British Prime Minister Research Articles

The Death of Queen Elizabeth, the Death of the British Empire

The life of Elizabeth Windsor famously kmown by her title Queen Elizabeth the second, is one of mixed realites she is the longest reigning British Monarch in history having set on the throne for 70 years. The reign of Elizabeth was born from the greatest times of the British Empire with many colonies and a great reputation of the empire after the defeat of the Germans in World war 2. Queen Elizabeth has been credited in overseeing the end of colonisation from the British empire by many African states who were under British colonial rule. She facilitated for negotiations in some cases between liberation war movements and the colonial governments on peaceful ways of transfering power. Her Queen`s government even went on to sanction Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia when it declared independence from Britain, the sanctions were as a result that her majesty`s government would only accept independence if it was given to the majority black africans of Rhodesia. The British economy under her rule had prospered beyond unimaginable dought with the British pound being the most powerful currency, the attractiveness of the pound attracted great minds from across the globe which helped improve the British economy and advanced its technological base. The common wealth of nations an organisation the Queen championed has had success in cooperation between Britain its former colonies and other countries that were not British colonies have since joined the organisation because of its successes. This paper seeks to show how the British economy, social base and its political prowess has suffered from the days that the Queen became sick to her subsequent death and the aftermath. Policies like the Brexit that was carried out during her old age and its impact of Britain will be visited upon in this article, the Irish referendum, the removal of the British Mornach as heard of state by carribean nations that belonged to the British realm. The paper seeks to show how Elizabeth Windsor was the glue that bonded British modern society and the survival of the British monarch without her is under threat.In her life Queen Elizabeth worked with 15 British Prime Ministers from diverse parties sharing diferent ideologies this showed her to be a democratic monarch. This paper will expand on the front of the death of monarchs and empires in the modern era and Elizabeth Winsdor being the last great monarch.

PECULARITIES CONCERNING THE TRANSLATION OF POLITICAL SPEECHES IN THE MODERN PERIOD

The article is devoted to the study of the terminology of political discourse in modern English and the ways of its transmission in the process of translation. The difference between translation and paraphrase or summary, or any kind of adaptation, lies in the correctness and completeness of the information transference. Nowadays, the language is used not only as a means of forming and expressing thoughts, but also as a means of concealing them. In the context of political struggle and the process of transition in the world, the awareness of the fact that political discourse is a linguistic and cultural problem is becoming increasingly stronger. Difficulties in translating political discourse texts are often related to the fact that the boundaries between certain types of political texts are not always clearly defined in scientific research, which makes this topic relevant. Since political discourse is created for the speakers of a particular culture, the translator faces a number of additional challenges when interpreting it into another language. The purpose of translation is to convey the essence of the original thought as accurately as possible to a reader (listener) who does not know the source language. To translate means to express correctly and completely, using the tools of one language, what has already been expressed earlier by means of another language. That is why the purpose of this article is to identify the ways to preserve the fullness of meaning when translating political texts from English into Ukrainian. To define the concept of political discourse; to study the main characteristics of political speeches as a subtype of political discourse; to identify the features of English political speeches; to analyze the ways of translating speeches into Ukrainian. Modern political discourse is characterized by a number of specific features. The point here is not only the use of specific vocabulary determined by political activity, but also in the proper selection and organization of certain structures of expression in accordance with the pragmatic guidelines. Today, in both Ukrainian and foreign societies, the ability of language to influence people's attitudes to facts and events, in particular the impact of language on the political sphere is quite clear, which makes scholars interested in the language of politics. In order to reproduce certain characteristics of the speech in translation, the translator sometimes needs to use translation grammatical transformations, which are changes in the grammatical character of a word, phrase or sentence in the translation. To analyze political speeches, we have taken the speech of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Munich Security Conference and the speech of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a joint session of both houses of the US Congress.

Analysis of the Impact on the Labour Market after the British Prime Minister and Government Policy Change

Britain's economic situation is facing severe challenges following the failure of Liz Truss's mini-budget policy, and a series of fallouts is affecting the UK. After taking office, the Rishi Sunak government's policy direction should be necessary for workers' lives. This article focuses on the Labour market and analyses the factors contributing to the current state of the UK labour market. Economic development and labour interests should be balanced. The article is mainly based on qualitative analysis and economics theories. Data are sourced from the UK’s Office for National Statistics, mainstream press institutions, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, etc. In conclusion, the policies are suggested to ensure the interest and basic living standard of laborer’s as it is better for long-term development and future construction.

