The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy which, by legislation and convention, operates as a unitary parliamentary democracy. A hereditary monarch, currently King Charles III, serves as head of state while the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, currently Sir Keir Starmer since 2024, serves as the head of the elected government.
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, was a British Conservative statesman who twice was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and simultaneously was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1834–1835). He previously was Home Secretary twice. He is regarded as the father of modern British policing, owing to his founding of the Metropolitan Police while he was Home Secretary. Peel was one of the founders of the modern Conservative Party.
John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, known as Lord John Russell before 1861, was a British Whig and Liberal statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1846 to 1852 and again from 1865 to 1866.
Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, known as Lord Stanley from 1834 to 1851, was a British statesman and Conservative politician who served three times as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. To date, he is the longest-serving leader of the Conservative Party (1846–68). He is one of only four British prime ministers to have three or more separate periods in office. However, his ministries each lasted less than two years and totalled three years and 280 days. Derby introduced the state education system in Ireland, and reformed Parliament.
The 1922 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 15 November 1922. It was won by the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law, which gained an overall majority over the Labour Party, led by J. R. Clynes, and a divided Liberal Party.
The 1852 United Kingdom general election was held between 7 July 1852 and 31 July 1852 to elect members of the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was a watershed in the formation of the modern political parties of Britain. Following 1852, the Tory/Conservative party became, more completely, the party of the rural aristocracy, while the Whig/Liberal party became the party of the rising urban bourgeoisie in Britain. The results of the election were extremely close in terms of the numbers of seats won by the two main parties.
A hung parliament is a term used in legislatures primarily under the Westminster system to describe a situation in which no single political party or pre-existing coalition has an absolute majority of legislators in a parliament or other legislature. This situation is also known as a balanced parliament, or—for local government in the United Kingdom—a parliament under no overall control (NOC). A hung parliament may result in a coalition government, a minority government, or a snap election if a government cannot be formed.
The Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, more commonly referred to as the Leader of the Opposition, is the person who leads the Official Opposition in the United Kingdom. The position is seen as the shadow head of government of the United Kingdom and thus the shadow prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Richmond (Yorks) was a constituency in North Yorkshire in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It was represented from 1910 by members of the Conservative Party. The last MP for Richmond was Rishi Sunak, the former Prime Minister and Conservative leader from 2022 to 2024.
Ipswich is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since July 2024 by Jack Abbott of the Labour Party.
Henry Grattan was an Irish politician, who was Member of Parliament for Dublin City on behalf of the Whigs from 1826 to 1830 in the British House of Commons. From 1831 to 1852, he represented Meath for the Repeal Association.
In parliamentary politics, balance of power is a situation in which one or more members of a parliamentary or similar chamber can by their uncommitted vote enable a party to attain and remain in minority government. The term may also be applied to the members who hold that position. The members holding the balance of power may guarantee their support for a government by either joining it in a coalition government or by an assurance that they will vote against any motion of no confidence in the government or will abstain in such a vote. In return for such a commitment, such members may demand legislative or policy commitments from the party they are to support. A person or party may also hold a balance of power in a chamber without any commitment to government, in which case both the government and opposition groupings may on occasion need to negotiate for that person's or party's support.
A vote of no confidence in the British Labour government of James Callaghan occurred on 28 March 1979. The vote was brought by the Official Opposition leader Margaret Thatcher and was lost by the Labour government by one vote, which was announced at 10:19 pm. The result mandated a general election that was won by Thatcher's Conservative Party. The last time an election had been forced by the House of Commons was in 1924, when Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour prime minister, lost a vote of confidence. Labour politician Roy Hattersley later remarked that the vote marked "the last rites" of Old Labour. Labour did not return to government for another eighteen years, with New Labour ideology. The BBC has referred to the vote as "one of the most dramatic nights in Westminster history".
In the United Kingdom, confidence motions are a means of testing the support of the government (executive) in a legislative body, and for the legislature to remove the government from office. A confidence motion may take the form of either a vote of confidence, usually put forward by the government, or a vote of no confidence, usually proposed by the opposition. When such a motion is put to a vote in the legislature, if a vote of confidence is defeated, or a vote of no confidence is passed, then the incumbent government must resign, or call a general election.
The vote of no confidence in the second Salisbury ministry occurred when the Conservative government of Robert Cecil, the Marquess of Salisbury decided to meet Parliament after the general election despite not winning a majority. The government presented a Queen's Speech, but was defeated on 11 August 1892 when the House of Commons carried by 350 to 310 an amendment moved by the opposition Liberal Party declaring that Her Majesty's "present advisers" did not possess the confidence of the House. After the vote Salisbury resigned and Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone became Prime Minister for the fourth time.
Victoria Grace Ford is a British politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Chelmsford from 2017 to 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, she briefly served as Minister of State for Development from 6 September to 25 October 2022.
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which, for the first time, set in legislation a default fixed election date for general elections in the United Kingdom. It remained in force until 2022, when it was repealed. Since then, as before its passage, elections are required by law to be held at least once every five years, but can be called earlier if the prime minister advises the monarch to exercise the royal prerogative to do so. Prime ministers have often employed this mechanism to call an election before the end of their five-year term, sometimes fairly early in it. Critics have said this gives an unfair advantage to the incumbent prime minister, allowing them to call a general election at a time that suits them electorally. While it was in force, the FTPA removed this longstanding power of the prime minister.
2010s in United Kingdom history refers to significant political and societal historical events in the United Kingdom in the 2010s, presented as a historical overview in narrative format.
