Country and people

This is a book about Britain. But what exactly is Britain? And who are the British ' The
table below illustrates the problem. You might think that, when it comes to international
sport. the situation would be simple-one country. one team. But you can see that this is
definitely not the case with Britain. For each of the four sports or sporting events listed
in the table. there are a different number of national teams which might be called 'British
'. This chapter describes how this situation has come about and explains the different
names which are used when people talk about Britain.

Geographically speaking
Lying off the north-west coast of Europe , there are two large islands and several much
smaller ones. Collectively, they are known as The British Isles. The largest island is
called Great Britain. The other large one is called Ireland (t> The British Isles) .

Politically speaking
In the British Isles there are two states. One of these governs most of the island of
Ireland. This state is usually called The Republic of Ireland.
It is also called 'Eire' (its Irish language name). Informally it is referred to as just 'Ireland
' or 'the Republic'.
The other state has authority over the rest of the British Isles (the whole of Great Britain,
the north eastern area of Ireland and most of the smaller islands). This is the country that
is the main subject of this book . Its official name is The United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland although it is usually known by a shorter name. At the
Euro-vision Song Contest, at the United Nations and in the European Parliament , for
instance, it is referred to as 'the United Kingdom'. In everyday speech this is often
shortened to 'the UK'. In other contexts it is referred to as 'Great Britain'. This, for
example , is the name you hear when a gold medal winner steps onto the rostrum at the
Olympic Games. The slickers on cars ('GB') are another example of the use of this name.
In writing and speaking that is not especially formal or informal, the name 'Britain ' is
used . The normal adjective, when talking about something to do with the UK, is
'British' .

1
Some historical and poetic names
Albion
is a word used in some poetic or rhetorical contexts to refer to England . It was the
original Roman name for Britain. It may come from the Latin word albus, meaning
'white'. The white chalk cliff" around Dover on the south coast are the first pan of
England to be seen when crossing the sea from the European mainland.

Britannia
is the name that the Romans gave to their southern British province
(which covered, approximately, the area of present-day England ). It is also
the name given to the female embodiment of Britain, always shoe....n wearing a helmer
and holding a trident (the symbol of power over the sea) , hence the patriotic song which
begins 'Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves'. The figure of Britannia has been on the
reverse side of many British coins for more than 300 years.

The four nations

People often refer to Britain by another name. They call it 'England'.
But this is not strictly correct, and it can make some people angry.
England is only one of the four nations of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales
and Ireland). Their political unification was a gradual process that took several hundred
years.
It was completed in 1800 when the Irish Parliament was joined with the Parliament for
England, Scotland and Wales in Westminster, so that the whole of the British Isles
became a single state - the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However, in
1922, most of Ireland became a separate state.
At one time the four nations were distinct from each other in almost every aspect of life.
In the first place , they were different racially. The people in Ireland , Wales and
highland Scotland belonged to the Celtic race; those in England and low land Scotland
were mainly of Germanic origin. This difference was reflected in the languages they
spoke. People in the Celtic areas spoke Celtic languages: Irish Gaelic, Scottish Gaelic
and Welsh . People in the Germanic areas spoke Germanic dialects (including the one
which has developed into modern English). The nations also tended to have different
economic, social and legal systems.
2
Today these differences have become blurred . But they have not completely
disappeared. Although there is only one government for the whole of Britain , and
people have the same passport regard less of where in Britain they live, some aspects of
government are organized separately (and sometimes differently) in the four parts of the
United Kingdom. Moreover, Welsh , Scottish and Irish people feel their identity very
strongly.

Other signs of national identity

The following are also associated by British people with one or more of
the four nations.

Names
The prefix 'Mac' or 'Me' in surnames (such as McCall, MacCarthy, MacDonald) is
always either Scottish or Irish. The prefix'O' (as in O'Brien, O'Hara) is distinctly Irish.
A very large number of surnames (for example, Davis, Evans, Jones,Lloyd, Morgan,
Price, Rees.Williams) suggest Welsh origin(although many of these are found
throughout England). The most common surname in both England and Scotland is
actually 'Smith' .
First names can also be indicative. The Scottish form of 'John' is 'Ian' and its Irish form
is 'Sean' (although all three names are common throughout Britain).
There are also nicknames for Scottish, Irish and Welsh men. For example, an English,
Welsh or Irish person might refer to and address a Scottish friend as 'Jock', whatever his
first name is. Irishmen are called 'Paddy ' or 'Mick' and Welshmen are known as 'Dai' or
'Taffy'. If the person is not a friend the nickname can sound rather insulting.