Tax Cuts Impact on the Economy from the Perspective of Debt and Exchange Rate

In September of 2022, the newly inaugurated British Prime Minister, Liz Truss, introduced an ambitious policy involving significant tax cuts to stimulate the economy swamped by the COVID-19 pandemic. Regrettably, her ambitious plan eventually led to financial insolvency and catastrophically impacted on the UK's economic growth. Through the rigorous examination and analysis of data, this article primarily attributes her failure to the absence of consumer confidence and the outflow of capital, which were consequences of the substantial currency devaluation caused by the surging government debt. Then, the article draws comparisons between the UK's tax cut and successful case studies from the United States and China, which effectively managed the side effects of expansive tax cuts or similar policies that led to substantial increases in government debt. The findings argue that tax reduction policies cannot yield favorable outcomes unless they are the US with global currency status or in nations like China which can largely eliminate the currency devaluation by a governmental control on exchange rates.

The brace of the cabinet: the legacy of Clement Attlee as deputy prime minister

ABSTRACT The position of the UK deputy prime minister is clouded in mystery. The title suggests a minster of some seniority, one likely to step in for an absent premier to chair a cabinet meeting or perform at prime minister’s questions (PMQs) – but that is merely supposition. No official statement exists to explain the functions the position entails or indeed to confirm that it endures as anything more substantial than a courtesy title. Using archive material and other resources, this article will try to expose this constitutional phantom. To achieve this task, there will be close examination of the first individual to be publicly announced – in February 1942 – as the UK’s deputy prime minister, Clement Attlee. Though there will be discussion of some of the tasks Attlee performed in this capacity (tasks which have influenced the development of deputy prime ministership as an institution), the primary purpose of this article is to help lift some of the constitutional smog. In particular, it will illuminate why – in contrast to analogous positions such as the US vice president – the British deputy prime minister is still not regarded as any more likely to succeed a prime minister than any other senior minister.

Study on the Effectiveness of Commitment Speech Act from the Perspective of Force Dynamics Theory

Commitment speech acts play an important role in various fields, but compared to other speech acts, they have not yet received sufficient attention. In political discourse, the implementation frequency of commitment speech acts is quite high, while their usage characteristics, pragmatic strategies, and the influence of social domain factors still need to be explored. The correct implementation of commitment speech acts is helpful to achieve the purpose of communication and promote the success of communication. Therefore, based on Talmy’s force-dynamic theory, this paper collects relevant language materials of commitment speech acts contained in British Prime Minister’s “Brexit” political speech discourse, attempts to consider pragmatic factors on the basis of the force-dynamics model to construct force dynamics models about commitment speech acts for analysis. By analyzing the working mechanism between internal and external parameters in force dynamic schema under different promise strategies, this paper explores the action mode of “illocutionary force” in speech acts of commitment and the implementation path of commissives under the influence of social domain factors and other factors. This paper interprets commitment speech act from the cognitive perspective, expecting to broaden the research paradigm of commitment speech acts and provide ideas for future multi-dimensional study on speech act theory.

Ireland’s Role in British Colonial Capitalism: “Men of Capitals” and Pitt’s Irish Proposals, 1784–1785

AbstractIn April 1785, the British prime minister, William Pitt, proposed to give Ireland “compleat liberty and equality” with Britain “in matters of trade.” Historians cast the stakes around Pitt’s “Irish” proposals in terms of ideologies about trade, but this paper focuses on the concrete economic issues involved. It shows that Pitt’s proposals emerged from years of debates in which contemporaries conceived of the British Atlantic economy in terms of an integration of trade, shipping, and credit that evokes a British system of colonial capitalism. Ireland’s dependent relationship to that system, and the perceived failure of “free trade” to overcome its poverty, generated a battle among Irish “improvers” over rival plans to attract “men of capitals” to Ireland. Pitt played an important role in this fierce Irish debate by favoring one plan, but the British prime minister and his main Irish advisor, Thomas Orde, were never convinced by that plan’s logic of improvement, supporting it instead for fiscal reasons. That calculus made Pitt’s proposals vulnerable to attack from economic interests in Britain that took Ireland’s plans for economic improvement more seriously.

