflection of the main verb is usual.
Counting system
The traditional counting system used by the Welsh language is vigesimal, i.e. based on twenties, as in French, where numbers from 11-14 are "x on ten", 16-19 are "x on fifteen" (though 18 can also be "two nines"); numbers from 21-39 are "1-19 on twenty", 40 is "two twenties", 60 is "three twenties", etc. There is also a decimal counting system, favoured by younger people and which appears to be commonly used in Patagonian Welsh, where numbers are "x tens y", e.g. thirty-five in decimal is tri deg pump (three ten five) while in vigesimal it is pymtheg ar ugain (fifteen (itself "five-ten") on twenty). A further complication is that while there is only one word for "one", un, there are masculine and feminine forms of the numbers "two", dau and dwy, "three", tri and tair, and "four", pedwar and pedair, which must agree with the grammatical gender of the objects being counted. Larger numbers tend to use the decimal system, e.g. 1,965 mil, naw chant chwe' deg pump. An exception to this rule is when speaking of years, where after the number of thousands, the individual digits are spoken e.g. 1965 mil naw chwe' pump. This system appears to have temporarily broken down for years after 2000 e.g. 2005 is dwy fil pump.
Other features of Welsh grammar

- Possessives as object pronouns. The Welsh for "I like Rhodri" is "Dw i'n hoffi Rhodri" ("I am liking Rhodri"), but "I like him" is "dw i'n ei hoffi fe" — literally, "I am his liking him"; "I like you" is "dw i'n dy hoffi di" ("I am your liking you"), etc.
- Significant use of auxiliary verbs. While English can either use verbs directly (e.g. I go) or with the aid of an auxiliary verb (I am going, here using to be as the auxiliary), Welsh inclines very strongly towards the latter use. In the present tense, all verbs are used with the auxiliary bod (to be), so dwi'n mynd is literally I am going, but also means simply I go. In the past and future tenses, there are inflected forms of all verbs (which are invariably used in the written language) , but it is more common nowadays in speech to use the verbal noun (berfenw, loosely equal to the infinitive in English) together with the inflected form of gwneud (to do), so I went can be mi es i or mi wnes i fynd and I will go can be mi a' i or mi wna i fynd. There is also a future form using the auxiliary bod, giving fydda i'n mynd (perhaps best translated as I will be going) and an imperfect tense (a continuous/habitual past tense) also using bod, with roeddwn i'n mynd meaning I used to go/I was going.
- Affirmative markers. Mi (mainly North) and Fe (mainly South) are often placed before inflected verbs to show that they are declarative. This is mainly a colloquial formation and is not often seen in Written Welsh or more formal language.
Dialects
Like any natural language, Welsh has a number of different dialects. These are very evident in the spoken, and to a lesser extent the written, language. A convenient, if slightly simplistic, classification is into North Walian and South Walian forms (or "Gog" and "Hwntw" based on the word for North, gogledd, and the South Walian word for "them over there"). The differences between dialects encompass vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar, although particularly in the last regard the differences are in fact relatively minor. A third dialect is Patagonian Welsh, which has developed since the start of the Welsh settlement in Argentina in 1865; it includes Spanish loanwords and terms for local features. An example of the difference between North and South Walian usage would be the question "Do you want a cup of tea?". In the North this would typically be "Dach chi isio panad?", while in the South the question "Dych chi'n moyn dishgled?" would be more likely. An example of a pronunciation difference between Northern and Southern Welsh is the tendency of Southern dialects to "lisp" the letter "s", e.g. mis, a month, would tend to be pronounced mees in the north, and meesh in the south. In fact, the difference between dialects of modern spoken Welsh pale into insignificance compared to the difference between the spoken and literary languages. The latter is significantly more formal and is the language of Welsh translations of the Bible, amongst other things (although the Beibl Cymraeg Newydd — New Welsh Bible — is significantly less formal than the traditional 1588 Bible). Although the question "do you want a cup of tea?" is not likely to occur in literary Welsh usage, if it did it would be along the lines of "a oes arnoch eisiau cwpanaid o de?". Amongst the characteristics of the literary, as against the spoken, language are a higher dependence on inflected verb forms, a shift in the usage of some of the tenses, a reduction in the explicit use of pronouns (since the information is usually conveyed in the verb/preposition inflections) and a greatly reduced tendency to substitute English loanwords for native Welsh words. Breton and Cornish are quite closely-related languages.
Welsh in education
In the 19th century virtually all teaching in the schools of Wales was in English, even in areas where the pupils barely understood English. Some schools used the Welsh Not, a piece of wood, often bearing the letters "W.N.", which was hung around the neck of any pupil caught speaking Welsh. The pupil could pass it on to any schoolmate heard speaking Welsh, with the pupil wearing it at the end of the day being given a beating. Towards the beginning of the 20th century this policy slowly began to change, partly owing to the efforts of Owen Morgan Edwards when he became chief inspector of schools for Wales in 1907. Welsh is now widely used in education. All Welsh universities teach some courses in Welsh (most notably the University of Wales, Bangor and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth) but are primarily English language.
Under the National Curriculum, school children in Wales must study Welsh up to the age of 16. According to the Welsh Language Board[http://www.bwrdd-yr-iaith.org.uk/en/cynnwys.php?cID=7&pID=144], over a quarter of children in Wales attend schools which teach predominantly through the medium of Welsh. The remainder study Welsh as a second language in English-medium schools. Specialist teachers of Welsh called Athrawon Bro support the teaching of Welsh in the National Curriculum.
Welsh in the economy
The economic benefits of the Welsh language are also increasingly being recognised, both by employers and by employees. Throughout Wales more and more employers - in the public, private and voluntary sectors - in response to the growing expectations of their customers, are becoming aware of the benefits of using the language, such as:
- improving the quality of customer service
- attracting new customers
- increasing customer loyalty
- harnessing goodwill at relatively low cost
- gaining a marketing edge over competitors
- enhancing public relations efforts With organisations in all sectors offering more and more bilingual services, they obviously need people with bilingual skills to deliver them. And, in the workplace, the ability to speak or write in Welsh and in English is a valuable skill, just like computer or financial skills. The number of people with bilingual skills needed will of course vary from one organisation to the next, depending on its location what type of service it provides and how it deals with its customers. The reality is that over the next decade in Wales, this situation will continue to develop, in response to customers' wishes and expectations. There will be jobs at all levels for which an ability to work bilingually will be desirable, if not essential. This is one of the major factors which continues to drive the demand for Welsh-medium education and vocational training, as young people and their parents recognise the economic value of the Welsh language.
Welsh in warfare
Secure communications are often difficult to achieve in wartime. Cryptography can be used to protect messages, but this can be a time-consuming process and may not be feasible if the message is urgent. Instead, Navajo code talkers were used by the Americans during World War II. It has been rumoured that British forces used Welsh in a similar manner. More recently, Welsh regiments serving in Bosnia used Welsh for emergency communications that needed to be secure.
See also

