What is it Like to Be an MP?
In May 2015 life changed dramatically for 182 British people and their families, when they were elected Members of Parliament in the General Election. We asked MP Kirsty Blackman, MP for Aberdeen North, how her life has changed since the election, and what it’s like to be an MP.
Stories From The Stables – Sam
This is first of a series of Stories From The Stables, by Carolyn Ward.
I fell off, honest
Learning to ride is a fabulous hobby. It can be pricey, but you can borrow a hat and crop from most stables, and start off in trousers and strong shoes. It is great exercise, very exciting, and teaches respect for animals, balance, and correct posture.
When I was very young I rode at Stourton Stables, a children’s riding school where the ponies were mostly grumpy and had to be separated in the fields for fear of kicking each other to pieces.
Oh, happy riding lesson days. Hours spent in icy pouring rain, in snow, in fog, and even more rarely; in lovely sunshine. The best riding times of year for me were spring and autumn, before and after the major insect season.
Early English – The Latin Alphabet
In our last post, we discovered the runic alphabet and the Futhorc, and now we are going to look at what came next. The Latin alphabet.
The Futhorc was gradually replaced by the Latin alphabet. However, it seems that the Latin alphabet was not perfectly suited to represent English, which contained sounds that did not exist in Latin, and so people adapted it with the addition of a few runes: thorn to represent ‘th’ and wynn to represent ‘w’, as well as a few adaptations in usage of the already existing Latin letters in order to make them better suited to representing English sounds.
What is Separation of Powers?
Have you ever heard this term and wondered what is the separation of powers exactly, and why is it so important? If so, then read on because we are going to explain it!
Brandon Mowinkel / Unsplash
Separation of powers isn’t a new idea – in fact, even the Ancient Greeks had a version of this political system, as did the Romans. There are variations in place across the world.
Each country has a slightly different setup, so we’ll use the United States to explain the concept.
What is the Separation of Powers?
The idea behind it is to have a system in place that prevents one person or group from having all the power over an entire country. If you think back to the days when countries were ruled by a king or queen, who made decisions that affected the lives of everyone who lived in their kingdom – sometimes that went well, but often it didn’t. Instead of one person having all the power, a democracy splits the power between different people or groups of people.
When you think of the person who runs the country, you probably think of the President. The President represents the EXECUTIVE branch of the government.
In the USA, that means that the President executes the instructions of Congress, signs Executive Orders, selects judges to be approved by Congress, and is in charge of the armed forces (the navy, army and airforce).
By the way – don’t get confused by the word ‘execute’, which can mean ‘to put to death, to murder’ but can also mean ‘to carry out, to accomplish’. The President carries out the instructions from Congress, he doesn’t kill them all!