Britain for learners of English James O'Driscoll, Sintesi del corso di Cultura Inglese I

Scarica Britain for learners of English James O'Driscoll e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Cultura Inglese I solo su Docsity! CULTURA CIVILTÀ E ISTITUZIONI INGLESE BRITAIN FOR LEARNERS OF ENGLISH COUNTRY AND PEOPLE WHY IS BRITAIN “GREAT”? The adjective “great” in the name Great Britain was first used to distinguish it from the smaller area in France which is called “Brittany” in modern English. Geographically speaking: there are two large islands and hundreds of much smaller ones. The largest island is called Great Britain. The other large one is called Ireland. Politically speaking: in this geographical area there are two states. One of these governs most of the island of Ireland. This state usually called the The Republic of Ireland. The other state has authority over the rest of the area. Its official name is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but this is too long for practical purposes (United Kingdom, UK; in other context it is referred to as “Great Britain”). In writing and speaking that is not especially formal or informal, the name “Britain” is used. The normal everyday adjective, when talking about something to do with the UK, is “British”. During the 19th and 20th centuries, they were generally called “The British Isles”. The most common term at present is “Great Britain and Ireland”. But even this is not strictly correct. THE FOUR NATIONS People often refer to Britain by another name. They call it “England”. But this is not correct, and its use can make some people angry. England is only one of “the four nations”. The others are Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Their political unification was completed in 1800 when the Irish parliament was joined with the parliament for England, Scotland and Wales in Westminster, so that the whole area became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However in 1922, most of Ireland became a separate state. The dominant culture of people in Ireland, Wales and Highland Scotland was Celtic; that of people in England and Lowland Scotland was Germanic. People in the Celtic areas spoke Celtic languages; people in the Germanic area spoke Germanic dialects (including the one which has developed into modern English). Today, there is only one government for the whole Britain, but many aspects of government are organized separately in the four parts of the United Kingdom. They have separate teams in many kinds of international sport. Pagina 1 Some historical and poetic names ‣ Albion is a word used by poets and songwriters to refer, in different contexts, to England or to Scotland or to Great Britain as a whole. It comes from Celtic word. ‣ Britannia is the name that the Romans gave to their southern British province, (approximately, the area of present-day England and Wales). It is also the name given to the female embodiment of Britain. ‣ Briton is a word used in official contexts and in writing to describe a citizen of the United Kingdom. ‣ Caledonia, Cambria and Hibernia were the Roman names for Scotland, Wales and Ireland respectively. ‣ Erin is a poetic nome for Ireland (The Emerald Isle). ‣ John Bull is a fictional character who is supposed to personify Englishness and certain English virtues. Identifying symbols of the four nations ‣ England: St. George’s Cross (flag); rose; white colour; patron Saint St. George (23 April). ‣ Wales: Dragon of Cadwallader (flag); leek/daffodil; red colour; patron Saint St. David (1 March). ‣ Scotland: St. Andrew’s Cross/Lion Rampant (flag); thistle; blue colour; patron Saint St. Andrew (30 November). ‣ Ireland: St. Patrick’s Cross/Republic of Ireland (flag); shamrock; green colour; patron Saint St. Patrick (17 March). ‣ The Union flag, often known as the “Union Jack”, is the national flag of the UK. It is a combination of the cross of St. George, St. Andrew and St. Patrick. Pagina 2 It was not until this century that a law was passed which entitles people to demand information held by public bodies: people usually have to pay to get the information they want. It seems that in Britain, both your own identity and also the information which the government has about your identity are regarded as private matters. The duties of the individual towards the state are confined to not breaking the law and paying taxes. There is no national service (military or otherwise), people are not obliged to vote at elections and people do not have to register a change of address with a government authority. If the government wants to make an important change in the way that the country is run (to change, for example, the electoral system or the powers of the Prime Minister) it does not have to ask the people. In many countries, a constitutional change cannot be made without a referendum, in which everybody in the country has the chance to vote “yes” or “no”. There has only been two countrywide referendum in history: in 1975 and 2016, on whether the country should stay in the European Community. In Britain, democracy has never meant that the people have a hand in the running of the country; rather it means that they choose only who is to govern the country. The traditional habit of “discretion” in public life is still there. There is also a law (the Official Secrets Act) which obliges many government employees not to tell anyone about the details of their work. In 1992, the existence of MI6, the British Secret Service, was publicly admitted by government for the first time. Everybody already knew, but the admission itself was a surprise. In this case, the reason for admitting the existence of MI6 could justify why it needed money from taxpayers. The British government still charges people with breaking the Official Secrets Act. THE CONSTITUTION Britain is a constitutional monarchy: it is a country governed by a king or queen who accepts the advice of a parliament. It is also a parliamentary democracy: a country whose government is controlled by a parliament elected by the people. The highest positions in the government are filled by members of the directly elected parliament. In Britain, as in many European countries, the official head of state, whether a monarch (Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark) or a president (Germany, Greece, Italy) has little real power. Britain is almost alone among modern states in that it doesn’t have a constitution. Of course, there are rules, regulations, principles and procedures for the running of the country, which have been built up, bit by bit, over the centuries. For example, there is no written law in Britain that says anything about who can be the Prime Minister or what his powers are, even though that person is probably the most powerful person in the country. Instead, these things have been established, and are constantly being modified, by custom and practice. Similarly, there is no single written document which asserts people’s rights. Some rights which are commonly accepted in modern democracies have been formally agreed by Parliament in certain laws but others have not. Pagina 5 Skeletons in cupboard In modern Britain, the 1950s are often spoken of as a golden age of innocence. But innocence can go hand in hand with ignorance of what your government is doing to you. In the early years of the twentieth century, it became clear that British governments in the fifties were prepared to use people as guinea pigs in their military experiments. One spectacular example is the 1952 flood in the village of Lynmouth, widely believed to have been caused by experiments in affecting the weather. Worse, many veterans of the tests have incurred genetic disorders that have been passed on to their children. THE STYLE OF POLITICS Despite modern innovations such as the televising of Parliament, political life in Britain is still influenced by the traditional respect for privacy and love of secrecy. In both Parliament and government, there is a tendency for important decisions to be taken at informal meetings (at lunch, over drinks, in the corridors of power). There are many features of Parliament which cause its members (MPs) to feel a special sense of belonging, even when they have radically opposed political philosophies. First, Parliament has absolute control over its own affairs and is the highest power in the land. Second, there are the ancient traditions of procedure. Even the architecture of the Palace of Westminster (the home of Parliament) contributes to this feeling. It is so confusing and apparently unplanned that only “insiders” can find their way around in it. These features, together with long years of political stability, have led to a habit of genuine cooperation among politicians of different parties. The advantage is that very little time is wasted fighting about how political business is to be conducted fairly. By agreement, political parties are not allowed to buy time on television. Instead, each party is given a strict amount of time. The pairing system is an excellent example of the habit of cooperation among political parties in Britain: an MP of one party is “paired” with an MP of another party. When there is going to be a vote in the House of Commons, and the two MP know that they would vote on opposite sides, neither of them bother to turn up for the vote: the difference in numbers between on side and the other is maintained. Pagina 6 THE PARTY SYSTEM Britain is normally described as having a “two-party system”. This is because members of just two parties normally occupy more than 85% of all of the seats in the House of Commons and one of them, by itself, controls the government. During the 18th century, MPs tended to