- Welsh Tract
- Welsh Bible
- List of Welsh principal areas by percentage Welsh language
- Languages in the United Kingdom
- Welsh Language Board
- Association of Welsh Translators and Interpreters
- Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
External links

- [http://www.clwbmalucachu.co.uk Clwb Malu Cachu, The Website for Welsh Learners]
- http://www.bangor.ac.uk/ced/wfa/cymraeg/ Bangor University's programme of excellent Welsh classes, at venues throughout North Wales, for all levels from complete beginners to the more fluent.
- http://users.comlab.ox.ac.uk/geraint.jones/about.welsh/
- [http://www.gwybodiadur.co.uk The gwybodiadur] (literally "informationary") — provides wide ranges of information on all aspects of the Welsh language
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Welsh-english/ Welsh–English Dictionary]
- [http://www.cymru.ac.uk/geiriadur/ Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru] (University of Wales Dictionary of the Welsh Language), a historical dictionary of Welsh (with a [http://www.cymru.ac.uk/geiriadur/gpc_pdfs.htm Second Edition] in progress, including an embryonic on-line version)
- [http://www.cymru.ac.uk/canolfan/ The University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies]
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/learnwelsh BBC LearnWelsh]
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/learnwelsh/grammar/index.shtml Welsh Grammar]
- [http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/fun/welsh/ A Welsh Course]
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/storyofwelsh The Story of Welsh (BBC)] Category:Brythonic languages Category:Languages of the United Kingdom Category:Spoken articles Category:Wales Category:Welsh culture Welsh language als:Walisisch ko:웨일스어 zh-min-nan:Cymru-gí ja:ウェールズ語 nb:Walisisk språk simple:Welsh language

Assembly

Assembly may refer to the following things:
- In politics, any body meeting together to discuss matters, a local neighborhood or popular assembly, a parliament or a legislative assembly such as the French revolutionary Legislative Assembly, or a body more designed to mediate between otherwise independent bodies, such as the United Nations General Assembly.
- In mechanics, architecture and electronics, the action of putting together the separate parts of what is intended to be assembled. Modules, components or elements or combinations of such may be the objects of the assembly. "Assembly" may also refer to the whole that results from such action.
- Sometimes, in schools, a body collecting the students together for prayer, song, bible readings and a moral message, or things such as visits from authors or wildlife shelters.
- In Microsoft .NET, .NET assemblies are building blocks of an application, similar to a DLL (a Microsoft shared library), but in addition to containing executable code, an assembly also contains information found in a DLL's type library. The type library information in an assembly, called a manifest, describes public functions, data, classes and version info.
- Assembly Language a type of computer programming language handled by an assembler.
- Assembly might also be mentioned when referring to a non-denominational Bible-centered church Assembly might also mean:
- The Assembly, a short-lived 80's Synth Pop band
- Freedom of assembly
- Assembly demo party

Legislature

A legislature is a governmental deliberative assembly with the power to adopt laws. Legislatures are known by many names, including: parliament, congress, diet and national assembly. Important part of the US In parliamentary systems of government, the legislature is formally supreme and appoints the executive. In presidential systems of government, the legislature is considered a power branch which is equal to, and independent of, the executive. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise taxes and adopt the budget and other money bills. The consent of the legislature is also often required to ratify treaties and declare war.

Chambers

The primary component of a legislature is one or more chambers or houses: assemblies that debate and vote upon bills. Most legislatures are either bicameral or unicameral:
- A unicameral legislature is the simplest kind of law-making body and has only one house.
- A bicameral legislature possesses two separate chambers, usually described as an upper house and a lower house, which may differ in duties, powers, and methods for the selection of members. In most parliamentary systems, the lower house is the most powerful house while the upper house is merely a chamber of advice or review!!!! However in presidential systems the powers of the two houses are often similar or equal. In federations it is typical for the upper house to represent the component states. For this purpose the upper house may either contain the delegates of state governments, as is the case of Germany and was the case in the pre-19 century United States, or to be elected according to a formula that grants disproportionate representation to smaller states, as is the case today in Australia and the United States. Historically, as well as bicameral and unicameral bodies, there have also been rare instances of tricameral legislatures. Many legislatures are said to include not just one or more houses but also the head of state. This is because in most systems it is necessary that, after being approved by the house or houses of the legislature, a bill receive the assent of the head of state before it can become law. This may be the case even if, as is the case in many parliamentary systems, the assent of the head of state is merely a formality and will not be withheld. It is also common, however, for the head of state not to be considered a formal part of the legislature, even if they have the power to veto laws. The British Parliament formally consists of the Crown, and two houses; similarly, the Irish Oireachtas consists officially of the President and two houses. In contrast, the United States Congress consists only of its two houses and does not officially include the US president, despite the fact that he wields a veto.

