Government of the United Kingdom

Her Majesty's Government (HMG; Welsh: Llywodraeth Ei Mawrhydi), commonly referred to as the British government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The government is led by the prime minister, who selects all the remaining ministers. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, known as the Cabinet. The government ministers usually all sit in Parliament, and are accountable to it. The government is dependent on Parliament to make primary legislation, and since the Fixed-terms Parliaments Act 2011, general elections are held every five years to elect a new House of Commons, unless there is a successful vote of no confidence in the government in the House of Commons, in which case an election may be held in short order. After an election, the monarch (currently Queen Elizabeth II) selects as prime minister the leader of the party most likely to command a majority of MPs in the House of Commons.

First Cameron ministry

David Cameron formed the First Cameron ministry after being invited by Queen Elizabeth II to begin a new government following the resignation of the previous Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Gordon Brown, on 11 May 2010. It was a coalition government, composed of members of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats.

The government's Cabinet was made up of sixteen Conservatives and five Liberal Democrats with eight other Conservatives and one other Liberal Democrat attending cabinet but not members. The Cameron ministry was the first coalition government to have governed the United Kingdom since the Churchill war ministry of the Second World War. Following the 2015 British general election, the ministry was replaced by the single-party Second Cameron ministry.

History

The previous Parliament had been dissolved on 12 April 2010 in advance of the general election on 6 May. The election resulted in a hung parliament, no single party having an overall majority in the House of Commons, the Conservatives having the most seats but 20 short of a majority.