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There's been lots of news in the past couple of days about votes in the UK Parliament regarding Brexit. These reports seem to use the word "government" in a way that I don't understand. For instance, bbc.com writes:

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has now tabled a vote of no confidence in the government, which could trigger a general election.

Other reports I heard referred to the vote against Theresa May's Brexit deal as a failure for her government. Institute for Government writes:

The Government cannot now ratify the deal until Parliament has approved it

These uses seem to refer to the government as something separate from Parliament. But isn't Parliament a part of the government? I know the parliamentary system is not identical to our system in the US, but I was under the impression that Parliament was roughly equivalent to our Legislative branch, which is just one component of the government. And the Prime Minister is most closely analogous to our President.

This use of the word seems to correspond to the way we use "administration" in the US, to refer to the Executive branch, particularly that headed by a particular President (as in "the Trump administration"). But I've looked in a few dictionaries, and didn't find any with this specific definition. They give more general definitions that encompass all the people that control a country.

If "government" refers just to the executive branch, is there another, more encompassing term for the entire system that includes the Government, Parliament, and Courts in the UK (what we call the federal government)?

A number of comments have suggest that this really belongs in Politics Stack Exchange. I'm not asking about the differences between our political systems, I'm just wondering why the word "government" refers to the entire governing body in the US, while it just refers to one branch in the UK. This difference doesn't seem to be reflected in the dictionary definitions.

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    Government of the United Kingdom en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_the_United_Kingdom - Government is a separate official entity from Parliament. “The government ministers all sit in Parliament, and are accountable to it. The government is dependent on Parliament to make primary legislation.
    – user 66974
    Jan 16, 2019 at 20:28
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    Yes. In Britain "government" usually refers to the executive government. Whilst the US constitution lays down three distinct and separate arms of "government" - in Britain the separation of the branches came about by evolution, rather than through a written document. An important milestone in this process were the parliamentary wars of the 1640s. Notice that today's House of Commons motion referred to the House having "no confidence in HM Government" - the Queen being the titular head of state. If you want to learn more about this, may I suggest you ask a question on the Politics site.
    – WS2
    Jan 16, 2019 at 20:30
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    Actually, the difference in usage is this: The United States has a permanent government, while the UK has "temporary" governments which are formed by the PM, who is appointed by the monarch. This really is not a question of English, but custom. ......
    – J. Taylor
    Jan 16, 2019 at 20:51
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    @J.Taylor I disagree. The UK uses the word "government" to mean what the US calls "administration". Would you send me to an automotive site if I asked about "bonnet" versus "hood"?
    – Barmar
    Jan 16, 2019 at 20:54
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    Anyone seeking a serious treatment of the British political system could do far worse than The British Polity by Philip Norton. It is written for Americans and draws a lot of comparisons with the US system. I found it useful when taking a course in American politics, because it highlights the background to differences from Britain. It may currently be out of print. (My own copy is dated 2000, and is described as the "Fourth Edition".) But if you can find one in a library, or a second-hand one it is very useful. There is also a more recently published book by Norton currently available.
    – WS2
    Jan 17, 2019 at 12:12

6 Answers 6

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In the UK, the government is part of Parliament. The government is composed of the Prime Minister and other ministers. All ministers are either members of Parliament or Members of the House of Lords. In the normal run of things, all members of the Government represent the same party as the Prime Minister, as she can choose her political allies for Government jobs.

So there is a great contrast with the US:

US UK
Executive Administration Government
Head of state President Elected, and wields power Queen Hereditary, no actual power
Head of government President Post combined with HoS Prime Minister Leader of largest party in Parliament
Legislature Congress Two elected chambers Parliament One elected, one nominated chamber
Ministers (US Cabinet) Chosen by President Not members of Congress Confirmed by Senate Chosen by PM from Parliament
Speaker of the House Political position Leader of the largest party in HoR MP, but remains non-partisan
Civil service Many political positions New appointments made by incoming President Permanent positions Remain in role with PM changes
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    Whilst it's normally true that the PM is the leader of the largest party, it's by no means fixed. A coalition of two or more smaller parties could out-number a single larger party and so produce a PM. (And the PM is ultimately appointed by the Monarch, who may appoint anybody they believe will be able to do the job). Speaking of the parenthetical, the HoS line ought to say Monarch rather than Queen to keep it neutral. Jan 17, 2019 at 12:28
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    @Damien_The_Unbeliever It is whoever can command a majority in a vote of confidence in the House of Commons. One thing that makes it difficult to understand, for people whose first familiarity is with the American system, is that the role of political parties is slightly different. Their party whips are not as powerful.
    – WS2
    Jan 17, 2019 at 16:54
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    @WS2 - I'm a Brit myself. I was suggesting a correction was in order on the answer, or at least a good set of footnotes that indicated which of these were more "By convention/in most circumstances" Jan 17, 2019 at 19:12
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    @Bdsl et al: depends what you mean by "actual". The Queen has a lot of de jure power; for a start, she's Commander-in-Chief of the UK armed forces, and has the sole power to appoint the Prime Minister. However, she has limited de facto power, as most of her powers are either exercised by her government, or by her only on the advice of her government. Jan 18, 2019 at 14:42
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    As per comments exchanged between SteveMelnikoff and myself above, there is no "head of the government" in the US. The 3 branches of the government (legislative, executive, judicial) are all independent of each other. It's set up as a trifecta government. There are "checks and balances" that each branch has on every other one, but no one of the 3 branches has an absolute final-word authority over any of the others.
    – grovkin
    Jan 31, 2019 at 18:46
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I apparently didn't check enough dictionaries earlier. dictionary.com has the following definition that explains this usage:

  1. (in some parliamentary systems, as that of the United Kingdom)
    a. the particular group of persons forming the cabinet at any given time:
    The prime minister has formed a new government.
    b. the parliament along with the cabinet:
    The government has fallen.
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  • Don't forget the Civil Service: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Service_(United_Kingdom)
    – michael.hor257k
    Jan 16, 2019 at 23:03
  • I know that lots of political entities have different names. Like the US Secretary of State is what most countries call the Foreign Secretary (there's a curious history behind this). I just didn't realize the simple word "government" was among them until this week.
    – Barmar
    Jan 16, 2019 at 23:27
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    This definition seems to imply that government = cabinet, but that's not true. There are more government ministers and aides outside the cabinet than in it. Jan 17, 2019 at 9:49
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    Actually, the second definition isn't true in the UK either. "The government has fallen" - as may happen if it loses a confidence vote - does not affect the composition of parliament unless it then leads to a general election. And as with the first definition, while the cabinet is the most senior committee of government, it's not all of it. Jan 18, 2019 at 14:37
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    @SteveMelnikoff I was hoping for a dictionary definition, like the one I posted. It seems like dictionaries haven't quite captured the specifics of the way the word is used to refer to HM's Government.
    – Barmar
    Jan 18, 2019 at 16:58
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The government in the UK consists of two parts. First is the Prime Minister and the their cabinet, which consists mostly of Members of Parliament (MPs) who have been given specific jobs such as Home Secretary, or been put in charge of government departments. Those people make decisions on policy and are the political part of government, and are called Ministers. They don't have to be MPs, but usually are.

There is also the Civil Service, which is a clerical organization that actually runs the day-to-day business of government. The Ministers are basically the heads of the various departments in the Civil Service.

Beyond that there are many other elected and unelected people involved. The Prime Minister is almost always from the party with a majority of MPs in Parliament, and is to some extent beholden to both their party and Parliament. They rely on their party to support their legislation in Parliament, and Parliament itself (that is, all the MPs in it including those from opposition parties) are able to check their power and influence the government's actions.

The Institute for Government is unrelated to all that. They are a "think tank", a body that produces publications on topics concerning government. The idea is to either improve or influence government by offering ideas and exploring issues. Most are partisan.

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These uses seem to refer to the government as something separate from Parliament. But isn't Parliament a part of the government?

No. In the UK, the word "government" refers specifically to what in the US might be termed the executive branch. In fact, the official name of the UK's executive branch is "Her Majesty's Government".

The members of the government are selected from Parliament; and by convention, heads of departments (who normally have the title "Secretary of State for [department name]") are typically selected from the House of Commons, though there are occasional exceptions. Below them are ministers of state, a few for each department selected from both houses of Parliament. There are also ministerial aides ("parliamentary private secretaries," or PPS), also drawn from Parliament, who are not part of the government, but are expected to vote with it and not publicly criticise it.

(Secretaries of State and ministers are often collectively referred to as "ministers".)

The Cabinet is made up of all of the Secretaries of State, along with any other ministers that the Prime Minister wishes to be there. At the time of writing, there are 23 people in the Cabinet (including the PM), and 96 ministers outside the Cabinet.

If "government" refers just to the executive branch, is there another, more encompassing term for the entire system that includes the Government, Parliament, and Courts in the UK (what we call the federal government)?

No. They are considered separate entities, despite members of the Government being drawn from Parliament.


When comparing the British and American systems, it's worth noting that the number of political appointees in the UK (at least, those paid by the state) is tiny compared to the US, and is limited by law to just 109.

The Queen appoints the Prime Minister, and the PM appoints all ministers, without having to seek approval from Parliament.