Competences

The power of legislatures varies widely from country to country. Rubber stamp legislature is a derogatory name for a legislature that has no real power but simply approves, by unanimous or near unanimous votes, bills put before it by other institutions. For example, the legislatures of many Communist states were often derided as mere 'rubber stamps' for decisions of the ruling party. The term is not usually used to describe legislatures of parliamentary systems. Although the final draft of legislation introduced by the government almost always passes, these legislatures are generally not labelled "rubber stamps" because legislators are involved in the drafting and amendment of bills.

List of titles of legislatures

National
- Parliament
- Congress
- Diet
- National Assembly

- Althing — Iceland
- Assembleia da República — Portugal
- Bundestag — Germany
- Cortes Generales — Spain
- Eduskunta or Riksdag — Finland
- Federal Assembly — Russia, Switzerland
- Folketing — Denmark
- Knesset — Israel
- Legislative Yuan — Republic of China/Taiwan
- Majles Al-Ummah — Kuwait
- Oireachtas — Republic of Ireland
- Riigikogu — Estonia
- Riksdag — Sweden
- Rajya Sabha/Lok Sabha — India
- Sabor — Croatia
- Saeima — Latvia
- Seimas — Lithuania
- Sejm — Poland
- Skupština — Serbia and Montenegro
- Estates-General or Staten Generaal — Netherlands
- Storting — Norway
- Tynwald — Isle of Man
- Verkhovna Rada — Ukraine Historical
- States-General
- Dáil — Irish Republic (1919-1922)
- Volkskammer — East Germany (1949-1990) State
- List of state legislatures of the United States — United States
- Landtag — Germany, Austria

Wales

:For alternate meanings, see Wales (disambiguation) :For an explanation of often confusing terms like (Great) Britain, United Kingdom and England see British Isles (terminology) . Wales (Welsh: Cymru; pronounced IPA: , approximately "CUM-ree") is a principality and one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom (along with England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). Wales is located in the south-west of Great Britain, and is bordered by England to the east, the Bristol Channel to the south, St George's Channel in the west, and the Irish Sea to the north. The term Principality of Wales, in Welsh, Tywysogaeth Cymru, is often used, although the Prince of Wales has no role in the governance of Wales and this term is unpopular among some. Wales has not been politically independent since 1282, when it was conquered by King Edward I of England. The capital of Wales since 1955 has been Cardiff, although Caernarfon is the location where the Prince of Wales is invested, and Machynlleth was the home of a parliament called by Owain Glyndwr during his revolt at the start of the fifteenth century. In 1999, the National Assembly for Wales was formed, which has limited domestic powers and cannot make law.

History

Main article: History of Wales The Romans established a string of forts across what is now southern Wales, as far west as Carmarthen (Maridunum), and mined gold at Dolaucothi in Carmarthenshire. There is evidence that they progressed even further west. They also built the legionary fortress at Caerleon (Isca), whose magnificent amphitheatre is the best preserved in Britain. The Romans were also busy in northern Wales, and an old legend claims that Magnus Maximus, one of the last emperors, married Elen or Helen, the daughter of a Welsh chieftain from Segontium, near present-day Caernarfon. Wales was never conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, due to the fierce resistance of its people and its mountainous terrain. An Anglo-Saxon king, Offa of Mercia, is credited with having constructed a great earth wall, or dyke, along the border with his kingdom, to mark off a large part of Powys which he had conquered. Parts of Offa's Dyke can still be seen today. Wales remained a Celtic region, and its people kept speaking the Welsh language, even as the Celtic elements of England and Scotland gradually disappeared. The name Wales is evidence of this, as it comes from a Germanic root word meaning stranger or foreigner, and as such is related to the names of several other European regions where Germanic peoples came into contact with non-Germanic cultures including Wallonia in Belgium and Wallachia in Romania, as well as the "-wall" of Cornwall. Part of the word "Cymru" is evident in the "Cum-" of Cumberland and Cumbria. Wales continued to be Christian (see 1904–1905 Welsh Revival and Welsh Methodist revival) when England was overrun by pagan German and Scandinavian tribes, though many older beliefs and customs survived among its people. Thus, Saint David (Dewi Sant) went on a pilgrimage to Rome during the 6th century, and was serving as a bishop in Wales well before Augustine arrived to convert the king of Kent and found the diocese of Canterbury. Although the Druidic religion is alleged to have had its stronghold in Wales until the Roman invasion, many of the so-called traditions, such as the gorsedd, or assembly of bards, were the invention of eighteenth-century "historians." The traditional women's Welsh costume, incorporating a tall black hat, was devised in the nineteenth century by Lady Llanover, herself a prominent patron of the Welsh language and culture. The conquest of Wales by England did not take place in 1066, when England was conquered by the Normans, but was gradual, not being complete until 1282, when King Edward I of England defeated Llywelyn the Last, Wales's last independent prince, in battle. Edward constructed a series of great stone castles in order to keep the Welsh under control. The best known are at Caernarfon, Conwy, and Harlech. Wales was legally annexed by the Laws in Wales Act 1535, in the reign of Henry VIII of England. The Wales and Berwick Act 1746 provided that all laws that applied to England would automatically apply to Wales (and Berwick, a town located on the Anglo-Scottish border) unless the law explicitly stated otherwise. This act, with regard to Wales, was repealed in 1967. See: Annales Cambriae