divide into two camps, those who usually supported the government and those who usually did not. During the 19th century, it became the habit that the party which did not control the government presented itself as an alternative government. The leader of the second biggest party in Parliament receives the title “Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition”, and even gets an extra salary for this role. He or she chooses a “shadow cabinet”, thereby presenting the image of a team ready to fill the shoes of the government at a moment’s notice. The main reason for their existence of the two parties was to gain power by forming an effective coalition of groups and opinions (the Labour party was formed outside Parliament and did exist to promote the interests of the working class). It is very difficult for smaller parties to challenge the dominance of the bigger ones. If any of them seem to have some good ideas, these are adopted by one of the big parties, who try to appeal to as large a section of the population as possible. Parties do not extend into every area of public life in the country (universities have their political party clubs). It is usually a party's MPs who have most control over party policy. Their members who are not MPs can have an effect on policy in a number of ways. First, they elect the party leader. Second, they can make their views known at the annual party conference. Third, the local party has the power to decide who is going to be the party’s candidate for MP in its area at the next election. Party policies are presented as potential government policies, and a party’s leading MPs as potential ministers. You don’t want to show the public your disagreements. Party conferences are always televised. A guide to British political parties ‣ Conservative Party: it was developed from the group of MPs known as the Tories in the early 19th century. Right of centre. It gives high priority to national defence and internal law and order. The traditional voters are the richer sections of society, plus a large minority of the working class. ‣ Labour Party: it was formed at the beginning of the 20th century from an alliance of trade unionists and intellectuals. First government in 1923. Left of centre, stands for equality, for the weaker people in society and more government involvement in the economy. The traditional voters is the working class, plus a small middle-class intelligentsia. The four main parties here present either the Protestant or the Catholic communities. ‣ Liberal Democratic party: it was formed in the late 1980s, from a union of the Liberals (who developed from the Whigs in the early 19th) and the Social Democrats. Regarded as centre or slightly left of centre. In favor of greater unification with the EU. ‣ Other parties: The Green party (environmentalists), The British National Party (BNP, against immigration) and the United Kingdom independence party (UKIP). Pagina 7 THE MONARCHY THE APPEARANCE From the evidence of written law only, the Queen has almost absolute power, and it all seems very undemocratic. There is no legal concept of “the people” at all. Every autumn, at the state opening of Parliament, Queen Elizabeth II makes a speech. In it, she says what “my government” intends to do in the coming year. She can choose anybody she likes to run the government for her; there are no restrictions on who she picks as her Prime Minister. If she gets fed up with her ministers, she can just dismiss them: they are all “servants of the crown”. In addition, nothing that Parliament has decided can become a law until she has given it the royal assent. Also the Queen embodies the law in the courts. THE REALITY The Queen cannot just choose anyone to be Prime Minister. She has to choose someone who will command majority support in the House of Commons: the person she chooses is the leader of the strongest party in the Commons. It is the Prime Minister who decides who the other ministers are going to be. The royal assent is so automatic that the Queen doesn’t even bother to give it in person: somebody else signs the documents for her. In reality, the Queen has almost no power at all. When se opens Parliament each year, the speech she makes has been written for her. The house of Windsor Windsor is the family name of the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth is only the fourth monarch with this name. It is because George V, Elizabeth’s grandfather, changed the family-name (it was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a german-sounding name). Treason! When the monarch had real power, the only way to change the government was to change the monarch. People who tried to do this were considered to be guilty of treason (the crime of plotting to overthrow the state). If caught, they were usually sentenced to death. This no longer happens. The last people to be executed for treason was Sir Roger Casement during the First World War; he wanted the independence from Britain for Ireland. He had plotted with the German enemy to help make this happen. Pagina 10 The royal family ‣ Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. This was the official title of the mother of Queen Elizabeth II. She died at the age of 101 in 2002. She remained popular until her death. Her husband was King George VI. ‣ Queen Elizabeth II was born in 1926 and became Queen in 1952. She is the second longest- reigning monarch in British history. ‣ Prince Philip Mountbatten married Queen Elizabeth II in 1947. ‣ Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, was born in 1948. As the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, he is heir to the throne. ‣ Princess Diana married Prince Charles in 1981. The couple separated in 1992 and later divorced. Diana died in a car accident in 1997. She was a glamorous figure and the public loved her. ‣ Camilla, Durchess of Cornwall married Prince Charles in 2005. Her long relationship with Charles is widely believed to have been a major cause of his separation from Diana. She is not very popular with the public. ‣ Princess Anne is the Queen’s daughter (also known as the Princess Royal), and was born in 1950. She separated from her husband after they had one son and one daughter. She married again in 1992. She is widely respected for the charity work. ‣ Prince Andrew, the Duke of York was born in 1960 and is the Queen’s second son. He is separated from his wife, they have two daughters. ‣ Prince Edward the Queen’s youngest son, was born in 1964. He married Sophie Rhys Jones in 1999. He and his wife are the Earl and Countess of Wessex. ‣ Prince William (born 1982) is the eldest son of Charles and Diana and therefore the next in line to the throne after his father. He and his brother Prince Henry (born 1984) have both embarked on military careers. Honours Twice a year, an Honours List is published. The people in the list are summoned to Buckingham Palace, where the Queen presents them with a token which entitles them to write (and be formally addressed with) KG, or KCB, or MBE. The letters stand for titles such as “Knight of the Order of the Garter”, “Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath”, “Member of the British Empire”. The monarch “honoured” a person as a reward for some service. These days, the decision about who gets which honour is usually taken by the Prime Minister. A high proportion of honours are given to politicians and civil servants, but they are also given to business people, sport stars, rock musicians and other entertainers. Pagina 11 THE ROLE OF THE MONARCH What is the monarch’s role? Three roles are often mentioned. First, the monarch is the personal embodiment of the government of the country. Because of the clear separation between the symbol of government (the Queen) and the actual government, changing the government does not threaten the stability of the country. Other countries without a monarch have to use something else as the symbol of the century. Second, it is argued that the monarch is a possible final check on a government that is becoming dictatorial. Just supposing the government managed to pass a bill through Parliament, the monarch could refuse the royal assent. Third, the monarch has a very practical role to play. By being a figurehead and representative of the country. Queen Elizabeth II can perform the ceremonial duties which heads of state often have to spend their time on. THE VALUE OF THE MONARCHY However, all these advantages are hypothetical. The real importance of the British monarchy is probably less to do with the system of government and more to do with social psychology and economics. The British royal family helps to bring into the country a lot of money and tourists. The monarchy gives British people a symbol of continuity, and a harmless outlet for expressions of national pride. Occasions such as the state opening of Parliament, the Queen’s official birthday and royal weddings, as well as everyday ceremonial events such as the changing of the guard, her to make up for the lack of pageantry in people’s lives. In addition, the glamorous lives of “the royals” provide a source of entertainment. The separation of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1992 was accompanied by vast amounts of discussion far beyond the possible political implications. THE FUTURE OF THE MONARCHY There is almost no public debate about the existence of the monarchy itself. Very few people in Britain would use “monarchist” of “republican/anti-monarchist” as a defining feature of their political beliefs. There is, however much debate about what kind of monarchy Britain should have. During the last two decades of the 20th century, various marital problems in her family lowered the