Clothes
The kilt , a skirt with a tartan pattern worn by men, is a very well -known symbol of
Scottishness (though it is hardly ever worn in every day life) .

Musical instruments
The harp is an emblem of both Wales and Ireland. The bag pipes are regarded as
distinctively Scottish (though a smaller type is also used in traditional Irish music) .

Characteristics
3
There are certain stereotypes of national character which are well-known in Britain . For
instance, the Irish are supposed to be great talkers, the Scots have a reputation for being
careful with money, and the Welsh are renowned for their singing ability. These
characteristics are , of course, only caricatures and are not reliable descriptions of
individual people from these countries.
Nevertheless, they indicate some slight differences in the value attached to certain kinds
of behaviour in the countries concerned.

John Bull
is a fictional character who is supposed to personify Englishness and certain English
virtues. (He can be compared to Uncle Sam in the USA.) He features in hundreds of
nineteenth century cartoons. His appearance is typical of an eighteenth century country
gentleman, evoking an idyllic rural past .

Briton
is a word used in official contexts and in formal writing to describe a citizen of the
United Kingdom. 'Ancient Britons' is the name given to the race of people who lived in
England before and during the Roman occupation (AD 43-410). These are the ancestors
of the present-day Welsh people.

Caledonia. Cambria and Hibernia

were the Roman names for Scotland, Wales and, Ireland respectively. The words are
commonly used today in scholarly classlfications (for example, the type of English used
in Ireland is sometimes called 'Hiberno-Enghsh ') and for the names of organizations (for
example, the airline 'British Caledonian ').

Erin
is a poetic name for Ireland. 'The Emerald Isle' is another way of referring to Ireland,
evoking the lush greenery of its countryside.

The dominance of England

There is, perhaps, an excuse for people who use the word 'England' when they mean
'Britain', It cannot be denied that the dominant culture of Britain today is specifically
English. The system of politics that is used in all four nations today is of English origin,
4
and English is the main language of all four nations. Many aspects of everyday life are
organized according to English custom and practice. But the political unification of
Britain was not achieved by mutual agreement. On the contrary. It happened because
England was able to exert her economic and military power over the other three nations.
Today English domination can be detected in the way in which various aspects of British
public life are described (C> The invisible Scot).
For example, the supply of money in Britain is controlled by the Bank of England (there
is no such thing as a 'Bank of Britain'). The present queen of the country is universally
known as 'Elizabeth the Second' ,even though Scotland and Northern Ireland have never
had an 'Elizabeth the First" (Elizabeth I of England and Wales ruled from 1553 to 1603.)
The term 'Anglo' is also commonly used. (The Angles were a Germanic tribe who settled
in England in the fifth century. The word 'England' is derived from their name.) For
example, newspapers and the television news talk about 'Anglo-American relations' to
refer to relations between the governments of Britain and the USA (and not just those
between England and the USA).

National loyalties
When you are talking to people from Britain, it is safest to use 'Britain' when talking
about where they live and 'British' as the adjective to describe their nationality. This way
you will be less likely to offend anyone , It is, of course, not wrong to talk about 'people
in England ' if that is what you mean - people who live within the geographical
boundaries of England. After all, most British people live there(C> Populations in 1995).
But it should always be remembered that England does not make up the whole of the
UK.
There has been a long history of migration from Scotland , Wales and Ireland to England
. As a result there are millions of people who live in England but who would never
describe themselves as English.
They may have lived in England all their lives, but as far as they are concerned they are
Scottish or Welsh or Irish - even if, in the last case, they are citizens of Britain and not of
Eire. These people support the country of their parents or grandparents rather than
England in sporting con tests. They would also, given the chance, play for that country
rather than England. If, for example, you had heard the members ofthe Republic of
Ireland World Cup football team talking in I994c , you would have heard several
different kinds of English accent and some Scottish accents, but only a few Irish accents.
Most of the players did not live in Ireland and were not brought up in Ireland.
5
Nevertheless, most of them would never have considered playing for any country other
than Ireland!
The same holds true for the further million s of British citizens whose family origins lie
outside the British Isles altogether. People of Caribbean or south Asian descent. for
instance , do not mind being described as 'British ' (many are proud of it), but many of
them would not like to be called 'English '. And whenever the West Indi an or Indian
cricket team plays against England, it is certainly not England that they support!