Politics

Main article: Politics of Wales; see also Politics of the United Kingdom Wales has been a principality since the 13th century, initially under the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great, and later under his grandson, Llywelyn the Last, who took the title Prince of Wales around 1258, and was recognised by the English Crown in 1277 by the Treaty of Aberconwy. Following his defeat by Edward I, however, Welsh independence in the 14th century was limited to a number of minor revolts. The greatest such revolt was that of Owain Glyndwr, who gained popular support in 1400, and defeated an English force at Pumlumon in 1401. In response, the English parliament passed repressive measures denying the Welsh the right of assembly. Glyndwr was proclaimed Prince of Wales, and sought assistance from the French, but by 1409 his forces were scattered under the attacks of King Henry IV of England and further measures imposed against the Welsh. The Laws in Wales Act 1535 abolished the remaining Marcher Lordships, leaving Wales with thirteen counties: Anglesey, Brecon, Caernarfon, Cardigan, Carmarthen, Denbigh, Flint, Glamorgan, Merioneth, Monmouth, Montgomery, Pembroke, and Radnor, and applied the Law of England to both England and Wales, requiring the English language for official purposes. This excluded most native Welsh from any formal office. Wales continues to share a legal identity with England to a large degree as the joint entity of England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland retain separate legal systems. Wales was for centuries dwarfed by its larger neighbour, England. Indeed, one well-known British encyclopedia was said — perhaps apocryphally — to have had an entry reading "WALES. See under ENGLAND". In 1955 steps were taken to re-establish a sense of national identity for Wales when Cardiff was established as its capital. Before this, legislation passed by the UK parliament had simply referred to England, rather than England and Wales. Since 1993 and the passing of the Welsh Language Act it has been law for all documents produced by public bodies to be in both English and Welsh. Many private companies have followed suit, producing literature with similar bilingual qualities. The National Assembly for Wales, sitting in Cardiff, first elected in 1999, is elected by the Welsh people and has its powers defined by the Government of Wales Act 1998. The title of Prince of Wales is still given by the reigning British monarch to his or her eldest son, but in modern times the Prince does not live in Wales and has no direct involvement with administration or government. The Prince is, however, still symbolically linked to the principality; the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales took place at Caernarfon Castle in North Wales, a place traditionally associated with the creation of the title in the 13th century. The investiture was considered an insult by some Welsh people, and Welsh folk singer Dafydd Iwan released mocking singles called Croeso Chwedeg Nain (Welcome 69, although a literal translation would be Welcome Granny's 60th (birthday)) and Carlo (Charlie). Two members of "Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru" – MAC (Welsh Defence Movement) – George Taylor and Alwyn Jones, the "Abergele Martyrs", were killed by a home made bomb at Abergele the day before the investiture ceremony.

Geography

Abergele Main article: Geography of Wales Wales is located on a peninsula in central-west Great Britain. The entire area of Wales is about 20,779 km² (8,023 square miles). It is about 274 km (170 miles) long and 97 km (60 miles) wide. Wales borders by England to the east and by sea in the other three directions: the Bristol Channel to the south, St George's Channel to the west, and the Irish Sea to the north. Together, Wales has over 965 km (600 miles) of coastline. There are several islands off the Welsh mainland, the largest being Anglesey in the northwest. The main population and industrial areas are in South Wales, consisting of the cities of Cardiff, Swansea and Newport and surrounding areas. Much of Wales's diverse landscape is mountainous, particularly in the north and central regions. The mountains were shaped during the last ice age, the Devensian glaciation. The highest mountains in Wales are in Snowdonia, and include Snowdon, which, at 1085 m (3,560 feet) is the highest peak in England and Wales. The 14 (or possibly 15) Welsh mountains over 3000 feet high are known collectively as the Welsh 3000s. The Brecon Beacons are in the south and are joined by the Cambrian Mountains in mid-Wales, the latter being given to the earliest geological period of the Paleozoic (Cambrian). Consequently, the next two periods, Ordovician and Silurian were named after Welsh/Celtic tribes from this area. The modern border between Wales and England is highly arbitrary; it was largely defined in the 16th century, based on medieval feudal boundaries. It has apparently never been confirmed by referendum or reviewed by any Boundary Commission (except to confirm Monmouthshire as part of Wales in 1968). The boundary line follows Offa's Dyke only approximately. It separates Knighton from its railway station, virtually cuts off Church Stoke from the rest of Wales, and slices straight through the village of Llanymynech (where a pub actually straddles the line). The Seven Wonders of Wales is a traditional list of seven geographic and cultural landmarks in Wales: Snowdon (the highest mountain), the Gresford bells (the peal of bells in the medieval church of All Saints at Gresford), the Llangollen bridge (built in 1347 over the River Dee), St Winefride's Well (a pilgrimage site at Holywell in Flintshire) the Wrexham steeple (16th century tower of St. Giles Church in Wrexham), the Overton yew trees (ancient yew trees in the churchyard of St Mary's at Overton-on-Dee) and Pistyll Rhaeadr (Wales's tallest waterfall, at 240 feet or 75 m). The wonders are part of the traditional rhyme: :Pistyll Rhaeadr and Wrexham steeple, :Snowdon's mountain without its people, :Overton yew trees, St Winefride wells, :Llangollen bridge and Gresford bells. Highest maximum temperature: 35.2°C (95.4°F) at Hawarden Bridge, Flintshire on 2 August 1990. Lowest minimum temperature: -23.3°C (-10°F) at Rhayader, Radnorshire on 21 January 1940. [http://www.metoffice.com/climate/uk/location/wales/#temperature] See also: List of towns in Wales

Divisions

For administrative purposes, Wales has been divided since 1996 into 22 unitary authorities:
- 9 counties
- 10 county boroughs
- 3 cities^{1^{- Cardiff, Swansea and Newport.

For more details and recent history of the political divisions of Wales, see Subdivisions of Wales.

1: There are five cities in total in Wales — in addition to the three unitary authorities listed above, the communities of Bangor & St. David's also have the status of a city.

Economy

Parts of Wales have been heavily industrialised since the eighteenth century. Coal, copper, iron, lead, and gold have been mined in Wales, and slate has been quarried. Ironworks and tinplate works, along with the coal mines, attracted large numbers of immigrants during the nineteenth century, particularly to the valleys north of Cardiff. Due to the poor quality soil, much of Wales is unsuitable for crop-growing, and livestock farming has traditionally been the focus of agriculture. The Welsh landscape, protected by three National Parks, and the unique Welsh culture bring in tourism, which is especially vital for rural areas.

Light engineering is still an important activity in the main population areas of the South and extreme North-East, but the economy, as elsewhere in the UK, is now focused on the service sector.

