Lesson video

Hello and welcome to our pronouncement lesson in this unit, where today we are going to look at the differences between the UK and the U S political systems. Now as always for today's lesson, you are going to need a pen and some paper to write on, and you are going to need that quiet working space.

If you've also got some highlighters or some different colours, that will be great.

And you are going to need to access some resources in the downloadable document if you choose.

Once you grab all of that, I will give you a few seconds to pause the video now, and then resume once you are ready to start today's lesson.

In today's lesson, as always, we are going to split into three key elements.

First of all, we're going to recap how the UK political system works, how it's set up and who is involved.

Then we're going to look up the political system in the USA.

And again, look up who is involved and how that is set up.

Then we're going to consolidate what are different and what are similar about both countries political makeup.

Now to get us started and thinking about how the USA and the United Kingdom may be similar or how they may be different.

What I've got for you is this question matrix.

Now you can see that each question, is available for different points.

So if you choose, how did, that would be one point, if you choose, who could, that'd be worth two points.

And if you say, why does, that was worth four points.

What I'd like you to do, is using that image on the right hand side of your screen, the USA and the United Kingdom flag merged together.

I'd like you to use the question matrix to formulate at least three questions.

So your first task is to choose one of the columns in green, so how, what, where, who and why.

And then twin that with, did, made, could, kind of will, is, or does.

That will then give you some question starters, and I want you to use that image as a starting point to ask three questions.

I want to see, how many points can you accumulate.

So once you ask the questions add up the skull, and then we can see how many points you have got.

So you can pause the video now, and complete that task and press resume once you are finished.

Okay, so these are just some questions that I have thought of.

You might have more, you might have different questions for the boxes that I've chosen, but I've said, how did the relationship between the UK and the USA start? What might happen if they disagree on issues? What is the difference/similarities between the countries? Where does the power rest with both countries? Who can be considered responsible for the relationship? And why is the relationship between the countries special? So I would add all of those up and give myself a total.

So you can do the same there, and then I'll tell you how you can submit that at the end.

First of all, we're going to look at the politics in the United Kingdom.

And we have touched upon this in previous lessons.

We're going to recap the key features of politics in the United Kingdom.

So, as we've discussed, the King or queen, the monarchy is considered to be the head of state.

And the prime minister is considered to be the head of the government.

And this is because the United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy, with a constitutional Monarch.

So the queen has the head of state role and then passes the power to the leading prime minister of the time.

Remember we looked at how they were appointed, and we said that the constitutional monarchy that they have this Royal line of succession.

So it's already predetermined who is next in line to the throne, and who will then be, that will be passed down to.

So as we've discussed the queen and her role at the moment, the next in line of succession should be Prince Charles.

And then it should be Prince William.

And they are known as heirs to the throne.

So it's already predetermined who will succeed, the previous Monarch.

The prime minister, however, is appointed on behalf of the queen or the King at the time.

And that goes to the leader of the party who wins the most votes in a general election.

And what they have to do is they have to, once they have the results from the election, go over to Buckingham palace and meet the queen.

And they seek permission to form a government in her name.

And it's a really, really formal process.

It's a really, really important process.

And that's where the prime minister is, I guess you can say employed, appointed into his or her position.

So in the United Kingdom, we've got three branches of power.

Now we've got the ledgers.

We can't say that word, can we? The legislature, the executive and the judiciary.

And they each formulate, a different role within the government.

So the legislature is the parliamentary body.

And that's made up of the two houses of parliament.

The house of Commons in the primary chamber, and the House of Lords.

Now, The House of Commons are elected.

They are your members of parliament, whereas The House of Lords, we can discuss that in other lessons, but they are appointed in a different way.

Then we have the executive.

And this is the prime minister and his, or her cabinet at the time.

And they form the executive branch.

They are responsible for policymaking.

And then they put that through to the legislature, and they can then put the laws to parliament.

To me important to understand, that we have something called, an uncodified constitution in the United Kingdom.

And that just means that it's not written down in one place.

Okay, now the authority, the ultimate authority lies with the monarchs or currently lies with the queen.

And then that duty is then fulfilled by the prime minister.

Our third branch is the judiciary, and the judges in England and Wales form the judicial branch.

And as we've said before, they do not create new law.

They can interpret existing law in different ways.

So if parliament passed through a piece of legislation and they can interpret that in a different way, they will do, and then it's up to the executive or the legislature to maybe adopt the laws that they've put forward.

Some of the key facts for the United Kingdom, political makeup, as we've said, we have an uncodified constitution and that's not written down in one place.

You can start to vote from the age of 18, as long as you have registered to vote, and you're on the electoral roll.

Criminal law is set by parliament.

Okay, So there is no regional differences.

So we looked at the makeup of regional governments.