prestige of royalty in many people’s eyes. The problem was that, since Queen Victoria’s reign, the public had been encouraged to look up to the royal family as a model of Christian family life. In 1936, Edward VIII, the uncle of the present Queen, was forced to abdicate because he wanted to marry an American woman who had divorced two husbands. He chose to marry her: the king’s abdication is an example of the power of romance. In 1977, there were neighborhoods street parties throughout the country, most of them spontaneously and voluntarily organized. But in 2002, nothing like this took place. In 2008, a government minister suggested that school children should be encouraged to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. The public showed little enthusiasm for this idea. The Queen herself is widely admired: this respect and affection for her will grow. Pagina 12 THE PRIME MINISTER The position of a British Prime Minister (PM) is in direct contrast to that of the monarch. The PM appears not to have much power but in reality has a very great deal. The traditional phrase describes the position of the PM within the cabinet as primus inter pares (Latin for “first among equals”). But in fact the other ministers are not nearly as powerful. The fiction is that the Queen appoints people to government jobs “on the advice of the Prime Minister”. But what actually happens is that the PM simply decides. The strength of the PM’s power of patronage is apparent from the modern phenomenon known as the “cabinet reshuffle”: it is the habit of the PM to change his or her cabinet quite frequently. Members are shuffled around, each getting a new department to look after. The second reason for a modern PM’s dominance over other ministers is the power of the public image. Everybody in the country can recognize the Prime Minister, while many cannot put a name to the faces od the other ministers. Third, all ministers except the PM are kept busy looking after their government departments. The cabinet office is directly under the PM’s control and works in the same building. Matters that are not discussed can be decided by the PM. The convention of collective responsibility then means that the rest of the government has to go along with whatever the PM has decided. No. 10 Downing Street is the official residence of the PM. It is an example of the traditional fiction that PMs are not important people. It is not even a detached house. The cabinet meets here and the cabinet office works here. The PM lives “above the shop” on the top floor. The Chancellor of the Exchequer lives next door at No. 11, and the Government Chief Whip at No. 12. In the media “Downing Street” is used to refer to the PM, the cabinet office and other close advisers of the PM. The PM also has an official country residence to the west of London called Chequers. THE CIVIL SERVICE In the middle of the 19th century, the structure of the modern civil service was established. The day-to-day running of the government and the implementation of its policy continue in the hands of the same people that were there with the previous government, the top rank of the civil service. Governments come and go, but the civil service remains. It is no accident that the most senior civil servant in a government department has the title of “Permanent Secretary”. Civil servants are unknown to the larger public. The British civil service is a career. Its senior positions are usually filled by people who have been working in it for 20 years or more. These people get a high salary, have absolute job security and stand a good chance of being awarded an official honour. It is often possible for top civil servants to exercise quite a lot of control over their ministers, and it is sometimes said that it is they, and not their ministers, who really govern the country. It seems, therefore, that career civil servants may be losing some of their former influence. Ministers began to appoint experts from outside the civil service to work on various projects, and their own political advisers to work alongside their civil servants. The British civil service has one “weapon”, which is the reputation for absolute political impartiality. Pagina 15 LOCAL GOVERNMENT In Britain local government authorities (generally known as “councils”) only have powers because the central government has given them powers. They only exist because of the central government. The system of local government is essentially the same as it is nationally. There are elected representatives called councillors (the equivalent of MPs), who meet in a council chamber in the Town Hall or County Hall (the equivalent of Parliament), where they make policy which is implemented by local government officers (the equivalent of civil servants). Local governments manage nearly all public services. Local councils have traditionally been fairly free of a constant central government interference. Local councils are allowed to collect one kind of tax. This is known as council tax and is based in the estimated value of a property. The money collected is not nearly enough to provide all the services. More than half of a local council’s income is given to it by the central government. The trend in the last half century has been towards greater control from central government. This is ironic because “devolution” (the redirecting of power from central government to local communities) is an idea that all political parties say they support. Recent governments have not given any more powers to local government bodies. instead, they have bypassed these bodies and given more autonomy directly to locally provided services such as schools and hospitals. Now local authorities can have a directly elected mayor (along American model). Local government services include public hygiene and environmental health inspection, rubbish collection (which is done by “dustmen”), the cleaning and tidying of all public places (which is done by “street sweepers”). The structure of local government outside London There are 32 local authorities in Scotland, 22 in Wales and 26 in Northern Ireland. In England outside London, there are hundreds of local units, more than 120, which answer directly to central government. ‣ Counties are the oldest divisions of the country in England and Wales. ‣ Parishes were originally villages centered around a local church. They became a unit of local government in the 19th century. ‣ Boroughs were originally towns that had grown large and important enough to be given their own powers, free of county control. Whitehall This is the name of the street in London which runs from Trafalgar Square to the Houses of Parliament. Many government departments are located here or in streets running off it. The term “Whitehall” is used as a way of referring to the administrative aspects of government. Moreover this one can be in disagreement with Downing Street. Pagina 16 THE PARLIAMENT The Parliament makes new laws, gives authority for the government to raise and spend money, keeps a close eye on government activities and discusses these activities. The British Parliament works in a large building called the Palace of Westminster (popularly known as “the Houses of Parliament”). This contains offices, committee rooms, restaurants, bars, libraries, and even some places of residence. It also contains two larger rooms. One of these is where the House of Lords holds its meetings. The other is where the House of Commons holds its meetings. The British Parliament is divided into these two “houses” and only members of the Commons are known as MPs (Members of Parliament). THE ATMOSPHERE OF PARLIAMENT The design and layout of the House of Commons differ from the interior of the parliament buildings in most other countries. There are just two rows of benches facing each other. On the left of the picture are the government benches, where the MPs of the governing party sit. On the right are the opposition benches. According to where they sit, MPs are seen to be either “for” the government (supporting it) or against it. This physical division is emphasized by the table on the floor of the House between the two rows of benches. This arrangement reinforces psychologically the reality of the British two- party system. There are no “cross-benches” for MPs. The Speaker’s Chair is also there. The speaker is the person who chairs and controls discussion in the House, decides which MP is going to speak next and makes sure that the rules od procedure are followed. The Speaker is, officially, the second most important “commoner” in the kingdom after the Prime Minister. The king was often very displeased with what the Commons had decided, this was not a pleasant task. Nobody wanted the job. They had to be forced to take it. MPs in the House always address the Speaker as “Mr Speaker” or “Madame Speaker”. The Commons has no special place for people to stand when they are speaking. MPs simply stand up and speak from wherever they are sitting. There are no desks for the MPs and the room itself is very small. There isn’t enough room for all the MPs. There are about 650 of them, but there is seating for fewer than 400. A candidate at an election is said to have won a “seat” in the Commons, but this seat is imaginary. MPs do not have their “own” place to sit. All these features result in a rather informal atmosphere: individual MPs are encouraged to cooperate. MPs normally speak in a rather conversational tone and do not speak for very long. It should be noted that after the House of Commons was badly damaged by bombing in 1941, it was deliberately rebuilt according to the old pattern (it reminds of a church with modern comforts such as central heating added). The ancient habit most