Food

About 80% of the land surface of Wales is given over to agricultural use. Very little of this is arable land though as the vast majority consists of permanent grass or rough grazing for herd animals. Although both beef and dairy cattle are raised widely, especially in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, Wales is more well-known for its sheep farming, and thus lamb is the meat traditionally associated with Welsh cooking.

Welsh food is usually made from local ingredients. Some traditional dishes include laverbread (made from seaweed), bara brith (fruit cake), cawl cennin (leek stew), Welsh cakes, Welsh rarebit, and Welsh lamb. A type of shellfish, cockles, is often served with breakfast.

Demographics
Demographics of Wales as at the 2001 Census:

- Population: 2,903,085, Male: 1,403,782 Female: 1,499,303

- Percentage of the population born in:

- England: 20.32%

- Wales: 75.39%

- Scotland: 0.84%

- Northern Ireland: 0.27%

- Republic of Ireland: 0.44%

- Ethnic groups:

- White: British: 95.99%

- White: Irish: 0.61%

- White: other: 1.28%

- Mixed: white and black: 0.29%

- Mixed: white and Asian: 0.17%

- Mixed: other: 0.15%

- Asian:

- Indian/British Indian: 0.28%

- Pakistani/British Pakistani: 0.29%

- Bangladeshi/British Bangladeshi: 0.19%

- Other Asian: 0.12%

- Black: 0.25%

- Chinese: 0.40%

- Percentage of the British population self-identifying as Welsh: 14.39% (controversially, there was no question on the Census form asking this — people had to write this in).

- Religion:

- Christian: 71.9%

- Buddhist: 0.19%

- Hindu: 0.19%

- Jewish: 0.08%

- Muslim: 0.75%

- Sikh: 0.07%

- Other religion: 0.24%

- No religion: 18.53%

- Not disclosed: 8.07%

- The largest single denomination of Wales is Calvinist Methodism, which by far is the largest single denomination, followed by the Roman Catholic Church (Eglwys Catholig Rufeinig) and the Episcopalian (Anglican) Church in Wales (Eglwys yng Nghymru) with 3% of the population each, and the Congregationalist Union of Welsh Independents (Undeb yr Annibynwyr Cymraeg) and the Presbyterian Church of Wales (Eglwys Bresbyteraidd Cymru) with 1% of the population each.

- Age structure of the population:

- 0-4: 167,903

- 5-7: 108,149

- 8-9: 77,176

- 10-14: 195,976

- 15: 37,951

- 16-17: 75,234

- 18-19: 71,519

- 20-24: 169,493

- 25-29: 166,348

- 30-44: 605,962

- 45-59: 569,676

- 60-64: 152,924

- 65-74: 264,191

- 75-84: 182,202

- 85-89: 38,977

- 90+: 19,404

- Knowledge of the Welsh language:

- Percentage of the population aged 3 or more knowing spoken Welsh only: 4.93%

- Percentage of the population aged 3 or more speaking Welsh but not reading or writing it: 2.83%

- Percentage of the population aged 3 or more speaking and reading Welsh but not writing it: 1.37%

- Percentage of the population aged 3 or more speaking, reading, and writing Welsh: 16.32%

- Percentage of the population aged 3 or more with some other skills combination: 2.98%

- Percentage of the population aged 3 or more with no knowledge of Welsh: 71.57%

- In Gwynedd, Anglesey, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire, Welsh speakers are in the majority.

- Gwynedd has the highest proportion of Welsh speakers, but Carmarthenshire has the highest number of them in any one principal area.

- According to www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uk.html[http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/uk.html], 26% of the population are knowledgeable of Cymraeg.

Culture
Main article: Culture of Wales

Music
Main article: Music of Wales

Wales is known as a the home of many musicians and musical styles. Wales is particularly famous for harpists, male voice choirs, and solo artists including Tom Jones, Charlotte Church, Bryn Terfel, Katherine Jenkins, and Shirley Bassey. Indie bands like Catatonia, Stereophonics, The Manic Street Preachers, and Super Furry Animals in the 1990s and later Goldie Lookin' Chain and Funeral for a Friend are also from Wales. The Welsh folk music scene, long overshadowed by its Irish and Scottish cousins, is in resurgence. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales performs throughout Wales and internationally.

Photos of Wales

image:Snowdon from Llyn Llydaw.jpg|The summit of Snowdon, Snowdonia, highest mountain in Wales
image:Caernarfon_castle_interior.jpg|Caernarfon castle
image:Tredegar-House.png|Tredegar House, Newport
image:HallOfTheMountainKings.jpg|Hall of the Mountain Kings, Ogof Craig a Ffynnon, a cave in the Brecon Beacons
image:Uwlsdb.jpg|The University of Wales, Lampeter, the oldest higher education institution in Wales
image:Aberstw.jpg|The Castle and Old College building, Aberystwyth
Image:Assemblybldg1.jpg|The National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff

Notable Welsh people
:see List of Welsh people

See also

- Angelystor

- Education in Wales

- List of not fully sovereign nations

- England and Wales

- List of public holidays in Wales

- List of Welsh people

- List of rulers of Wales

- List of United Kingdom-related topics

- Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

- Seven Wonders of Wales

- Walh

- Welsh narrow gauge railways

- Madog ap Owain Gwynedd

- The size of Wales

- Wales national rugby union team

- Welsh national football team

External links

- [http://www.walesworldnation.com Wales. World Nation](General information about Wales, its government and its people)

- [http://www.famouswelsh.com Famous Welsh People]

- [http://www.butlinsbarryisland.com/ ButlinsBarryIsland.com : The history of the Barry Island Holiday Camp]

- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/ BBC Wales]

- [http://www.wales.gov.uk National Assembly for Wales]

- [http://www.walesontheweb.org Wales on the Web] (Web directory)

- [http://www.google.com/Top/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Wales/ Google Directory: Wales ] (Web directory)

- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/nations/ BBC Nations] (Brief history of Wales)

- [http://www.walesscreencommission.co.uk/ Wales Screen Commission] (Filming in Wales)

- [http://www.walesinfo.com/ Wales Tourist Information] (Tourist Information)

- [http://www.visitwales.com/ Visit Wales] (Official Tourist Information from the Wales Tourist Board)

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Government of Wales Act 1998
The Government of Wales Act, 1998 (1998 c. 38) or, to give it its full title An Act to establish and make provision about the National Assembly for Wales and the offices of Auditor General for Wales and Welsh Administration Ombudsman; to reform certain Welsh public bodies and abolish certain other Welsh public bodies; and for connected purposes., is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed in 1998 by the incoming Labour government to create a National Assembly for Wales.