All laws in the United Kingdom, criminal wise are the same.

The cabinet is the form of the executive branch.

And that's made up of ministers, who don't always have expertise in an area.

So they rely on the civil servants.

So the ministers of the cabinet usually are responsible for health or education.

And if they don't have expertise barrier, they rely on the civil servants within those departments to assist them.

Now, the ministers who make up the cabinet, also have to be part of either the house of commons or the house of Lords.

So part of the executive branch, is also in the legislative branch.

And that is you have to, it's a must.

They have to be part of that process.

The prime minister then, leads the cabinet meetings.

So he or her at the time is responsible for the chair of those cabinet meetings, and those important issues that they're discussing each week.

What I'd like you to do, is either draw the following table, or this is attached to your resources with this lesson.

So you can print that out if you've got it at home.

What I'd like you to do is, using the information that we've just said, could you now fill in the column for the United Kingdom? So who is the head of state? Who is the head of the government? What is the name of their parliaments? How many branches of power do they have and what are they? What type of constitution does the United Kingdom have? Who makes up the cabinet? And any other facts.

So to say, you can either draw that table or use the resources that are provided for you.

So you can pause the video now to complete the task of filling in the table for the United Kingdom political makeup.

Okay, so you should have the following.

So the monarchy, which is the current queen, is considered to be the head of state.

The prime minister is considered to be the head of the government.

And the name of our two parliaments are the house of commons and the house of Lords.

We have three branches of power, the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary.

We have an uncodified constitution.

The cabinet is made up and is chosen by the prime minister.

And they have to be members of the house of commons or the house of laws as the HoC and the HoL.

And other facts, you are able to vote from the age of 18.

So now that we've got the United Kingdom makeup, what we're going to do is now look up the politics in the United States of America.

So throughout the next part of the lesson, I want you to start looking at how are we different and how are we similar? Well in the United States, the power lies with a head of state and the head of government, both who are occupied by the ruling president of the United States of America.

Okay, so unlike the UK, the head of state and the head of government is occupied by one person.

So that is the elected president.

Now in America, they also have something called federal law and something called state law.

Now the United States is divided into 50 individual States.

And a federal government, a federal system, is a Government is one, that's divided into parts of the national federal system, so they split them up into States and form local governments and States.

So the federal system looks after the entirety of America, whereas state law focuses on that specific state.

So they are free to tinker with some laws where they see fit for their individual states or their local regions.

But ultimately there are these federal charges that look after the entirety of the country.

And we'll break that down for you now.

So the federal system, they are laws that apply throughout the United States and they apply to every person in every state.

And these are things like immigration, bankruptcy, civil rights, and federal laws like tax fraud and counterfeit money laundering.

If we go down to a state level, each of the 50 States have territories within the United States, although States are broken up into smaller areas, towns, and cities, et cetera.

And each has its own system of laws, and its own court system.

And they can deal with matters such as criminal law, divorce and civil matters.

So disputes between people.

If we then split it down further into the local areas, so the different counties, cities, towns, and villages in each states, each have some power, and they each have their own system of laws and courts, and they handle small matters like parking and property renting.

So something we don't have in the United Kingdom, having different federal and state law because in the United Kingdom, we look up the United Kingdom laws as a whole, Okay.

Now the powers in America, are split up just the same as the United Kingdom.

So they have three branches of power, and they have three branches of government.

Each have a role to play ensuring democracy exists within their country.

So again, with the legislature, this body is known as Congress.

Okay, unlike in England and United Kingdom, where we have the houses of parliament.

Now, similarly to the UK, the USA's Congress is a bicameral house and that it has two chambers.

So we have the house of representatives and the Senate.

So both the house of representatives and the Senate make up the Congress.

That's opposed to the house of commons and the house of Lords who make up parliament.

The executive branch then, is the president and his, or her cabinet.

And the president does not have any position within the legislature.

Okay, so that's very different to how we have in the United Kingdom, because remember, if you are for part of the cabinet, if you are part of the prime minister's team, then you have that position in parliament.

Whereas in America, you cannot have that position in their Congress, if you are part of the executive branch.

The judiciary then, the judges in the Supreme court and in federal court are the judicial branch.

And again, they do not create new law, but they can decide that a law can be something called unconstitutional and decide not to apply it.

So America have these constitutional rights.

They have a codified constitution, unlike the UK's uncodified constitution.

And the judges can decide, that if they do not think it's constitutional, if they do not think that ideas to people's rights, they can decide not to apply that.

And then they pass that down to the executive until the legislature to sort of amend, what has gone wrong in their opinion.

How that looks in practise then, okay, we've got the three different colours there.

One for the president, one for Congress and one for the courts.

Now the president is responsible for appointing the judges, in the judicial system and the Supreme courts.