noticeable forbids MPs to address one another by name. An MP who is speaking refers to or asks a question of “the honorable member for Winchester” or “my right honorable friend”, MP never says “you”. Pagina 17 The bill is sent to the House of Lords, where it goes through the same stages. After both Houses have reached agreement, the bill receives the royal assent and thus becomes an Act of Parliament. THE PARTY SYSTEM IN PARLIAMENT MPs know that they owe their position to their party, so they nearly always vote the way that their party tells them to. The people whose job is to make sure that MPs do this are called the Whips. Each of the two major parties has several MPs who perform this role. It is their job to inform all MPs in their party how they should vote. Therefore, when there is a division on such a matter, MPs are expected to go to the House and vote even if they have not been the during the debate. The Whips act as intermediaries between the backbenchers and the frontbench of a party. Sometimes, the major parties allow a “free vote”, when MPs vote according to their own beliefs and not according to party policy. Some quite important decisions allow TV cameras. THE HOUSE OF LORDS In the past, the government once asked a bill limiting the power of the Lords but they rejected it. The king let it be known that if the Lords rejected the same bills again, he would appoint hundreds of new pewees who would vote for the bills. The Lords agreed. From that time, a bill which had been agreed in the Commons for two years in a row could become law without the agreement of the Lords. For this reason, the House of Lords has no real power and only limited influence. Its role is a consultative one. In the Lords, bills can be discussed in more detail than the busy Commons has time for. In addition, the Lords act as a forum for discussion, and can sometimes bring to attention matters that the Commons has been ignoring. Its name suggests that its members are aristocrats. In fact, only a very small proportion of them are there by hereditary right. Until 1958, all of the Lords were indeed aristocrats. A law was passed which made it possible to award life peerages’ through the honours system. These gave people entitlement to sit in the Lords but not che children of these people. Political parties are especially keen to send their members who once belonged to the leadership of the party to the House of Lords. Informally this practice has become known as “being kicked upstairs”. In 1999, when the number of aristocrats with the right to sit in the Lords was limited to 92 (about 15% of the total members). At the same time, the numbers of life- peerage appointments was increased. Many people believe members should be elected. Because they are there for life, they do not have to worry about losing their positions. This means they can take decisions independently, purely on the merits of case. At present, they are appointed either on the recommendation of the PM, political parties or an independent body (2000) called the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Pagina 20 THE LAW THE POLICE AND THE PUBLIC There was a time when a typical British policeman could be found in every tourist brochure for Britain. The image of the friendly British “bobby”, with his fatherly manner, was also well-known within the country. The local bobby was a familiar figure on the local streets, a reassuring presence that people felt they could trust absolutely. But in the 1960s some young representatives of the counterculture started ti see the police as the symbol of everything that dislike about society. They became the “fuzz” or the “cops” or the “pigs”. Police dramas on all British TV channels depicted the imperfections of those who represent the law. The sight of a police officer no longer creates a general feeling of reassurance. In the 1980s and 1990s there were a large number of cases in which it was found that police officers had lied and cheated in order to get people convicted of crimes. As a result, trust in the honesty and incorruptibility of the police declined. Aware of this problem, police in this century invest much time and energy in public relations (officers have to wear name badges to make them seem more “human”). The organization of the police There is no national police force for Britain. All police employees work for one of the 50 or so separate forces, each with responsibility for a certain geographical area. The exception to this system is the Metropolitan Police, which polices Greater London and over which central government has more direct control. The “Met” performs certain national police functions. Miscarriages of justice In 1997, three men who had spent 17 years in prison were released. They were known as the Bridgewater four. Other well-known miscarriages of justice are known by the same formula. But the most famous miscarriages of justice occurred in connection with a series of pub bombings by the IRA in the 1970s: the police had falsified evidence and/or withheld other evidence and/or extracted confessions using illegal means. The image of crime and criminal procedure Most crime is committed by young men. But the section of society whose criminal behavior is increasing the fastest is pensioners! They feel increased pressure to maintain a high standard of living. The number of prisoners over the age of 65 has more than tripled since 1992. Pagina 21 CRIME AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE There is a widespread feeling among the British public that crime is increasing. The proportion of certain types of crime which is reported can vary over the years. It is impossible to say whether crime overall has increased in the last few decades. But what is certain is that the fear of crime has increased. This has gone together with a lack of confidence in the ability of the police to catch criminals. The police are not, of course, above the law. When they arrest somebody, they have to follow certain procedures. For example, they are not allowed to detain a person for more than 24 hours without formally charging that person with crime. Even after they have charged somebody, they need permission to remand that person in custody (for instance, to not let him or her go free) until the case is heard in court. “You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence”. An arrest is not legal without it. The caution was introduced because it was thought that the previous formula (“You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence”) made things too easy for criminals. The response to terrorism On 7 July 2005, four British citizens killed themselves and 48 other people by exploding bombs which they were carrying on underground trains and a bus in London: for this reason the length of time for which terrorist suspects can be detained up to 28 days without charge. This measure provoked opposition. It has been argued that terrorist cases are special because they are often very complex, so that it takes a long time to gather enough evidence to bring a charge. In 2008, the government successfully persuaded Parliament to extend this period to 42 days. THE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE The system of justice in England and Wales, in both civil and criminal cases, is an adversarial system: the main job of the court is not to find “the truth”, it must decide “yes” or “no” to a particular proposition (in criminal cases, that a certain person is guilty of a certain crime) after it has heard arguments and evidence from both sides. The civil justice system has its own courts. All civil cases go through County Courts and High Courts, to other, more specialized tribunals. More than 90% of all cases are dealt with in magistrates’ courts. Every town has one of these. In them, a panel of magistrates (usually three) passes judgement. In cases where they have decided somebody is guilty of a crime, they can also impose a punishment. If it is someone’s first offense, and the crime is a small one, even a guilty person is often discharged and can go free without a punishment. Pagina 22 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THE END OF EMPIRE In 1919 the British empire included Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. But at the international conference at which Britain acquired new possessions under the Treaty of Versailles, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa were all represented separately from Britain. The real dismantling of the empire took place in the twenty-five years following the Second World War. These days, Britain’s armed forces can no longer act unilaterally. Two events illustrate this. First, Suez. In 1956, Egypt took over the Suez canal from the international company owned by Britain and France. British and French military action to stop this was a diplomatic disaster. The USA did not support them and their troops were forced to withdraw. Second, Cyprus. When this country left the British empire, Britain became one of the guarantors of its independence from any other country. By the 1970s it was generally accepted that a ‘superpower’ conference involved only the USA and the Soviet Union because the Cuban missile crisis was resolved without reference to Britain. Some small remnants of the empire remain. Whatever their racial origins, the inhabitants of Gibraltar, St Helena, the Ascension Islands, the Falklands/Malvinas and Belize have all wished to continue with the imperial arrangement. For British governments, on the one hand this is a source of pride because it suggests how beneficial the British imperial administration must have been, but on the other hand it causes embarrassment because the possession of colonial