It transferred most of the powers of the Secretary of State for Wales, and made provision for elections to the Assembly.

External link

- [http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980038.htm Text of the Act] (OPSI site)

Category:Government of Wales
Category:History of Wales
Category:British laws
Category:1998 in law
Category:United Kingdom constitution

Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is the principal centre-left political party in the United Kingdom (see British politics). It is one of the United Kingdom's three main political parties and is currently the party of government in the United Kingdom. It describes itself as a Democratic Socialist party and is a member of the Socialist International. Under the leadership of Tony Blair it won by a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, and formed its first government since the 1979 general election. It retained its position with two further large victories in the 2001 and the 2005 general elections. Under Blair's leadership, the party has adopted a number of liberal policies.

Structure
2005
The Labour Party is a membership organisation consisting of Constituency Labour Parties, affiliated trade unions and socialist societies, including the Co-operative Party, with which it has an electoral agreement. Members who are elected to parliamentary positions take part in the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP). The party's decision-making bodies, on a national level, formally include the National Executive Committee (NEC), Labour Party Conference, and National Policy Forum (NPF) - although in practice the Parliamentary leadership has the final say. Questions of internal party democracy have frequently provoked disputes in the party.

For many years, Labour had a policy of Irish unity by consent, and did not allow residents of Northern Ireland to apply for membership, instead supporting the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The 2003 Labour Party Conference accepted legal advice that the party could not continue to prohibit residents of the province joining, but the National Executive has decided not to organise or contest elections there.

Early years

The Labour Party's origins lie in the late 19th century, when it became apparent that there was an increasing need for a third party in Britain to represent the interests and needs of the large working-class population (for instance, the 1899 Lyons vs. Wilkins judgement that limited certain types of picketing). Some members of the trade union movement were interested in moving into the political field and after the extension of the franchise to working class men in 1867 and 1885, the Liberal Party had endorsed some trade union-sponsored candidates. In addition several small socialist groups had been formed which wanted to link to the movement and give it a wider policy. Among these were the Independent Labour Party, the Fabian Society (an intellectual group whose members were mainly middle-class), the Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party.

British politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was divided between the perceived 'establishment', represented by the Conservative Party (nicknamed the Tories), and a more radical 'non-conformist' tradition, based around for example Welsh and North Midlands Methodism. The non-conformist tradition was embodied by the Liberal Party under leaders like William Ewart Gladstone and David Lloyd George. After the Representation of The People Act, 1884, most adult men had the vote but about 40% were still unenfranchised, mainly among the working class who would be more likely to support parties of the left.

David Lloyd GeorgeIn 1899 a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all the left-wing organisations and form them into a single body which would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages including by the TUC and this special conference was held at the International Hall, Farringdon Street, London on February 27-28, 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations; trade unions representing about one-third of the membership of the TUC sent delegates.

The Conference created an association called the Labour Representation Committee, and it was to have acted as a body coordinating attempts to elect to Parliament members who had been sponsored by trade unions as representing the working-class population. It had no single leader. In default of any other candidate, the Independent Labour Party's nominee Ramsay MacDonald was elected as Secretary. He had the difficult task of keeping the various strands of opinions in the LRC united. The October 1900 'Khaki election' came too soon for the new party to effectively campaign. Only 15 candidatures were sponsored, but two were successful: Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil and Richard Bell in Derby.

Two candidates from the Social Democratic Federation were endorsed but the SDF was unhappy with the essentially compromising agenda of the Labour Representation Committee. At the SDF's 1901 conference it voted to withdraw. However support for the LRC among the trade unions was boosted by the 1901 Taff Vale case, a dispute between strikers and a railway company that ended with the union ordered to pay £23,000 damages for a strike. The judgment effectively made strikes illegal (since employers could recoup the cost of lost business from the unions). The apparent acquiescence of the Conservative government of Arthur Balfour intensified support for the LRC against a government that appeared uninterested in the problems of working people. In the 1902-03 period the LRC won two by-elections.

Arthur Balfour
The LRC won 29 seats in the 1906 election, helped by the secret 1903 pact between Ramsay Macdonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone which aimed at avoiding Labour/Liberal contests in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office. In their first meeting after the election, the group's Members of Parliament decided to take the name "The Labour Party" (February 15, 1906). James Keir Hardie, who had taken a leading role in getting the party established, was elected as Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (in effect, the Leader), although only by one vote over David Shackleton after several ballots. In the party's early years, the Independent Labour Party (ILP) provided much of its activist base as the party did not have an individual membership until 1918 and operated as a conglomerate of affiliated bodies until that date. The Fabian Society provided much of the intellectual stimulus for the party. One of the first acts of the new Liberal government was to reverse the Taff Vale judgement.

In 1909 the Osbourne judgment ruled that Trade Unions could not raise funds for political purposes, a move which threatened one of Labour's main funding sources. This was especially detrimental to the Labour party as it supporters were generally poorer than other political parties. The two elections in 1910 saw Labour gain 40 seats and 42 seats respectively. In 1911 David Lloyd George gave MPs a wage of £400 per annum, which partly helped to alleviate the financial problems and the Osbourne judgment was overturned in 1913.

