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Welcome to the number one United Kingdom news blog where you will find only the most current news and happenings in the U.K. On our site you will find links to other top up news sources such as BBC and CNN, as well as historical referrences like the CIA Factbook. Be sure to continue to visit our site for the latest in English news!
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Fatal wartime Tube crush marked


It was one of Britain's worst civilian disasters during World War II. On the evening of 3 March, 1943, a crowd of people were descending the steps into Bethnal Green underground station to take shelter from an impending air-raid. Suddenly, they surged forward and in the crush 173 people were killed and more than 90 injured.

A high proportion of the victims were women and children, some younger ones babes-in-arms or holding hands, as they made their way down the stairs. The disaster happened on one small stairwell, in the capital city, as people followed their routine to take cover from the coming bombs.




During WWII 173 people died in a crushing. All of this happened on one small stairwell. this awful event took a long time to unfold because of the wartime attitude.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Why Churchill Lost in 1945


Between 1940 and 1945 Winston Churchill was probably the most popular British prime minister of all time. In May 1945 his approval rating in the opinion polls, which had never fallen below 78 per cent, stood at 83 per cent. With few exceptions, politicians and commentators confidently predicted that he would lead the Conservatives to victory at the forthcoming general election. '... it is hard to imagine anyone who could have played the role of national leader with greater success than Churchill ...'

In the event, he led them to one of their greatest ever defeats. It was also one for which he was partly responsible, because the very qualities that had made him a great leader in war were ill-suited to domestic politics in peacetime.Politicians are often rejected by voters because they have failed in office. But one of the reasons why Churchill lost the general election in 1945 was because he had succeeded in completing the almost superhuman task he had taken on in 1940, and in a way this made him redundant.

His first act as prime minister in 1940 was to invite the leaders of the Labour, Liberal and Conservative parties - Attlee, Sinclair and Chamberlain - to serve in a Coalition Government. This became the administration, robustly surviving external shocks and internal quarrels, that mobilised the British for total war, and it is hard to imagine anyone who could have played the role of national leader with greater success than Churchill did at that time.




This article is important because it focuses on one of if not Britains most like Prime Ministers and why he was not re-elected after his big World War II victory , this is one of historys biggest mystery. I suggest reading this full article.

Friday, February 15, 2008

History of the Labour Party


The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom. Founded in the early 20th century, it has been since the 1920s the principal party of the left in England, Scotland and Wales (but not in Northern Ireland, where the Social Democratic and Labour Party occupies a roughly similar position on the political spectrum). It has formed the national government of the United Kingdom since 1997. It is also the largest party in the Welsh Assembly Government in Wales and the second largest party in the Scottish Parliament. It holds the London mayoralty and is represented in the European Parliament. Its current leader is Gordon Brown.

The Labour Party surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives in the early 1920s. It has had several spells in government, first as minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-31, then as a junior partner in the wartime coalition from 1940-1945, and then as a majority government, under Clement Attlee in 1945-51 and under Harold Wilson in 1964-70. Labour was in government again in 1974-79, under Wilson and then James Callaghan, though with a precarious and declining majority.

New Labour won a landslide 179 seat majority in the 1997 general election under the leadership of Tony Blair, its first general election victory since October 1974 and the first general election since 1970 in which it had exceeded 40% of the popular vote. The Labour Party's large majority in the House of Commons was slightly reduced to 167 in the 2001 general election and more substantially reduced to 66 in 2005.

Read the full article here.

The British Labour party has been one of the single most influential parties in the U.K. It has been the primary political leader in Parliament since its existance.

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

History of the U.K.'s Political Parties


Prior to the mid-19th century politics in the United Kingdom were dominated by the Whigs and the Tories. These were not political parties in the modern sense but somewhat loose alliances of interests and individuals. The Whigs were associated with the newly emerging moneyed industrial classes, and the Tories were associated with the landed gentry, the Church of England and the Church of Scotland.

By the mid 19th century the Tories had evolved into the Conservative Party, and the Whigs had evolved into the Liberal Party.

These two parties dominated the political scene until the 1920s, when the Liberal Party declined in popularity and suffered a long stream of resignations. It was replaced as the main left-wing party by the newly emerging Labour Party, who represented an alliance between the trades unions and various socialist societies.

Since then the Conservative and Labour Parties have dominated British politics, and have alternated in government ever since. The UK is nearly but not quite a two-party system however. The Liberals merged with the Social Democrats because they had very similar views and became the Liberal Democrats which are now a sizeable third party whose electoral results have improved in recent years.



This article provides a brief history on the origin of the U.K.'s political party system.
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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

History of the United Kingdom



The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the sovereign state or realm comprising England, Scotland, Wales (together Great Britain) and Northern Ireland. For over one hundred years it also included the territory of what is now the Republic of Ireland.

The state began to take its present shape with the Acts of Union in 1707, which united the crowns and Parliaments of England and Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. A further Act of Union in 1800 joined the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Irish Free State gained independence in 1922, leaving Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. As a result, in 1927 Britain changed its formal title to "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland",[1] usually shortened to "the United Kingdom", "the UK" or "Britain".



To read the full history click here.


This is a significant article because it describes the establishment and the development of the U.K.