When the Prime Minister announces that there will be a General Election, the three-week election campaign includes open meetings, television programmes, candidates and their supporters knocking at your door and discussing issues, leaflets, politicians 'meeting the people' and listening to their complaints. In each constituency the candidates will publish their manifesto describing the different polices of their party towards such matters as tax, health and education, how to treat criminals, attitudes to world affairs. They tell us about their particular interests and ask to be elected as servants of the people. On Election Day, each person in the country who wants to vote goes to the polling station just as you do, collects a voting paper which has a list of candidates and marks an 'X' beside the one candidate they wish to be elected. There is no 'Against All Candidates' option. In each constituency, the candidate with most votes wins in a simple 'first-past-the-post' system. He or she does not have to have 51 % of the vote - all that is necessary is more votes than anyone else. (See discussion of voting systems, below.)
Let us examine what happens with an imaginary example during the early years of the twenty-first century. At this imaginary election the Conservative Party wins because the results of the election produce a Parliament consisting of 300 Conservative MPs, 200 Labour MPs, 110 Liberal Democrat members and 40 MPs from Northern Ireland and the small nationalist parties. The Conservative Party has the largest number of members in Parliament, so it has to form the Government. The person who is already the leader of the Conservative Party automatically becomes Prime Minister. There is no separate election for him (as there is for a President in your system) and he is not appointed by anyone. He is elected by the members of the political party to which he belongs. (If the Labour Party had gained more seats in Parliament, its leader would have been Prime Minister.)
At this election a certain Mr Dombey receives most votes in the (imaginary) constituency of Oaktown. He was the Conservative candidate at the election, and is now a proud and excited Member of Parliament. What does his new job require of him?
First, he joins the Conservative Party members in Parliament. They sit together in our House of Commons. He needs to inform himself as much as possible about all the proposed laws which are being discussed in Parliament, although already he knows a great deal because he has been preparing for this moment for three years. He listens to debates and sometimes takes part in those debates on proposed new laws and changes to old laws. Mr Dombey has a special interest in Transport, so he regularly speaks in debates on those occasions when a major new road is being discussed, or novel schemes for controlling traffic in cities. Outside Parliament he investigates the problems, talks to specialists, and becomes an expert on transport. He develops strong views which he can back up with evidence. In Parliament he will usually vote with his Party when new laws and regulations are being debated, although if a very controversial Bill (proposed new law) is being debated he may return to the party members of his Constituency Conservative Party to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this law with them.
After two or three years he may be asked to join a Select Committee on Transport. There are Select Committees on all aspects of policy and legislation. This Committee contains MPs from all parties who are experts or experienced in problems of transport. Mr Dombey will spend a lot of time working in this committee, listening to expert advice and discussing the choices for action with the other committee members. They will issue detailed reports to which he contributes. Select Committees try to avoid discussing problems along party lines. Mr Dombey often finds himself agreeing with two of the Labour Party members in committee and the Scottish Nationalists, rather the other Conservatives.
Besides his Parliamentary duties, he also has a duty to attend to the problems of any Oaktown voter who asks for help, whether or not that voter voted for him. He is responsible to everyone in the constituency. Most MPs spend two days a week in their constituency, holding regular meetings to which any member of the public can come and ask for help. Constituents also write to him about their local problems or express views about national problems. They may, for example, be trying to save a local hospital which is about to be closed because the authorities want to build a new bigger hospital thirty kilometres away. Many of Mr Dombey's constituents prefer their old neighbourhood hospital. Mr Dombey will discuss this conflict of wishes with the Minister for Health and report back to his constituents about the decision. He may continue to argue on this problem and even mention it in Parliament. Mr Dombey has an assistant to help him answer the letters and deal with the problems his constituents bring to him. He will keep his constituents informed of what he is doing through the local paper and his own website.
So he has to balance his time attending debates in the House of Commons, time taking part in a Select Committee, time doing research on Conservative policies and time looking after the interests of his constituents. As you can imagine, some politicians are better at one role than another, but they are going to be judged on all of them.
That is the job of an ordinary MP. What is the role of the Government?
Unlike most democratic systems in which the Government is appointed separately from Parliament, in our system the Government (the Prime Minister and other Ministers) are all people who are also Members of Parliament. In this case the Conservatives won the election, so their leader (let us call him Mr Copperfield) becomes Prime Minster. He looks at all the Conservative Members of Parliament and chooses those whom he thinks will make the best Ministers. Some of them have old-fashioned titles. He needs a Home Secretary, a Foreign Secretary, and a Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister). These are the key posts. He also needs Ministers for Health, Education, Employment, Transport, etc. etc. Each Prime Minister arranges the Ministers and their jobs in a slightly different way. Mr Copperfield is very concerned about the environment and climate change so he appoints a special Minister for the Environment.
The Prime Minister and the most important Ministers form the Cabinet of about 30 members which meets weekly and effectively rules the country. It initiates policy on domestic problems, and also has to decide what action to take in foreign affairs - such as the British response to actions taken by Russia. Above all, it plans the economic and financial policy for the country: what should be done about taxes, prices, wages, benefits and so on. Individual members of the Cabinet cannot possibly know about all these problems, so each Minister has to propose policies which are then debated. Once the Cabinet has decided on a policy, all members must agree to support it. (If anyone insists on the right to disagree in public, he has to resign as Minister and leave the government.) Without such united commitment we would have chaos and anarchy rather than workable policies. Government proposals are then put to the Members of Parliament for debate. As members of Parliament they can discuss and vote as they wish. But because Mr Copperfield's Ministers are chosen from people who are already Members of Parliament, he controls, in effect, many people in Parliament. Moreover, all members of his party are expected to vote loyally for Government policies; if they do so, he can be assured of turning his Cabinet's policies into law.