Support grew for Labour during the 1910-1914 period as a result of an unprecedented scale of strike action. Seamen, rail workers, cotton workers, coal miners, dockers and many other groups all organised strikes, with many sympathy strikes also occurring. This increase in action can partly be explained by the recession of 1908-09 and subsequent rise in unemployment, as well as the growing support for radical change among the working-class (such as support for syndicalism). This was no doubt helped by the sometimes heavy-handed measures of the Liberal government; Winston Churchill sent in troops to the Rhondda valley in 1910 to deal with coal miners, resulting in some fatalities.

During the First World War the Liberal Party split between factions supporting leader David Lloyd George and former leader Herbert Asquith. At the end of the war universal adult male suffrage was enacted, together with votes for women over the age of 30. The Liberal split, accompanied by this fundamental change in the system, allowed the Labour Party to co-opt some of The Liberals support, and by the 1922 general election Labour had supplanted the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives. With the Liberals still in turmoil, Labour formed its first minority government with Liberal support in January 1924, with Ramsay MacDonald as Prime Minister; the government collapsed after nine months when the Liberals voted for a Select Committee inquiry which MacDonald had declared an issue of confidence but the Liberal electoral base had vanished. The ensuing general election saw the publication four days before polling day of the Zinoviev Letter implicating Labour in a plot for a Communist revolution, and the Conservatives returned to power. The Zinoviev letter is now generally believed to have been a forgery.

Zinoviev Letter

The split under MacDonald
The election of May 1929 saw Labour returned for the first time as the largest party in the House of Commons, and Ramsay MacDonald formed a second Liberal-backed government, though Labour's lack of a parliamentary majority again prevented it from carrying out its desired legislative programme.

The financial crisis of 1931 caused a disastrous split in the party, with MacDonald and a few senior ministers going into alliance with the Conservatives and Liberals as the "National Government" (August 24, 1931) while most of the party rank-and-file went into opposition under the leadership of first George Lansbury and (from 1935) Clement Attlee. The ILP under James Maxton disaffiliated from the Labour Party in 1932, removing a substantial proportion of the left of the party from membership.

While MacDonald's "National Labour" following dwindled to a small parliamentary appendage to the Conservatives, opposition Labour rapidly regained most of the party's former electoral support, and entered the wartime coalition government of Winston Churchill (May 1940) on terms of near equality with the Conservative majority.

Post-War victory to the 1960s

1940]

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Labour resolved not to repeat the Liberals' error of 1918, and withdrew from the government to contest the subsequent general election (July 5) in opposition to Churchill's Conservatives. Surprisingly to many (especially overseas) observers, Labour won a landslide majority, reflecting voters' perception of it as the party to carry through wartime promises of reform. The results were announced on July 26; Labour won 48% of the vote and a landslide Parliamentary majority of 146 seats.

Clement Attlee's government was one of the most radical British governments of the 20th century. It presided over a policy of selective nationalisation (the Bank of England, coal, electricity, gas, the railways and iron & steel). It developed a "cradle to grave" welfare state under health minister Aneurin Bevan. The party still considers the creation in 1948 of Britain's tax funded National Health Service its proudest achievement.

Attlee's government however became split, over, amongst other things, the amount of money Britain was spending on defence (which reached 10% of GDP in 1950 due to the Korean War). Aneurin Bevan eventually quit the government over this issue. The government also faced a fuel crisis and a balance of payments crisis. Labour narrowly lost power to the Conservatives in October 1951, despite winning more votes.

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s the party became split between moderate modernisers led by Hugh Gaitskell and more traditional socialist elements within the party. This split, and the fact that the public was broadly content with the Conservative governments of the period, kept the party out of power for thirteen years.

However, in the early 1960s, a series of scandals such as the Profumo affair engulfed the Conservative government, which damaged its popularity. The Conservative party was also seen as being out of touch with the changing country and the economy began to turn down. Due largely to this, the Labour party returned to government under Harold Wilson in 1964 and remained in power until 1970.

1970]

The 1960s Labour government, though claiming to be far less radical on economic policy than its 1940s predecessor, introduced several social changes, such as the partial legalisation of homosexuality and the abolition of the death penalty. In the 1970 general election, Edward Heath's Conservatives narrowly defeated Harold Wilson's government. Wilson's party won power again in February 1974. After possessing a minority government, they achieved a small majority in the October 1974-- also under Harold Wilson.

The 1970s
The 1970s proved to be a disastrous time to be in government, and faced with a world-wide economic downturn and a badly suffering British economy, the Labour Government would be forced to go to the IMF for a loan to ease them through their financial troubles. However, conditions attached to the loan meant the adoption of a more liberal economic programme by the Labour Government, meaning a move away from the party's traditional policy base.

The 1970s were also dogged by a host of industrial problems, including widespread strikes and trade union militancy. The Labour Party's close ties to the increasingly unpopular trade unions caused the party to gradually lose support throughout the decade.

In 1976, citing his desire to retire on his sixtieth birthday, Wilson stood down as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister, and was replaced by James Callaghan. In the same year as Callaghan became leader, the party in Scotland suffered the breakaway of two MPs into the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). This breakaway was prompted by dissatisfaction with the lack of progress being made by the then Labour government on delivering a devolved Scottish Assembly. Whilst ultimately the SLP proved no real threat to the Labour Party's strong Scottish electoral base it did show that people were beginning to think of breaking with the mainstream UK Labour Party,

Ultimately, the economic problems facing the Labour Government of the 1970s, and the political difficulties of Scottish and Welsh devolution, proved too great for it to surmount despite an arrangement negotiated in 1977 with the Liberals known as the Lib-Lab Pact. In 1979, they faced the disastrous "Winter of Discontent", and in the 1979 general election they suffered electoral defeat to the Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher.

The Thatcher years
The aftermath of the election defeat in 1979 provoked a period of bitter internal rivalry in Labour. From the mid 1970s, the party had became bitterly divided between left wingers under Michael Foot and Tony Benn, whose supporters dominated the party organisation at grassroots level, and right wingers under Denis Healey. After the defeat, the left had the upper hand when it asserted that the government had become unpopular because it had alienated its base by compromising, and needed to regain it by moving to a more left-wing policy.