Britain’s global ambitions post Brexit in the light of geopolitics

On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom officially left the European Union after almost half a century of membership “to take back control of its borders”, free to fulfil its world ambitions. This was the view held by Theresa May’s former Foreign Secretary, then British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. In June 2021, he formally launched his “global Britain” strategy in the wake of the G7 summit that he hosted in Cornwall. He never clearly explained what “Global Britain” really meant. The closer he came to define it was in March 2021 when his government published its “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy” entitled “Global Britain in a Competitive Age”, setting Britain’s foreign policy agenda for the years to come. The latter presented the Indo-Pacific as one of the key priorities of the UK, a “global leader” in terms of defence, intelligence, cyber-security, and diplomacy, as a response to a more and more assertive China. Russia for its part was identified as a major threat to Britain’s security. The Commonwealth, which played a pivotal role until the 1970s, was hardly mentioned at all. One might wonder whether the UK post-Brexit has the necessary resources and clear strategy to reclaim its status as a world-leading nation in an international context characterized by much instability. Britain’s global ambitions post Brexit will therefore be examined in the light of geopolitics which considers not only geographic factors, but also countries’ national interests to provide a better understanding of their behaviour and political objectives on the world stage.

The Linguistic and Cultural Type of the British Prime Minister as A Subject of Linguistic Study

The Linguistic and Cultural Type of the British Prime Minister as A Subject of Linguistic Study

Ideological motivation and economic policy on examples of high-ranking bureaucracy’s actions (part 1)

It is considered interdependence of ideological motivation and pursuing economic policy, role of high-ranking bureaucracy in the decision-making process, significance of mentality and of historical-juridical heritage on Russia’s, Cuba’s, Venezuela’s, Serb Republic in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s examples. It is analyzed the deliberate renunciation of mercantilist and protectionist traditions in modern France and Germany, genuine motives of Euro-commission’s strategy, role of so called «the economic establishment» in dismissals of the British Prime-Ministers without to hold an general election.

The Essence of High-Tech Warfare in the Organizational and Institutional Security Theory of State Administration

At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, fundamental changes occurred in the field of international security. The world community faced fundamentally new challenges and threats. In many regions of the world, interstate rivalry was observed, which led to the outbreak of local wars and military conflicts, which mostly took the form of armed confrontation. Technological progress, the presence of significant military power, the demonstration of determination and its use transformed social relations into more conflictual ones. Gradually, more and more countries of the world are involved in local wars and military conflicts. In this context, it should be noted that the intensity and scale of hostilities during the last thirty years, which took place in different corners of the globe, testify to the growth of dynamic changes in the situation in the combat zone during the use of international coalition forces. At the same time, the strict implementation of the requirements for stable, continuous, operational and covert management of troops during their performance of combat missions prompts the world's leading countries to develop and implement new concepts of information networks and systems. It should be noted that future wars will depend on high-tech intelligence. The priority is to identify the enemy first, before he notices you; blind the enemy's sensors, be it drones or satellites; and disrupt their means and data channels, whether through cyberattacks, electronic warfare, or old-fashioned firepower. Armies will have to develop new forms and methods of application, relying on mobility, dispersion, camouflage and deception measures. Large armies that fail to invest in new technology or develop new doctrine will be overwhelmed by smaller ones that do. "We have to recognize that the old concepts of fighting large tank battles on European land are over," said Boris Johnson, the UK's prime minister, in November 2021. "There are other, more important things in which we should invest. Cyber technologies, this will be the war of the future." Three months later, Russia invaded Ukraine. So, the work defines the problem of incomplete compliance of the current state and readiness of the security and defense sector with regard to the requirements of effective countermeasures against threats to national security and their neutralization, the task of improving this activity, regarding the creation of unified management and communication systems, and horizontal connections are defined connections of these systems and electronic communication networks, which in the future will undoubtedly affect the safe functioning of the national segment of cyberspace.

