Population And Demographics
The reigning monarch is Queen Elizabeth II whose main residence is in Buckingham Palace in London. Although titled as a kingdom, the UK is in fact a democracy with its seat of Government situated in the capital city London at the Houses of Parliament.
The Government is divided into two levels known as houses – the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The head of the Government is the Prime Minister who leads the House of Commons and it’s in this House where locally elected representatives, known as Members of Parliament, sit and debate issues of national concern and agree national laws. In addition to the national government, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate parliamentary bodies to deal with some local matters such as health and education.
The UK is divided into administrative units (often referred to as local government or local authorities) where local issues are addressed by local councils. The community is represented on these authorities by locally elected Councillors. Details of your local Councillor can be obtained from your local authority. All of these authorities need to raise income for the provision of services such as waste collection and road maintenance. This is done through local ‘council tax’.
Over the centuries Britain has welcomed people from all over the world both as residents and as tourists. Having embraced people of different ethnic origin and religion it’s now seen as a genuinely multi-cultural country with a population in excess of 60 million.
Having said that, 92% of the population is white and the predominant religion is Christian, but Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism and others are all practised in various parts of the Country.
The Queen, her links to British law and her role as head of the Church of England demonstrates the link between Christianity and the State.
Comments
In my opinion the UK and the World they are have the ideas and capacity for the adaptation the all cultures in a only place.
good morning for all i am new here and i hope that past a good moment with all
it was a great topic!!!! I've learned a lot of things from this material !!! thank you British Council.!!
Religion and the state has been always connected since you read the Bible..Why is it like that? maybe because human beings make mistakes, when this happen, religious are near to show the way, even though all religions believe in God and even they know His ten Commands...people don´t worry about them any more, every one thinks I'm the first, the second and the third... they get selfish... to survive you do whatever is at your handle now-a-days... and as consequence today many people look for a better future; so they immigrate. And to create a multicultural society is hard when the immigrant doesn' t have in mind he should respect the country where he is received.
The truth about religion in the British Islands is an interesting theme for academics. Despite many differences of points of view, nowadays most recognize that the roots of Christianity came from the Catholic Monasteries. These houses were not only a source of faith but also of knowledge. I got a sad feeling when I saw the pictures of those beautiful historic buildings that were torn down in York by the hate of those that wanted power for them upon the people.
many information were new to me actually.
good luck
england taday represts the world's culture since it was great empire ''sun naver goes down in our empire '' so now it holds the hestorical responsability over prevoise sattelments ''indea ....''
In my opinion the UK and the World they are have the ideas and the capacity for the adaptation the all cultures in a only place
In Britain, religion and state are not separated, but practitioners of any religion have many rights. I think this system allows a lot of freedom. Even if the Church of England is the official church, there are a lot of Protestant churches that have a social role for everyone (as the Salvation Army).
Religion is also a part of identity for a country, such as language, history, way of life. Giving up its official religion, it might be like giving up a part of identity.
I think it is difficult to create a genuinely multicultural society, because the world loses its diversity.
To create a multi cultural sorciety. First this is expanding all the time and government are doing there best in very difficult times to encouage this, but we must go back to the grass roots, in this education must play a big part in this, everyone can play a part in this, you first must take a look at statistic's and how the sorciety is made up over all, a lot of things are said in all areas that are not true.
The sorciety has to stop segragation of people. Differant race's and ethnic backgrounds thend to segragate into small area's this is very difficult to change, but if you had more contact with differant people, you would be alble to understand them and respect what is important to them, and they would develope a understanding about you.