The election of Foot to the leadership and the change to a system of leadership elections in which party activists and affiliated trade unions had a vote led to the decision by the Gang of Four (former Labour cabinet ministers) on January 26, 1981 to issue the 'Limehouse Declaration', and then to form the Social Democratic Party. The Gang of Four were Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Shirley Williams and William Rodgers. The departure of even more right-wingers further swung the party to the left, but not quite enough to allow Tony Benn to be elected as Deputy Leader when he challenged for the job at the September 1981 party conference. In response to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the party committed itself to "campaign actively" for a United Ireland.

United Ireland
1983
Led by Michael Foot, who was increasingly unpopular with the public, the party went into the 1983 general election with a manifesto dominated by the politics of the party's left-wing, but considered by some socialists to be too watered down by Foot's indecisiveness and pressure from the party's right-wing to be truly convincing. The manifesto contained pledges to unilaterally disarm Britain's nuclear deterrent, withdraw from the European Community (EC), and pledged a programme of mass nationalisation of industry. A symptom of the divisions in the party was that the leading members of the right-wing had not resisted the manifesto, because they hoped that what they saw as an impending inevitable landslide defeat would discredit the policies. The 1983 manifesto was famously described by the senior Labour politician Gerald Kaufman as being 'the longest suicide note in history'.

The right-wing press wasted no time in attacking the party's manifesto, and Labour's chances of electoral success were further damaged by the fact that the Thatcher government's popularity was on the rise after successfully guiding the country to victory in the Falklands War. This bolstered Thatcher who had been low in the polls due to a severe economic downturn.

After suffering a landslide defeat at the 1983 election, Michael Foot immediately resigned. He was replaced by Neil Kinnock, who though initially a firebrand left-winger, had generally supported Foot and was seen as a more pragmatic leader. Through his leadership Kinnock progressively moved the party to the centre. He vastly intensified moves to expel left groups such as the Militant Tendency which represented left-wing views no longer supported by the party leadership, and further changed party policy to support EC membership. From 1985, Peter Mandelson as Director of Communications modernised the party's image.

1987
At the 1987 general election, the party was again defeated in a landslide, but had established itself as the clear challengers to the Conservatives and had fought an effective campaign. Kinnock easily retained the party leadership when challenged from the left in 1988 and continued his reform of the party. The Labour Party ceased to be unilateralist in early 1989, and embarked on a thorough Policy Review.

1992
By the time of the 1992 general election, the party had reformed to such an extent that it was perceived as a credible candidate for government. Most opinion polls during the campaign showed the party with a slight lead over the Conservatives although rarely with a lead sufficient to give a majority. However, the party ended up 8% behind the Conservatives in the popular vote, a result which was considered one of the biggest surprises in British electoral history. In the party's post mortem on why it had lost, it was considered that the 'Shadow Budget' announced by John Smith had opened the way for Conservatives to attack the party for wanting to raise taxes. In addition Neil Kinnock's seeming triumphalism at a party rally in Sheffield eight days before polling day gave the impression that victory had already been achieved.

Kinnock resigned after the defeat, blaming the overwhelming preponderance of Conservative-supporting newspapers for Labour's failure. John Smith, despite his involvement with the Shadow Budget, was easily elected to succeed him over Bryan Gould who was identified with the soft left. Smith's leadership saw a degree of tension between those who preferred progressive change and others who identified as 'modernisers' and advocated a further wholesale revision of the party's stance. At the 1993 conference, Smith successfully changed the party rules so that trade unions had less say in the selection of candidates to stand for Parliament by introducing a one member, one vote system, but only just carried the day after a barnstorming speech by John Prescott and compromising on other matters in individual negotiations. However in May 1994, Smith died suddenly from a heart attack.

New Labour
"New Labour" is an alternative name for Labour Party which originated in 1994. The name is primarily used by the party itself in its literature but is also sometimes used by political commentators and the wider media; it was also the basis of a Conservative Party poster campaign of 1997, headlined "New Labour, New Danger". The rise of the name coincided with a rightwards shift of the British political spectrum; for Labour, this was a continuation of the trend that had begun under the leadership of Neil Kinnock. "Old Labour" is sometimes used by commentators to describe the older, more left-wing members of the party, or those with strong Trade Union connections.

The name "New Labour" originates from a conference slogan first used by the Labour Party in 1994, which was later seen in a draft manifesto published by the party in 1996, called New Labour, New Life For Britain. However the term was intended to incorporate a wider rebranding of the party in the eyes of the electorate. The new name coincided with the re-writing of Clause IV of the party's constitution in 1995. Peter Mandelson was a senior figure in this process, and exercised a great deal of authority in the party following the death of John Smith and the subsequent election of Tony Blair as party leader.

Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell are most commonly cited as the creators and architects of the New Labour ethos. They were among the most prominent advocates of the right-wing shift in European social democracy during the 1990s, known as the "Third Way". The use of "New" echoes slogans in American politics, particularly those of the Democratic Party, such as Roosevelt's New Deal, Kennedy's New Frontier
and Clinton's New Covenant.

New Labour (as a series of values) is often characterised as a belief in 'rights and duties', i.e. that a citizen should recognise that s/he possesses responsibilities linked with any legal rights they hold. The concept of a 'stakeholder society' is quite prominent in New Labour thinking. As noted above, New Labour thought also embraces the notion of the "Third Way", although critics pointed to the lack of any concise statement of its meaning, and the term later fell from use. Labour's economic policy sought to balance the laissez-faire capitalism of the Thatcherite era with measures that would lessen or reverse their negative impact on society. One of the most popular policies introduced was Britain's first National Minimum Wage Act.

Tony Blair secured the revision of Clause IV of the party constitution, which had been adopted in 1918, and which committed the party to 'the common ownership of the means of production'. This was widely interpreted in the past as a policy of nationalisation:

:"To secure for all the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits}}