Conceptual integration as a mechanism of formation and intertextual functioning of the “blood, sweat and tears” quotation

The article researches into the conceptually underpinned formation and intertextual instantiation of the quotation “blood, sweat and tears”, which has a high reference potential for English-speaking cultures. Conceptual integration processes are key for the emergence of the metaphtonymic meaning of the quotation and its compositional stability, transformation potential and models of intertextual instantiation. The metaphtonymic meaning of this quotation is shaped as a result of conceptual integration of three input spaces, represented by the metaphtonymies BLOOD (for ‘human sacrifice’), SWEAT (for ‘human toil’) and TEARS (for ‘human suffering’), which blend to generate the meaning “backbreaking painful sacrifice”. The specific metaphtonymy underpinning the emergence of the “blood, sweat and tears” quote guides its intertextual instantiation as a result of the processes of conceptual integration following the metaphoric “container” model, verbalized with the verbs “to put”/”to pour”. The quote under analysis is predominantly used in publicistic texts, as such context provides their authors with an opportunity to create a positive association with the personality of Winston Churchill, who used it in his famous speech as a model British Prime-Minister figure and thus enabled its further intertextual functioning. Intertextual instantiation of the “blood, sweat and tears” quotation can be modelled as a multi-scope blend generating multi-dimensional meanings. The adopted research perspective unlocks the explanatory potential of the theory of intertextuality due to the application of the theory of conceptual blending to the processes of formation and intertextual instantiation of the quotation as a referenced phenomenon.

The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), Profits and Poverty: Historicizing A Persisting Dilemma

This paper surveyed the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), its agenda, strength and weaknesses vis-à-vis the raison d’etre for its establishment. It appraised the gains accruing to Africa in contradistinction to that of the developed world which discerned a yearning disparity. For Tony Blair (a former British Prime Minister), this partnership was not just about aid in its totality, it was not only about what we give, Africa needed our support and we needed Africa to succeed. It was how altruistic the likes of Tony Blair were that necessitated the review of the activities of NEPAD and its effect on Africa that claimed its patent. This was against the background of a persisting underdevelopment, especially the economic, of African countries and the poverty of their citizens. The manipulative operations of International Financial Institutions (IMF, World Bank-IBRD, among others) opened up African economies to exploitation with the unarguable connivance of rich multinational corporations and consultancy firms who maximized their profits from Africa’s misery and helplessness. The paper concluded that Western corporate power in Africa was a monster with a thousand stomachs, insatiable for profits. For Africans, this was a hard stuff to swallow - but corporate greed knew no limits. The comparative and the analytical were adopted.

More than a memento mori? Assessing the participation of former Prime Ministers in the House of Commons

The successes and failures of political leaders and their rise and fall from power are well analysed by academic studies. The roles played by former leaders however are more obscure, particularly if they continue to maintain an institutional presence. This article explores the backbench behaviour of 12 former UK prime ministers following their departure from Downing Street. We find that contemporary former prime ministers display more diverse backbench behaviour in the House of Commons, are more focused on performing constituency representation in the chamber and engage in a form of statecraft focused on real time assessments of their successors. This is significant as it suggests that our traditional assumptions of post leadership careers may need reinterpreting. It also demonstrates an ongoing democratic benefit to the presence of former leaders within legislatures.

Crisis Leadership and Moral Rhetoric After a Foreign Attack on the Homeland: Zelenskyy, Bush, and Churchill

What kind of moral rhetoric do national leaders use after their homelands are attacked by foreign forces? Informed by crisis leadership literature, this study uses Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) to examine the rhetoric of three leaders of nations before and after attacks by foreign forces: Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and the 2022 Russian invasion, U.S. President Bush and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and British Prime Minister Churchill and the 1940–41 German bombing campaign. The word-based automated content analysis shows that following the attacks the leaders substantially shifted their moral rhetoric. They also employed similar moral rhetoric, mainly by using Harm rhetoric, presumably to condemn the destruction and loss of life suffered by their nations. All three also emphasized Loyalty rhetoric, presumably as a call to nationalism, and Authority rhetoric, presumably to rally followership. Otherwise, they gave little attention to Degradation rhetoric, which presumably would demonize the enemy. This study is one of very few to evaluate political elite rhetoric during crises. It is also one of a small number to assess political elite rhetoric through the lens of MFT. It demonstrates that MFT can be a useful tool for understanding political elite rhetoric and crisis management across heterogeneous contexts.