The invisible Scot

Here are some brie f extracts from an article written by a Scotswoman, Janet Swinney,
which expresses anger at how the dominance of England over Scotland is reflected in
the way things are described.
First, there is 'domination by omission'. A map appeared in the observer newspaper in
May 1989 under the heading 'Britain's Dirty Rivers'. It showed only England and Wales.
Janet Swinney says: 'What is the meaning of this illustration? Does Scotland have no
rivers or no dirty rivers, or has someone simply used the word Britain to mean England
and Wales?'
Second, she points out the common use of England/English to mean Britain/British :
'When I went to Turkey a few years ago with an assorted group of Britons , most of the
English were happy to record their nationality on their embarkation cards as English,
and saw nothing offensive about it. It's not un usual, either, for Scots to receive mail
from elsewhere in the UK addressed Scotland , England .. . Last year, works of art from
the Soviet Union intended for display at the Edinburgh International Festival were sent
to the City Art Gallery addressed Edinburgh, England'.
A third aspect of domination can be seen in the names given to publications and
organizations : 'The practice is to label anything that pertains to England and (usually)
Wales as though it were the norm , and anything Scottish as though it were a deviation
from it. Why else do we have The Times Educational Supplement and The Times
Educational Supplement
(Scotland), the "National Trust" and the "National Trust for Scotland",
the "Trades Union Congress" and the "Scottish Trades Union Congress"? In a society of
equals, all these names would carry their geographical markers: The Times Educational
Supplement (England and Wales) etc'.
6
JSwinney, 'The Invisible Scot' ,English Today, April 1989

The Union Jack

The Union Jack is the national flag of the UK. It is a combination of the cross of St
George, the cross of and the cross of St Patrick (e> Identifying symbols of the four
nations) .

Education

The basic features of the British educational system are the same as they are anywhere
else in Europe: full-time education is compulsory up to the middle teenage years; the
academic year begins at the end of summer; compulsory education is free of charge , but
parents may spend money on educating their children privately if they want to (Public
means private). There are three recognized stages, with children moving from the first
stage (primary) to the second stage (secondary) at around the age of eleven or twelve.
The third (tertiary) stage is 'further' education at university or college . However, there is
quite a lot which distinguishes education in Britain from the way it works in other
countries.

Historical background
The British government attached little importance to education until the end of the
nineteenth century. It was one of the last governments in Europe to organize education
for everybody, Britain was leading the world in industry and commerce, so, it was felt,
education must somehow be taking care of itself. Today, however, education is one of
the most frequent subjects for public debate in the country. To understand the
background to this debate, a little history is needed.
Schools and other educational institutions (such as universities) existed in Britain long
before the government began to take an interest in education . When it finally did, it did
not sweep these institutions away, nor did it always take them over. In typically British

7
fashion , it sometimes incorporated them into the system and some times left them
outside it. Most importantly, the government left alone the small group of schools which
had been used in the nineteenth century (and in some cases before then) to educate the
sons of the upper and upper-middle classes.
At these 'public' schools (The public school system), the emphasis was on 'character
building' and the development of 'team spirit' rather than on academic achievement ,
This involved the development of distinctive customs and attitudes, the wearing of
distinctive clothes and the use of specialized items of vocabulary.
They were all 'boarding schools' (that is, the pupils lived in them), so they had a deep
and lasting influence on their pupils.Their aim was to prepare young men to take up
positions in the higher ranks of the army, in business, the legal profession , the civil
service and politics.
When the pupils from these schools finished their education , they formed the ruling
elite, retaining the distinctive habits and vocabulary which they had learnt at school.
They formed a closed group , to a great extent separate from the rest of society. Entry
into this group was difficult for any body who had had a different education. When, in
the twentieth century, education and its possibilities for social advancement came within
everybody's reach, new schools tended to copy the features of the public schools. (After
all, they provided the only model of a successful school that the country had.)
Many of the more distinctive characteristics of British education outlined below can be
ascribed, at least partly, to this historical background. Of more recent relevance is
Britain 's general loss of confidence in itself . This change of mood has probably had a
greater influence on education than on any other aspect of public life (c- Looking
towards Germany). The modern educational system has been through a period of
constant change and it is difficult to predict what further changes will occur in the next
decade. At the same time, however, there are certain underlying characteristics that seem
to remain fixed .

Public means private!

