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Paul Sparks, Online Business English Lesson Plans, Lesson Material and Ideas for
Grade 1 English Conversation Lessons at Xiangtan Normal University...
Lesson 5 -
The UK Political System and Elections
Lesson Objectives
This lesson will
introduce the topic of the UK political system. By using a mix of debate
and discussion we will look at the process of Elections. This lesson will
get the students speaking to each other in English as well as provided
knowledge of the political culture in the UK.
Lesson Activities
We will hold an
election in the classroom. By dividing the class into groups they will
discuss election procedures and differences between political parties.
Introduction
In UK Politics
there are General Elections about every 4 years, The elections are to
decide which of the 3 main Political Parties will be allowed to form a
government and run the country.
The three main political
parties are:
- Labour (Current Government)
- Conservative
- Liberal Democrat
For this lesson the class is
divided up into 4 teams, one team for each of the three political parties,
and a fourth team who will be the voters. The political parties have to
decide on their policies (reasons that people should vote for them) in
order to be voted into government. There are help sheets available with
example policies (See below).
The voters can ask the
parties any questions about their policies (such things as the
environment, the economy, and education)
After preparation each
party will argue the reasons that they are the best party, and try to
persuade the voters to vote for them.
The winning team is the
team who receives the most votes.
Labour's Manifesto
(Source:
http://society.guardian.co.uk/pledges/story/0,8150,491908,00.html)
SocietyGuardian
reporters - Wednesday May 16, 2001
Health (NHS = National
Health Service)
• Build NHS services around the needs of the patient, introducing
guaranteed maximum waiting times
• Employ 10,000 more doctors and 20,000 more nurses by 2005;
• 7,000 extra hospital beds, build 100 new hospitals
• Public-private partnership to make home ownership more affordable for
nurses and other staff;
• Set up a university of the NHS to guarantee training and career
development for all NHS staff
• Ban all tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
Local and regional
government
• Give successful councils access to a £400m reward fund
• Give more freedom to high performance
• Strengthen regional chambers as regional development agencies
• Hold referendums on English regional government for those regions that
want it
• Introduce a new tax credit to encourage £1bn of investment in
disadvantaged areas.
Regeneration
• Give Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) the task of promoting
business start-ups, strengthening links between businesses and
universities
• Provide £1bn in tax cuts over the next five years to increase capital
investment in urban areas for new businesses and housing;
• Reform the planning system to speed up decision making, promote the
most efficient use of land and strike the right balance between the
environment, safe communities and economic growth;
• Create a new department of rural affairs to lead renewal in
countryside;
Housing
• Reduce substandard housing by a third by 2004, and bring all social
housing up to a decent standard by 2010;
• Invest £1.8bn to be invested in social housing over next three years;
Charities and the voluntary
sector
• Build on financial incentives for volunteering by developing an
effective infrastructure to support voluntary work in every community in
Britain;
• "Welcome the contribution" of churches and other faith-based
organisations as partners of local and central government in community
renewal;
Social services
• Subject all children's homes to independent spot checks from 2002;
• Increase educational attainment among children in care and guarantee a
job, training or education for all children leaving care;
• Make adoption easier and faster, ensuring 1,000 more children each
year are adopted, and improving post-adoption support for parents;
Society
• Enable people with disabilities to play a full part in the community
through an extension of basic rights and opportunities;
• Tackle social exclusion through cutting rough sleeping; reducing
teenage pregnancy, and truancy;
• Introduce "crime fighting partnerships" in every
neighbourhood to fight crime and drugs;
Liberal Democrats'
Manifesto
(Source: http://society.guardian.co.uk/pledges/story/0,8150,491296,00.html)
SocietyGuardian.co.uk reporters - Tuesday May 15, 2001
Health
• Recruit 7,500 more nurses and midwives, 2,500 more doctors and 3,750
more physiotherapists than proposed in the NHS plan.
• Increase pay for the lowest paid NHS staff by an average of £1,000
each per year and set up a commission to examine terms and working
conditions throughout the NHS.
• Provide 3,000 more beds than under existing planned increases, and
review private finance initiative hospital building process.
• Guarantee booked dates for appointments with consultants and for
surgery.
• Restore free dental check-ups and free eye checks for all, and inject
£500m into dental services over five years to guarantee access for
everyone to an NHS dentist.
• Pay for the personal element of long-term care for the elderly, in
line with the recommendations of royal commission on long-term care.
Local and regional
government
• Replace council tax with local income tax.
• Define minimum standard of service for local councils across the
country.
• Legislate for election on English regional government.
• Empower devolved administrations by strengthening the Scottish
parliament, giving the Welsh assembly the right to pass primary
legislation and vary taxes, and offering the Northern Ireland assembly
income and corporation tax varying powers.
Housing
• Provide secure entry systems on inner city housing blocks.
• Allow councils to specify the percentage of social housing on all new
private developments.
• Introduce tougher building regulations to ensure that more homes are
built to lifetime standard and can be converted for wheelchair use.
• Require public and private landlords to bring empty homes back into
use.
• Examine the problem of housing for key public sector workers such as
teachers and nurses.
Social care
• Boost investment in mental health services to improve the quality of,
and access to, treatment.
• Pay for all long-term care personal costs, in line with the
recommendations of the royal commission on long-term care.
• Develop minimum service standards on children in care, adoption, and
HIV and Aids.
Charities and the voluntary
sector
• Honour the UK's commitment to meet the United Nations target of
increasing overseas aid to 0.07% over the next 10 years.
• End links between aid and trade by subjecting all aid programmes to
thorough assessment for their environmental, social and human rights
consequences.
Society
• Establish police hate crime investigation units to tackle racist,
homophobic and other hate crimes.
• Abolish the child support agency and replace it with a system of
family courts.
• Make the social fund more effective by shifting the balance from
discretionary loans to grants.
• Reform the asylum system so that applicants are dealt with fairly and
quickly.
• Extend freedom of information legislation to provide genuinely open
administration at all levels of government.
Conservative (Tory) Manifesto
(Source:
http://society.guardian.co.uk/pledges/story/0,8150,488815,00.html)
SocietyGuardian staff - Thursday May 10, 2001
Health and social care
• Increase NHS funding - by matching Labour spending plans and
encouraging more use of private health insurance by removing tax penaties.
• Give patients the right to choose the hospital in which treatment will
take place.
• Introduce limits on NHS waiting.
• Allow alternative and complementary therapies on the NHS
• Protect the savings and homes of people needing long term care.
Charities and the voluntary
sector
• Reform of charity taxation - specifically to address £500m lost each
year in irrecoverable VAT burden.
• Reform rules which govern applications for lottery funds to make them
more accessible to small community groups.
Local government
• Force local authorities to hold local referendums before large
increases in council tax.
• Introduce a "free schools" policy under which councils will
take a back seat in front line education provision, handing more power to
heads and parents.
• Scrap all plans for elected regional assemblies.
Housing
• Increase home ownership
• Allow greater commercial freedom for housing associations and make
more social housing managed by private companies.
• Scrap regional and local house building targets. Councils will be
allowed to declare extra areas of green belt.
Regeneration
• Demolish tower blocks. The Tories want to tear down what they see as
monuments to Labour-controlled authorities.
Society
• House asylum seekers in "secure reception centres" and
create a "Removals Agency" to "quickly deport" bogus
asylum seekers.
• Ensure more rights for victims of crime.
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