And also any laws that are passed by Congress, the president can veto.

So the president can decide not to sign.

With Congress, Congress can pass laws, or the president's vetoes, so they can overrule the president, if they wish, that they see fit.

And also over the judicial branch, the Senate can approve appointments and can also remove judges from their position.

The courts then, can declare any laws set by the president as been unconstitutional, that's not fit for purpose.

And they can also declare unconstitutional law, over the Congress.

So you can see that the branches of power have similar functions to the UK, but they all have that sort of element of control over each other.

Now, as we've said, other key facts.

The United States of America have something called a codified constitution.

And that is written down in one document.

The presidential cabinet is made up of experts, in a particular area, such as health and education.

So unlike the kingdom where perhaps they're not experts in their fields, the cabinet is made up of experts and advisors in that area.

As we've said then, the cabinet members can not be members of the Congress.

And also you might find it peculiar that the president doesn't have to attend his cabinet meetings.

One thing that the president has is something called a vice president.

So if the president is ever out of the country, the vice president can stand in on his or her behalf.

And finally, you can vote at the age of 18, but you can register in some States earlier.

So if you are 17 and within a set time period of being 18, and there's an election coming up, you can register to vote earlier.

So what we'd like to do now is go back to that table that you drew up and I'd like you to now fill in using the information that we've just gone through.

Can you fill in the table for the US political system? So pause the video now, and complete that task, and then press resume once you are finished.

Okay, so you should have the following information.

That the president holds both the position of the head of state and the head of government.

The names of the parliament is the house of representatives and the Senate, together they known as the Congress.

They have exactly the same three branches of the power and the three separate branches.

Unlike the United Kingdom, they have a codified constitution.

Their cabinet makeup is chosen by the president, and they cannot be members of the Congress.

And other facts, you can vote at 18, but you can register before hand in some States.

Okay, so now that you've got a definitive list of what happens in the UK and in the US, what we need to look at now, is how are they similar and how are they different? So again, using the resources that I provided for you, or you can just draw two circles, or you can present this in a table if you wish.

I'm not prescriptive on how you present this information.

But what I'd like to do, is look at how the UK is different, how the U S is different, and then how are they similar? So if you are using a Venn diagram like this, all you need to do is draw two circles, that wobble up.

How are they similar goes in the middle, where that crossover between the circles exists.

And then the bigger part of the circles is how are they different? So use that table that we've got, look at how they are different and put those in either sides, and then put how they are similar in the middle.

So again, for the final time, this lesson, we're going to assess the differences and the similarities.

So use the Venn diagram or the completed table, and analyse how the UK and US political systems are similar, and how they are different.

So pause the video now, and then you can complete that task and then press resume once you are finished.

Okay, so this is just my breakup, Okay.

So with the United Kingdom, I've said that the constitutional Monarch, is the head of state.

The executive branch has to be a member of the house of commons, or the house of lords.

And we have an uncodified constitution.

On the other side, the elected president acts as the head of State.

The executive branch is not allowed to be member of Congress, and they have a codified constitution.

In the middle then, how are they similar? We both got three branches of power.

The head of government is elected by the people, and both have two houses in the parliament makeup.

Okay, that brings us to the end of today's lesson.

So today what we've done is we've looked at the political system in the United Kingdom.

Remember, we've looked at who is involved and how it's setup, we've done exactly the same with the USA.

So who's involved, and how that's setup then we've consolidated what are similar and what are different about both countries political makeup.

As a bit of a takeaway task then, every four years in November.

So in 2020, and then in 2024, the USA hold an election to decide who is going to be their president for the next four years.

So it's a bit of a takeaway task for you.

What I'd like you to do is write us what happened in the weeks running up to the elections, and what happens after the election.

You might want to go back further, so you could start looking at them now, and looking at wherever you are in terms of timeline, up until November, and then look at what happens afterwards.

And then going forward, if you want to look forward to 2024, and really look at when it starts, feel free to do that.

And you can almost draw a timeline.

So what I'd like you to do is, find out who is running for the presidency, find out what happens before and find out what happens after.

And again, I'm really excited to see all of your work and especially the questions that you submitted or that you've wrote down at the start of the lesson.

So if you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, using the tag @OakNational and using the #LearnwithOak.

I'm really interested to see how many of you, can get many, many points, okay? Now you can use the same question STEM.

So we'll try and create that little bit of competition on who can get the most points, okay.

One thing I have to ask you now, is that can you please complete the exit quiz so that you can really consolidate today's learning and to make sure that you have that knowledge secure in your minds.

Join me next time for our final lesson in this unit where we're going to recap everything that we've learned, and we've got something really fun planned.

But until then, thank you for watching and I'll see you again next time.