An Analysis of Pragmatic Sarcasm in Political Debate

This study investigates the pragmatic use of sarcasm in the Brexit discussions of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The choice of this subject is based on the presumption that sarcasm has become an important component of political discourse. The objectives of the study are to identify the most prevalent pragmatic structures for using sarcasm in political discussions, to ascertain whether or not using sarcasm in political debates constitutes an act of negativity, and to demonstrate whether or not there are distinctive patterns in the formulation of sarcasm. The following is hypothesized in light of the objectives established: Assuming that the speaker adheres to the CP, several speech acts materialize to produce sardonic statements. 2- Some of the recommended pragmatic sarcasm structures are heavily used in Boris' political debates. 3- Sarcasm is constantly used as a cutting verbal weapon in political debates and is always manufactured on purpose. Sarcasm reflects bad impacts. The data was gathered from political debates in which British Prime Minister Boris Johnson participated, and the sarcastic analysis model was based on the speech act model developed by Searle in 1969, the pragmatic structures of sarcasm model developed by Camp in 2012, and the classification of pragmatic functions of sarcasm developed by Attrado in 2001. The study comes to some notable conclusions, such as the fact that sarcasm can convey a variety of signals, including a negative attitude, and that particular sarcasm structures are employed more frequently than others.

Affect in the pragmeme of delivering a health directive

Abstract This study investigates how affect is manifested in the pragmeme of delivering a health directive in the Covid-19 context and how affect co-participates in the pragmeme. This research draws on theoretical insights from pragmeme theory, relevance theory, and the recent distributed language view, with the aim of contributing to the development of a language-body-environment perspective on pragmatic acts. By way of illustration, two videos used in BBC reports were analyzed, one featuring the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s order to the British people to stay at home and the other being an unofficial, self-made video that also appeals to the public to remain at home. This paper argues that affect in its various manifestations embodies affective potential, which should be regarded as being part and parcel of the pragmeme.

‘New politics’, crisis effects and format effects: A comparative study of hostility and positivity in exchanges between leaders during UK Prime Minister’s questions and Scottish and Welsh First Minister’s questions

Existing research on party leader questioning in legislatures usually focuses on single case studies, less-than-ideal behaviours across leaders, and often post-election periods. Our article compares hostility and positivity in behaviours across three parliaments and, because of the COVID-19 crisis, across different time periods and modes of operation (live, hybrid, and online) while controlling for the same leaders. Using content analysis at the sentence level (N = 3554), our data contrast parliamentary leader hostility and positivity levels in the UK, Scottish, and Welsh Parliaments across three time periods: pre-COVID-19, initial, and lockdown COVID-19. Findings for positivity are mixed, but for hostility, we find that while the initial shock of the COVID-19 crisis suppressed hostility, Westminster has higher ratios of hostility across all three time periods, and that format of operation has little effect on behaviour. Findings suggest less hostility in Scotland and Wales than in Westminster adding possible weight to ‘new politics’ arguments.

“Prince Charming with an Erection”: The Sensational Pleasures of the Bonkbuster

Abstract The bonkbuster—an explosively popular genre of women’s writing in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s—had an interesting resurgence in 2023. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claims to be a fan of bonkbuster author Jilly Cooper, whose novel Rivals (1988) is being adapted for television. But what is a bonkbuster? And how is it different from the genre with which it is most associated: the romance novel? In this article, the first to analyze the bonkbuster in detail, we focus on two concerns common to both forms—sex and relationships—and explore how bonkbusters revel in their own “badness.” We argue that the pleasures of a bonkbuster are rooted in their sensationalism and their ironic potential.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Ideology and Power Relations in a Political Interview

Political interviews are important political actions that are conducted to explain the political trends, actions, views and stances. They are usually embedded with covert and overt political ideologies that aim to affect others' political positions, stances and shape public opinions. The researcher tries to detect the ideologies and power relations manifested during a prewar on Iraq interview conducted on BBC with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The researcher uses Wodak's (2015) critical discourse approach as a framework for the analysis with the aim of raising the awareness of the readers of the ideologies and power relations in such interviews. The results show the existence of a dynamic, powerful interaction as both sides use whatever power resources they have to dominate the interaction, exercising power and perpetuating their political ideologies.