territories does not fit with the image of a modern democratic state and irritation because it costs the British taxpayer money. The Commonwealth The dismantling of the British empire took place peacefully, so that good relations between Britain and the newly independent countries were established. As a result, and with the encouragement of Queen Elizabeth II, an international organization called the Commonwealth, composed of the countries that used to be part of the empire, has continued to hold annual meetings. Some countries in the Commonwealth have even kept the British monarch as head of state. There are no formal economic or political advantages involved in belonging to the Commonwealth, but it has helped to keep cultural contacts alive, and does at least mean that every year the leaders of a sixth of the world’s population sit down and talk together. Until quite recently it did have economic importance but since Britain became a full member of the EEC, all but a few of these agreements have gradually been discontinued. Pagina 25 Britain’s armed forces The loyalty of the leaders of the British armed forces to the government has not been in doubt since the Civil War. ‘National Service’ was abolished in 1957. It had never been very popular. The end of empire, together with the increasing mechanizations of the military, meant that it was more important to have small, professional forces staffed by specialists. Since the 1950s, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) has argued that Britain should cease to be a nuclear power. At certain periods the CND has had a lot of popular support. However, this support has not been consistent. Britain still has a nuclear force. The end of the ‘Cold War’ caused the British government to look for the ‘peace dividend’ and to reduce further the size of the armed forces. There is still a feeling in Britain that the country should be able to make significant contributions to international peacekeeping efforts. A career in the armed forces is still highly respectable. In fact, Britain’s armed forces are one of the few institutions that its people admit to being proud of. ‣ The senior service. This is a phrase sometimes used to describe the Royal Navy. It was the first of the three armed forces to be established. ‣ Greenham Common. This is the Royal Air Force base in Berkshire which became the focus for anti-nuclear campaigners in the 1980s. TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS Since the Second World War, British governments have often referred to the ‘special relationship which exists between Britain and the USA. Public feeling about the relationship is ambiguous. On the one hand, it is reassuring to be so diplomatically close to the most powerful nation in the world, and the shared language gives people some sense of brotherhood with Americans. On the other hand, there is mild bitterness about the power of the USA. In any case, the special relationship has inevitably declined in significance since Britain joined the European Community. In the world trade negotiations of the early 1990s, there was nothing special about Britain’s position with regard to the USA - it was just part of the European trading bloc. Is Britain really part of Europe? The government says it is, but look at this report from The Sunday Times of 18 April 1993. Britain bans EC medals. British members of the European Community monitoring mission in former Yugoslavia have been banned from a formal presentation of medals struck by the EC to honour their bravery. The British monitors have been told that they may only receive the medals privately and keep them as momentoes. They must never wear them on their uniforms because of government rules against the acceptance of decorations from ‘foreign powers’. Pagina 26 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE UNION: EUROPE As the empire disappeared, the British government decided to ask for membership of the newly- formed European Communities. From the very start, the British attitude to membership has been ambiguous. On the one hand, it is seen as an economic necessity and a political advantage. On the other hand, acceptance does not mean enthusiasm. The underlying attitude – that Britain is somehow special – has not really changed and there are fears that Britain is gradually giving up its autonomy. Changes in European domestic policy, social policy or sovereignty arrangements tend to be seen in Britain as a threat. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s it has been Britain more than any other member of the European Union which has slowed down progress towards further European unity. This ambiguous attitude can partly be explained by the fact that views about Britain’s position in Europe cut across political party lines. The British sausage Below is an extract from the script of the BBC satirical comedy, Yes, Prime Minister. It is part of a speech made by James Hacker MP, in which he expresses anti-European sentiments. It is fiction but it does capture part of the British attitude to Europe. Notice how sovereignty is not connected with matters of conventional political power, but rather with matters of everyday life and habits. Up yours, Delors This is the front page headline of the Sun. It gives voice to British dislike of the Brussels bureaucracy. Jacques Delors was president of the European Commission at the time. The expression ‘up yours’ is the spoken equivalent of a rude, two-fingered gesture. The full effect of the phrase is only possible if the French name ‘Delors’ is pronounced in an English way. The European history book Sir Francis Drake is a well-known English historical character. In 1588 he helped to defeat the Spanish Armada which was trying to invade England. In 1992 an EC history ‘textbook’ for secondary schools, written by a committee of historians, was published. The first version of the book decided that it it was the weather which caused the failure of the Spanish invasion, the second that it was Drake. The book was published at the same time in Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian and Portuguese. But no publisher for either a British or a Spanish edition could be found. Pagina 27 EDUCATION There are three recognized stages, with children moving from the first stage (primary) to the second stage (secondary) at around the age of eleven or twelve. Schools funded by the government, either directly or via local education authorities, are called state schools and state education. This distinguishes it from private education, which comprises independent schools. Some independent schools are known as public schools. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND British governments attached little importance to education until the end of the 19th century. It was one of the last countries in Europe to organize education for everybody. The government left alone the small group of schools which were used to educate the sons of the upper and upper- middle classes. At these “public” schools, the emphasis was on “character building” and the development of “team spirit” rather than on academic achievement. This involved the use of distinctive customs attitudes, clothes, and items of vocabulary. When the pupils from these schools finished their education, they formed the ruling elite, they formed a closed group. Historically, stereotypical public schools: ‣ are for boys only, from the age 13 onwards; ‣ take fee-paying pupils; ‣ are boarding schools (the boys live there during term-time); ‣ are divided into “houses”, each “house” being managed by a “housemaster”; ‣ make some of the senior boys “prefect”, which means that they have authority over the other boys and have their own servants called “fags”; ‣ place great emphases on team sports; ‣ use of physical punishment; ‣ are not at all luxurious of comfortable; Among the most famous public schools are Eton, Harrow, Rugby and Winchester. MODERN TIMES: THE EDUCATION DEBATES Before the election which brought the Labour Party to power in 1997, its leader, Tony Blair, declared that his three main priorities were “Education, education, education”. The British have long felt inadequate about their public educational provision. Debates about education in Britain centre around three matters: one of these in quality. For decades, there has been a widespread felling that British schoolchildren do not get taught properly and do not learn enough. Basic literacy and numeracy is informally known in Britain as “the three Rs”. These are reading, writing and arithmetic. Moreover, there is no doubt that Britain suffers from a chronic shortage of teachers: such is the shortage of teachers in Britain that thousands of foreign teachers are recruited every year. Why is it so hard for British schools to recruit, and keep, teachers? One reason is probably the tradition of English anti-intellectualism, which means both that it is often difficult to persuade pupils, especially boys, to be interested in learning and also that teachers in Britain have, in comparison with other European countries, rather low status. Pagina 30 Unfortunately, this status can sometimes become even worse precisely because of the general perception of poor educational standards. Teachers have to spend a lot of time being inspected and filling in forms to prove they are doing a proper job making the job seem even less attractive (teaching “Oscars”). The other response of British governments to the perceived deficiencies in quality of education has been to revise the national curriculum. This is the body of documents which specifies what children in state schools are supposed to learn at each stage in their school careers. Another aspect that is the subject of constant