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    You might be able to get away with using "the Crown" as an approximate equivalent to "the federal government" in some limited contexts.
    – origimbo
    Jan 17, 2019 at 18:21
  • @origimbo I would argue that the Crown is definitely only executive. Parliament wouldn’t come under it, nor would the courts (while the prosecution in a court case would, but that’s a responsibility of HM Government, via the Crown Prosecution Service).
    – owjburnham
    Jan 18, 2019 at 14:10
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The TLDR answer for this is that when British people speak about "the government" they typically mean the political party that has the largest share of MPs in the house of Commons.

This excludes the house of lord, the official opposition (Typically the second largest party in the house of commons), and any other MPs who aren't members of the former. This also excludes the civil service. Which is traditionally neutral and follows the instructions of the party with the largest share of MPs regardless of their actual politics.

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This boils down to the chief difference in that the United Kingdom is a Monarchy and the United States is a Republic (In the sense that the Head of State is not a hereditary office. Americans also use the word "Republic" to mean "Representative Democracy" because they became a "Representative Democracy" before the term existed and the thing they wanted to model was the Roman Republic).

This meant they were also working with a system where the Parliamentary Equivalent was not running the Government of His/Her Majesty, but rather for the general population (Of the People, For the People, By the People). General Populations do not govern and since the duties of the Cabinet were removed from our Parliamentary Body (Congress) and given to the Head of State (Making the office of President Equivalent to both the full duties of the Monarch and the Full Duties of the PM). Thus, Congress is not governing, as they don't run stuff... they just make the rules, and the nation doesn't belong to a King, but an elected President (title derived because he Presides over the Cabinet in the stead of the Prime Minister/Speaker of the House), so he's got equal stake in the nation as any other citizen, the President is not governing but Administering the will of others (Congress through laws, the general population through elected mandate).

So where it might be the Churchill Government in the U.K. but in the U.S. it would be the Roosevelt Administration which are effectively the same thing... Either the current Head of Government or his Cabinet or Both.

When Americans refer to the Government, they generally are referring to the institutions of governance, not a particular elected officers' running of it. In it's most broadest sense, it encompasses the three branches as outlined in the Constitution (Legislative, Executive, Judicial) and their various components. Americans also have a general distrust of their own government and it's generally used more negatively than when referring to an Administration, which is mostly neutral though can be positive or negative in usage, depending on who's administration it is).

This is probably the longest bi-product from the Revolutionary War, in that, the catalysts were the unpopular restrictions put upon the Colonists in the days prior, initially to pay for a war that was partially fought defending them, but then as punishment for protesting those taxes in the form of the Tea Party. The amount of anger that would drive a British Citizen to destroy perfectly good Tea does not dissipate after just 200+ years of separation. Since they were at the time British and proud of it, they weren't by the British People, but the Government. Americans still see the Government as more of an all consuming three-headed monster that would gobble them up in an instant if not for the facts that each head will fight each other over who gets to eat the people.

This also could explain why terms developed away from the U.K. The Founding Fathers wanted to get rid of everything British from their government. Voting day in the U.S. is always Tuesday because when you eliminate all the days that were terrible days of the week for an election, you're left with Tuesdays and Thursdays... and it couldn't be Thursdays because that's when the British vote and we aren't like those tea sucking tyrants at all (There was also a serious movenment to write the Constitution in German and declare it the language of the land for no other reason than the Tyrant British speak English, and we aren't English. Thankfully, this was concluded to be too stupid, so we all agreed to call it Soccer and mispronounce Aluminum and called it a day.). Suffice to say the "Special Friendship" wasn't always a Friendship.

Edit to address comments made by @RinkStingpiece:

The word "Gubenatorial" is an adjective use to describe things related to the office of the Governor of a State similar to how "Presidential" when discussing things related to the office of the President (you typically hear it in election years as the Gubernatorial Race is used to distinguish from the Presidential Race). The use of Governor descends from the colonial states each having a Governor or Governor-General as described, though these days a Governor is basically the "President of a State". An individual governor's period in office is still called an "administration". The term does have roots in the British office of "Governor" or "Governor-General" in that they were stand-ins for the Crown who could provide royal ascent to the colonial legislature on more day to day matters of the colonial legal powers. Following the Revolution, each Colonly was effectively a separate nation-state that had a co-operation of a Confederate treaty government and later a Federal Government. So in this case, U.S. Governors are effectively "Presidents in miniature" and has all the powers of the President, sans those all states delegate to the Feds. It's better to think of the U.S. as like the E.U. and in fact, if you allow for the briefest moments of time, the U.S. includes 17 separate nations (the original states, as well as Florida, Texas, California, and Hawaii were all briefly independent before signing up with the U.S. States Hawaii is the only one that entered through annexation, and the rest voted (though Texas and Florida briefly wanted out)). And yes, each governor is the Commander and Chief of the state's national guard, though this may change in war time. Compare with U.K. governors, which are appointed by the Crown to act in his or her stead when communications with England aren't timely (the sun never set on the British Empire, but the queen's gotta sleep), or Governor Generals, which are used by former Colonial nations of the British Empire that still wanted the Queen of England as a head of state. The difference is that Governor-General are appointed by the Parliament (or whatever the hell Australia calls their Frankenstein of a Legislature). For Federal Nations like this (Canada and Australia) the provincial/state level equivalent of a Prime Minister is usually called a Premier.

