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Saturday, August 13, 2016

Préparation agrégation anglais civilisation britannique 13



Le Royaume-Uni face à la crise 1970-79
1979 : The night the government fell

When a British government finds it has a healthy majority in the House of Commons – of thirty or forty members or more – it can concentrate on its own programme, while keeping an eye on opinion polls because of the following elections. However, if it is a minority government, or has a majority of only two or three, it will often have to  be negotiating with smaller parties, listening to their priorities in the hope that they will support the government when there is a vote in the House, or at least abstain.  The Prime Minister is then faced with the question of what kind of concessions to smaller parties are acceptable compromises, and what concessions would be unethical (and the line is not easy to draw). This fascinating documentary shows the situation on the night when Margaret Thatcher, leader of the opposition in 1979, finally defeated the government. It was very close, and so parliamentary tactics were all used to the last possible minute.

Although in my opinion the start of the documentary repeats some worn old clichés about the "Winter of Discontent", the rest of the programme is very useful.

If like me you are very busy, use an online tool like clipconverter to make the videos into MP3 files you can listen to while doing your judo.

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