worry is social justice: the British are forever worrying about equal opportunities in education. If the politicians’ children are attending independent schools, there are loud cries of derision and protest. During the 1970s, most areas of the country scrapped the system in which children were separated at the age of 11 into those who went either to a grammar school, where they were taught academic subjects to prepare them for university, the professions or managerial jobs, or to a secondary modern school. It was noticed that the children which went to grammar schools were almost all from middle-class families; those who went to secondary moderns tended to be seen as “failures”, so the system seemed to reinforce class distinctions. Instead, from this time, most eleven-year-olds have all gone on to the same local schools. These schools are known as comprehensive schools. However the fact remains that most of the teenagers who get the best exam results, and who therefore progress to university, are those from relatively advantaged backgrounds. The gap between high earners and low earners has become wider than it used to be. It is almost impossible to provide real equality. Inevitably, the children of parents who care about education the most, especially if they have money, tend to get what they want for them. The only way in which this inequality could be reduced would be to ban all independent education and introduce lotteries for allocating places in secondary schools. Such measures conflict with the freedom of choice. The British dislike of uniformity is one reason why Britain’s schools got a national curriculum so much later than other European countries. For years now, educationalists, economists and official reports have been bemoaning the poor state of language-learning in British schools and the low level of foreign language ability in general among the British population. Fewer than ten per cent learn a foreign language beyond the age of 16. The present policy is to train a very small section of the population as language specialists. In Wales, pupils study both English and Welsh until the age of 16. Most schools develop, to some degree at least, a sense of distinctiveness. Many, for example, have their own uniforms for pupils and associations of former pupils. School uniforms Ever since it has been customary for pupils to wear school uniforms. When few children went to any kind of school, uniforms were a sign of status. When schooling became universal, most schools took this lead and insisted on their pupils wearing uniforms. During the 60s and 70s uniforms were regarded as a burden in the parents’ finances. For the last 20 years, however, the vast majority of parents are in favor of uniforms. These days buying a uniform is like to be less expensive than buying their children the fashionable clothes which they otherwise demand. There is still a large minority of schools in Britain which do not prescribe a uniform. Pagina 31 Summerhill and discipline It is a common belief that the pupils are very badly behaved. The school Summerhill was founded in 1923 by the educationalist, A.S.Neill, his vision was a for a school where children learnt because they wanted to, not because they were forced to. The present head Summerhill, who is Neill’s daughter and in theory just as committed to his ideals, says that they now get children coming along who are so selfish, so badly behaved. STYLE Traditionally, education in Britain gave learning for its own sake, rather than for any particular practical purpose. Concerns about the practical utility of education have resulted in the virtual disappearance of this attitude in the last 50 years. The national curriculum includes provision for the teaching of “citizenship” and of various other personal matters such as “sex and relationships education”. It also prescribes “physical education”. Indeed, British schools and universities have tended to give a high priority to sport. This idea is that it helps to develop the “complete” person. Sporting success enhances the reputation of an institution. Another reflex is that the approach to study tends to give priority to developing understanding and sophistication of approach over the accumulation of factual knowledge. People gain qualifications for certain professions: you can study architecture at university, but most architects have learnt their profession at a separate School of Architecture. Until recently, schools were not usually involved in helping people to get qualifications for skilled manual jobs such as bricklaying or carpenters or machine-operating. SCHOOL LIFE At the time of writing all children are guaranteed a free, part-time early education place (up to 12.5 hours per week) for up to two years before reaching compulsory school age, which is the age of 5, and the government has plans for all primary schools to be open from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. Even the present, the total number of hours in a year which children spend at school is longer than in other European countries. The typical school day starts around 9 a.m. and finishes between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. It includes a lunch break which usually lasts about an hour and a quarter. Schools usually divide their year into three “terms”, starting at the beginning of September. In addition, schools have a “half-term” (half-term holiday) lasting a few days or a week in the middle of each term: ‣ Autumn term ‣ Christmas Holiday (about 2 weeks) ‣ Spring term ‣ Easter Holiday (about 2 weeks) ‣ Summer term ‣ Summer Holiday (about 6 weeks) Methods of teaching vary, but there is most common a balance between formal lessons with the teacher at the front of the classroom, and activities in which children work in small groups round a table with the teacher supervising. Pagina 32 Types of university In 1960, there were fewer than 25 universities in the whole of Britain. By 1980, there were more than 40, and by now there are well over 100 institutions. ‣ Oxbridge: this name denotes the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Each college having its own staff, known as “fellow”. The fellows teach the college students, either one-to-one or in very small groups (“tutorials” in Oxford and “supervisors” in Cambridge). ‣ The old Scottish universities: by 1600, Scotland boasted four universities. They were Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St. Andrews. There is less specialization that at Oxbridge. ‣ The early 19th English universities: Durham University was founded in 1832. The University of London started in 1836 with just two colleges. ‣ The older civic (“redbrick”) universities: the buildings of the institutes of higher education were of local material, often brick, in contrast to the stone of older universities (industrial tows and cities, such as Birmingham, Manchester). ‣ The campus universities: these are purpose-built institutions located in the countryside outside a nearby town. They have accommodation for the students. ‣ The newer civic universities: these were originally technical colleges set up by local authorities in the first sixty years of this century. Then, in the early 1970s, they were allowed to teach degree courses. Twenty years later, most of these became universities. Pagina 35 FOOD AND DRINK British cuisine is the heritage of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom. Although Britain has a rich indigenous culinary tradition, its colonial history has profoundly enriched its native cooking traditions. British cuisine absorbed the cultural influences of its post-colonial territories – in particular those of South Asia. In ancient times Celtic agriculture and animal breeding produced a wide variety of foodstuffs for the indigenous Celts and Britons. Anglo-Saxon England developed meat and savoury herb stewing techniques before the practice became common in Europe. The Norman conquest introduced exotic spices into England in the Middle Ages. The British Empire facilitated a knowledge of Indian cuisine with its "strong, penetrating spices and herbs". Food rationing policies put into place by the British government during the wartime periods of the 20th century are widely considered today to be responsible for British cuisine's poor international reputation. Well-known traditional British dishes include full breakfast, fish and chips, the Christmas dinner, the Sunday roast, steak and kidney pie, shepherd's pie, and bangers and mash. People in Britain, however, eat a wide variety of foods based on the cuisines of Europe, India, and other parts of the world. British cuisine has many regional varieties within the broader categories of English, Scottish and Welsh cuisine and Northern Irish cuisine. Each has developed its own regional or local dishes, many of which are geographically indicated foods such as Cornish pasties, the Yorkshire pudding, Cumberland Sausage, Arbroath Smokie, and Welsh cakes. HISTORY OF FOOD Romano-British agriculture, highly fertile soils and advanced animal breeding produced a wide variety of very high quality foods for indigenous Romano-British people. Anglo-Saxon England developed meat and savoury herb stewing techniques and the Norman conquest reintroduced exotic spices and continental influences back into Great Britain in the Middle Ages as maritime Britain became a major player in the transcontinental spice trade for many centuries after. Following the Protestant Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries "plain and robust" food remained the mainstay of the British diet, reflecting tastes which are still shared with neighbouring north European countries and traditional North American Cuisine. In the 18th and 19th