The United State government specifically can not legislate on just anything and there is language in the Constitution that basically says that any power of Government that the Constitution does not say the Federal Government has, then that power devolves to the States and the individuals to determine... it also bars states from conducting any power of Government that the Constitution explicitly gives the Feds and later after a loophole lead to the Civil War, it was patched to also block states from any powers that were explicitly listed as things the Feds cannot due (Most of the Bill of Rights is written as "The Government shall not do this thing) and it's generally understood that only governments can break constitutional law.

What this means is that the the Governor of any U.S. State is a sovereign head of government/state with respect to the list of things they can do. Thus the U.S. Governor is not acting for the President within one state, but is a seperate power to the President. Whereas, a U.K. governor, or a governor-general's job is effectively "keeping the throne warm for the queen while she's in England and not Canada."

A lieutenant-governors is the Governor's equivalent to to a Vice President or whatever they call the Prime Minister's immediate successor (Secondary Minister? Nah, I kid, I think it's a Deputy Prime Minister). They basically need a pulse in case the Governor suddenly doesn't (This is a U.S. sentiment as the U.S. Vice Presidency has largely been seen as entirely useless unless the President suddenly becomes, as Monty Python would call it, an ex-President.

Finally, because a U.S. Citizen will typically be under the jurisdiction of no less than three different governments (Federal, State, and Local, though if in D.C. you can get down to two) and technically, could be under as many as Seven (though you have to be standing in one very specific spot in the country and commit a crime in a specific way), the "Government" typically refers to the Feds, while "the State" or "[State Name]" will refer to the State Government (i.e. If I am made about a specific state, I would say "Can you believe what California is making me do"), and the "[Local general term]" (i.e. "Can you believe what the County is making me do?" Substitutions of City, Town, or other approriate legal entity will do. Occasionally, if it's a major city, referring to the proper name is helpful.). Typically, using "The Feds" will only refer to Federal Law Enforcement, regardless of agency, with exception to the Military, which will be refereed to by the Branch. Typically, the FBI, DEA, and occasionally the TSA will get this, though many Americans will generally not give them the dignity of being the hated "Feds"... and compared to most interactions with the TSA, this is still a very dignified form of disrespect to them. The IRS are typically called "Revenuers" though the term is usually commonly shouted by any poor southerner when being swarmed by any number of men with guns, regardless of reason (and cause they commonly make moonshine for sale, but don't pay liquor taxes, which gives the impression that the government is coming cause it's not getting a cut of your illegal profits... not because your money was illegally made in the first place. The IRS does have one of the highest successful prosecution rates in the nation). By and large, most crime in the U.S. is handled at the state level, and the average person with a history with the law still may still never be prosecuted for Federal Crimes (though they almost always broke one if convicted by the State... the Federal Government rarely prosecutes a federal crime when the state has a similar state or local crime on the books). As I said earlier, U.S. Citizens tend to see the government as a necessary evil rather than on their side, and there is an amendment that specifically protects the right to call them all kinds of divisive names.

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    Can you provide some sources, especially for the final paragraph? Jan 20, 2019 at 0:16
  • I would agree, things that Americans call "the government", would be described as "civil service" in the UK; and as described above, the usual UK use of the word "government" is specific and narrow, to the ruling party, and equivalent to the American term "administration". Americans use the delightful term "gubernatorial" for governers in states, which the closest equivalent (if there is one, maybe there isn't) might be the leader of each of the nations in the UK. The UK has governers or lieutentant-governors as acting HoS in some dependencies, which is maybe more like a US state governor role Oct 28, 2019 at 4:02
  • @SteveMelnikoff: mentalfloss.com/article/12901/why-are-elections-held-tuesdays Citation for the statement on why election was on Tuesday. Basically "Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday" would require travel on someone's Sabbath for some religion (Jews and some Christians on Saturday, Muslims and some sects of Jews on a Friday), Monday was also burdened by being the book keeping day, Wednesday was market day in many rural communities (because it was furthest from Sabbath), leaving Tuesdays and Thursdays (the latter was British voting day, so was dumped.).
    – hszmv
    Oct 28, 2019 at 16:15
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – yannis
    Oct 31, 2019 at 20:45
  • @yannis these comments discussed an import part of the terminology which was also addressed in this answer. Until the answer adds the links, discovered in the process of making those comments, the comments themselves and these links may act to illuminate anyone interested in this possible distinction.
    – grovkin
    Nov 1, 2019 at 4:16

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