centuries, as the Colonial British Empire began to be influenced by India's elaborate food tradition of "strong, penetrating spices and herbs". The United Kingdom developed a worldwide reputation for the quality of British beef and pedigree bulls were exported to form the bloodline of major modern beef herds in the New World. Developments in plant breeding produced a multiplicity of fruit and vegetable varieties, with British disease-resistant rootstocks still used globally for fruits such as apples. During the World Wars of the 20th century difficulties of food supply were countered by official measures, which included rationing. The problem was worse in WWII, and the Ministry of Food was established to address the problems (see Rationing in the United Kingdom). Due to the economic problems following the war, rationing continued for some years, and in some aspects was more strict than during wartime. Rationing was not fully lifted until almost a decade after war ended in Europe, so that a whole generation was raised without access to many previously common ingredients. These policies, put Pagina 36 in place by the British government during wartime periods of the 20th century, are often blamed for the decline of British cuisine in the 20th century. The last half of the 20th century saw an increase in the availability of a greater range of good quality fresh products and greater willingness by many sections of the British population to vary their diets and select dishes from other cultures such as those of Italy and India. Efforts have been made to re-introduce pre-20th-century recipes. Ingredients not native to the islands, particularly herbs and spices, are frequently added to traditional dishes (echoing the highly spiced nature of much British food in the medieval era). Much of Modern British cooking also draws heavily on influences from Mediterranean, and more recently, Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines. The traditional influence of northern and central European cuisines is significant but fading. The mid-20th-century British style of cooking emerged as a response to the depressing food rationing that persisted for several years after the Second World War, along with restrictions on foreign currency exchange, making travel difficult. A hunger for exotic cooking was satisfied by writers such as Elizabeth David, who from 1950 produced evocative books, starting with A Book of Mediterranean Food, whose ingredients were then often impossible to find in Britain. Pagina 37 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NATIONAL PRESS: SEX AND SCANDAL The other feature of the national press is its shallowness. Some of the tabloids have almost given up even the pretence of dealing with serious matters. Apart from sport, their pages are full of little except stories about the private lives of famous people. Sometimes their stories are not articles at all, they are just excuses to show pictures of almost naked women. The desire to attract more readers at all costs has meant that even the broadsheets in Britain can look rather ‘popular’ when compared to equivalent ‘quality’ papers in some other countries. They are still serious newspapers containing high-quality articles whose presentation of factual information is usually reliable. But even they now give a lot of coverage to news with a ‘human interest’ angle when they have the opportunity. This emphasis on revealing the details of people’s private lives has led to discussion about the possible need to restrict the freedom of the press. This is because the press has found itself in conflict with another British principle, the right to privacy. Many journalists now appear to spend their time trying to discover the most sensational secrets of well-known personalities. Complaints regarding invasions of privacy are dealf with by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). This organization is made up of newspaper editors and journalists. The press is supposed to regulate itself. It follows a Code of Practice which sets limits on the extent to which newspapers should publish details of people’s private lives. Many people are not happy and various governments have tried to formulate laws on the matter. However, against the right to privacy the press has successfully been able to oppose the concept of the public’s ‘right to know’. Most people don’t use newspapers for ‘serious’ news. For this, they turn to another source – broadcasting. The rest of the press If you go into any well-stocked newsagent’s in Britain, you will not only find newspapers. You will also see rows and rows of magazines catering for almost every imaginable taste and specializing in almost every imaginable pastime. Among these publications there are a few weeklies dealing with news and current affairs. The Economist is of the same type as Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel and L’Express. It is fairly obviously right-wing in its views, it has the reputation of being one of the best weeklies in the world. The New Statesman and Society is the left-wing equivalent of The Economist and is equally serious and well-written. Private Eye is a satirical magazine which makes fun of all parties and politicians, and also makes fun of the mainstream press. It specializes in political scandal and is forever defending itself in legal actions. Although its humour is often very ‘schoolboyish’, it is also well-written and it is said that no politician can resist reading it. The country’s bestselling magazine is the Radio Times, which, as well as listing all the television and radio programmes for the coming week, contains some fifty pages of articles. Pagina 40 High ideals and independence The reference to one man in the inscription on the right, which is found in the entrance to Broadcasting House (headquarters of the BBC), is appropriate. British politicians were slow to appreciate the social significance of ‘the wireless’. Moreover, being British, they did not like the idea of having to debate culture in Parliament. They were only too happy to leave the matter to a suitable organization and its director general, John Reith. Reith saw in radio an opportunity for ‘education’ and initiation into ‘high culture’ for the masses. He included light entertainment in the programming, but only as a way of capturing an audience for the more ‘important’ programmes of classical music and drama, and the discussions of various topics by famous academics and authors. THE BBC The BBC has the reputation for being ‘the mother of information services’. Its reputation for impartiality and objectivity in news reporting is largely justified. Whenever it is accused of bias by one side of the political spectrum, it can always point out that the other side has complained of the same thing at some other time, so the complaints are evenlybalanced. Interestingly, though, this independence is as much the result of habit and common agreement as it is the result of its legal status. It is true that it depends neither on advertising nor on the government for its income. It gets this from the licence free which everybody who uses a television set has to pay. However, the government decides how much this free is going to be, appoints the BBC’s board of governors and its director general, has the right to veto any BBC programme before it has been transmitted and even has the right to take away the BBC’s licence to broadcast. In theory, therefore, it would be easy for a government to influence what the BBC does. Nevertheless, partly by historical accident, the BBC began, right from the start, to establish its effective independence and its reputation for impartiality. In 1932 the BBC World Service was set up, with a licence to broadcast first to the empire and then to other parts of the world. During the Second World War it became identified with the principles of democracy and free speech. In this way the BBC’s fame became international. The BBC also runs five national radio stations inside Britain and several local ones. BBC radio ‣ Radio 1 began broadcasting in 1967. Devoted almost entirely to pop music, its birth was a signal that popular youth culture could no longer be ignored by the country’s established institutions ‣ Radio 2 broadcasts mainly light music and chat shows ‣ Radio 3 is devoted to classical music ‣ Radio 4 broadcasts a variety of programmes, from plays and comedy shows to consumer advice programmes and in-depth news coverage ‣ Radio 5 is largely given over to sports coverage and news Pagina 41 Two particular radio programmes should be mentioned. Soap operas are normally associated with television, but The Archers is actually the longest-running soap in the world. It describes itself as an everyday story of country folk’. It has become so famous that everybody in Britain knows about it and tourist attractions have been designed to capitalize on its fame. Another radio ‘institution’ is the live commentary of cricket Test Matches in the summer. TELEVISION: ORGANIZATION In terms of the size of its audience, television has long since taken over from radio as the most significant form of broadcasting in Britain. Its independence from government interference is largely a matter of tacit agreement. Most recent cases have involved Northern Ireland. For a brief period starting in the late 1980s, the government broke with the convention of non-interference and banned the transmission of interviews with members of outlawed organization on television. The BBC’s response was to make a mockery of this law by showing such interviews on the screen with an actor’s voice dubbed over the moving mouth of the interviewee. There is no advertising on the BBC. Independent Television (ITV) gets its money from the advertisements it screens. It consists of a number of privately owned companies, each of which is responsible for programming in different parts of the country on the single channel given to it. When commercial television began, it was feared that advertisers would have too much control over programming and that the new channel would exhibit all the worst features of tabloid journalism. The Labour party, in opposition at the time of its introduction, was absolutely against it. Over the years these fears have proved to be unfounded. Commercial television in Britain has not developed the habit of showing programmes sponsored by manufacturers. There has recently been some relaxation of this policy, but advertisers have never had the influence over programming that they have had in the USA. Most importantly for the structure of commercial television, ITV news programmes are not made by individual television companies. Independent Television News (ITN) is owned jointly by all of them. For this and other reasons, it has always been protected from commercial influence. There is no significant difference between the style and content of the news on ITV and that on the BBC. The same fears about the quality of television programmes that were expressed when ITV started are now heard with regard to satellite and cable television. However, only about a third of households receive satellite and/or cable, and so far these channels have not significantly reduced the viewing figures for the main national channels. Glued to the goggle box. As long ago as 1953, it was estimated that twenty million viewers watched the BBC’s coverage of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. By 1970, 94% of British households had a television set, mostly rented rather than bought. Now, 99% of households own or rent a television and the most popular programmes are watched by many people. Television broadcasting in Britain has expanded to fill every part of every day of the week. ITV never takes a break and the others broadcast from around six in the morning until after midnight. Television news is watched every day by more than half of the population. Pagina 42 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF BRITISH ARTS AND LETTERS If there is one characteristic of British work in the arts that seems to stand out, it is its lack of identification with wider intellectual trends. It is not usually ideologically committed, nor associated with particular political movements. Writing of British novelists and poets is typically naturalistic and is not connected with particular intellectual movements. In any field of the arts, even those in which British artists have strong international reputations, it is difficult to identify a ‘British school’. The style of the arts also tends to be conventional. The avant-garde exists, of course, but, with the possible exception of painting and sculpture, it is not through such work that British artists become famous. There appears to be a general assumption in Britain that artistic creation is a personal affair, not a social one, and that therefore the flowering of artistic talent cannot be engineered. Annual arts festivals ‣ Aldeburgh: June, East Anglia. Classical music ‣ Edinburgh International Festival: August. All the performing arts, including avant-garde. World famous. The Proms: July-September, London. Classical music ‣ ‘Proms’ is short for ‘promenades’, so- called because most of the seats are taken out of the Albert Hall, where the concerts take place, and the audience stands or walks around instead ‣ Glyndebourne: All summer, In the grounds of a large country house in Sussex. Opera ‣ Royal National Eisteddfod: July, Wales. Music, poetry and dance from many different countries. Mostly in the form of competitions, with special categories for Welsh performing arts ‣ Glastonbury and Reading: Probably the two most well-established rock music festivals. The Bradford and Cambridge festivals emphasize folk music THEATRE AND CINEMA The theatre has always been very strong in Britain. Its centre is London, where successful plays can sometimes run without a break for many years. But every large town in the country has its theatres. Even small towns often have ‘repertory’ theatres, where different plays are performed for short periods by the same group of professional actors. The country’s most successful and respected playwrights are usually those who explore the darker side of the personality and of personal relationships. British theatre is much admired. As a consequence, it is something that British actors are proud of. Many of the most well-known television actors, though they might make most of their money in this latter medium, continue to see themselves as first and foremost theatre actors. In contrast, the cinema in Britain is often regarded as not quite part of ‘the arts’ at all – it is simply entertainment. Partly for this reason, Britain is unique among the large European countries in giving almost no financial help to its film industry. As a result, comparatively few films of quality are made in the country. Pagina 45 British films ‣ Chariots of Fire (1981) ‣ Gregory’s Girl (1981) ‣ Gandhi (1982) ‣ A Letter to Brezhnev (1985) ‣ My Beautiful Launderette (1985) ‣ A Room with a View (1985) ‣ A Fish Called Wanda (1988) ‣ Shirley Valentine (1989) ‣ Henry V (1989) ‣ Howard’s End (1992) ‣ The Crying Game (1992) ‣ Much Ado About Nothing (1993) ‣ Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) ‣ The Full Monty (1997) ‣ Notting Hill (1999) MUSIC Classical music in Britain is a minority interest. Few classical musicians become well known to the general public. In the 1960s, British artists had a great influence on the development of music in the modern, or ‘pop’ idiom. The Beatles and other British groups were responsible for several innovations which were then adopted by popular musicians in the USA and the rest of the world. These included the writing of words and music by the performers themselves. The words of their songs also helped to liberate the pop idiom from its former limitation to the topics of love and teenage affection. Other British artists in groups such as Pink Floyd and Cream played a major part in making the musical structure of pop music similarly more sophisticated. Since the 1960s, popular music in Britain has been an enormous and profitable industry. The Beatles were awarded the honour for their services to British exports. Some well-known arts venues The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford is the home of the Royal Shakespeare Company. All the other venues mentioned here are in London. Theatres include the Old Vic, the Mermaid, the Royal Court and the Barbican. For opera and ballet, there is the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and the Coliseum. The arts and television There are now only a quarter of the number of cinema seats in Britain as there were in 1965. This decline is generally assumed to be the result of the popularity of television. The making of some high-quality British films has only been possible because of the financial help of Channel 4. The BBC regularly commissions new works of music for the proms. Pagina 46 Mountains of books! For the really scholarly reader, the British Library has more than 10 million volumes. At present, the library is obliged to house a copy of every book published in the country. By 1993, its collection was expanding. LITERATURE The British are enthusiastic readers. Many people in the literary world say that British literature lost its way at the end of the twentieth century. The last British author to win the Nobel Prize for literature was William Golding, in 1983. A lot of the exciting new literature written in English and published in Britain in recent years has been written by people from outside Britain. The Booker Prize is the most important prize in Britain for a work of fiction. The vast majority of the books that are read in Britain could not be classified as ‘serious’ literature. Britain is the home of what might be called ‘middlebrow’ literature. There are many British authors, mostly female, who write novels which are sometimes classified as ‘romances’ but which are actually deeper and more serious than that term often implies. In 1993 more than half of the hundred most-borrowed books from Britain’s public libraries were romantic novels. Many were of the middlebrow type. The rest were more simplistic stories about romance. The British publisher which sells more books than any other is Mill & Boon, whose books are exclusively of this type. It is more than 200 years since poetry stopped being the normal mode of literary self-expression. And yet, poetry is surprisingly, and increasingly, popular in Britain. Many poets are asked to do readings of their work on radio and at arts festivals. Their writing is accessible to non-specialists. A child could do that! British people often complain about modern abstract painting by saying, ‘It doesn’t look very special to me. A child of four could do that’. Well, in 1993 a child of four did do it. One of the paintings offered to the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts for its annual exhibition was a work called Rhythm of the Trees. The Academy’s experts liked it and included it in the exhibition. Only later did they discover that its creator, Carly Johnson, was four years old. The news of this discovery was greatly enjoyed by the whole of Britain. Everybody loves it when experts are made to look like fools, especially when they are experts about something that most people don’t understand. It did not occur to many people to think that perhaps a child genius had been discovered. Pagina 47