Tenninology to do with thes fixed system in Britain can be confusing,Schools funded by
the government, either directly or via local education authorities, are called 'state
schools' and education provided in this way is known as 'state education', This
distinguishes it from 'private education', which comprises 'independent schools', Some
independent schools (a varying number, because the term is not exact) are known as
'public schools'.
8
The possibility of confusion is especially great because in the USA schools organized by
the government are called 'public schools' and the education provided by the government
is called the 'public school system'. In Britain today, about 8%of children are educated
outside the state system.

Stereotypical public schools:

• are for boys only from the age of thirteen onwards, most of whom attended a private
'prep' (= preparatory) school before hand;
• take fee-paying pupils (and some scholarship pupils who have won a place in a
competitive entrance exam and whose parents do not pay):
• are boarding schools (the boys live there during term-time) :
• are divided into 'houses', each 'house' being looked after by a 'housemaster;
• make some of the senior boys 'prefects' , whi ch means that they have authority over
the other boys and have their own servants (called 'fags'}. who arc appointed from
amongst the youngest boys:
• place great emphasis on team sports;
• enforce their rules with the use of physical punishment;
• have a reputation for a relatively great amount of homosexual activity:
• are not at all luxurious or comfortable.

Looking towards Germany

The accepted wisdom in modern Britain is that the education systcms of man yother
countries arc better than the British one . especially the German system. Queen Victoria
was known to have remarked on this in the nineteenth century. But that, of course, was
in the days when Britain ruled the world, so who cared ?
These days. however, the British take their inadequacies seriously. In 1991 The
Economist reported that pilgrimages to Germany from British educationalists, education
ministers and business people had become so common that the British embassy in Bonn

9
employed a full- time official to look after these visitors and put them in touch with the
right educational experts.

Organization
Despite recent changes, it is a characteristic of the British system that there is
comparatively little central control or uniformity. For example, education is managed
not by one, but by three, separate government departments: the Department for
Education and Employment is responsible for England and Wales alone – Scotland and
Northern Ireland have their own departments.
None of these central authorities exercises much control over the details of what actually
happens in the country's educational institutions. All they do is to ensure the availability
of education, dictate and implement its overall organization and set overall learning
objectives (which they enforce through a system of inspectors) up to the end of
compulsory education.
Central government does not prescribe a detailed programme of learning or determine
what books and materials should be used. It says, in broad terms, what schoolchildren
should learn , but it only offers occasional advice about how they should learn it. Nor
does it dictate the exact hours of the school day, the exact dates of holidays or the exact
age at which a child must start in full-time education. It does not manage an institution 's
finances either, it just decides how much money to give it. It does not itself set or
supervise the marking exams which older teenagers do.
In general, as many details as possible are left up to the individual institution or the
Local Education Authority (LEA, a branch of local government).
One of the reasons for this level of 'grass-roots' independence is that the system has been
influenced by the public-school tradition that a school is its own community. Most
schools develop , to some degree at least, a sense of distinctiveness. Many, for example,
have their own uniforms for pupils. Many, especially those outside the state system ,
have associations of former pupils. It is considered desirable (even necessary) for every
10
school to have its own school hall, big enough to accommodate every pupil, for daily
assemblies and other occasion al ceremonies. Universities, although financed by the
government , have even more autonomy. Each one has complete control over what to
teach , how to teach it, who it accepts as students and how to test these students.

School days
Education in Britain is compulsory for the most years and the school year is the longest.
The number of hours in the scho ol week is no less than the average for Europe. But
look at Before and after school.

Style
Learning for its own sake, rather than for any particular practical purpose, has
traditionally been given a comparatively high value in Britain . In comparison with most
other countries, a relatively strong emphasis has been put on the quality of person that
education produces (as opposed to the qualities of abilities that it produces). The balance
has changed in the last quarter ofthe twentieth century (for example, there is now a high
degree of concern about levels of literacy), but much of the public debate about
educational policy still focuses not so much on how to help people develop useful
knowledge and skills as on how education might help to bring about a better society – on
social justice rather than on efficiency.
This approach has had a far-reaching effect on many aspects of the educational system .
First of all, it has influenced the general style of teaching, which has tended to give
priority to developing understanding rather than acquiring factual knowledge and
learning to apply this knowledge to specific tasks. This is why British young people do
not appear to have to work as hard as their counterparts in other European countries.
Primary school children do not have as much formal homework to do and university
student s have fewer hours of programmed attendance than students on the continent do.
(On the other hand , they receive greater personal guidance with their work). A second
effect has been an emphasis on academic ability rather than practical ability (despite
English anti intellectualism ).
This has resulted in high-quality education for the intelligent and academically inclined
(at the upper secondary and university levels) with comparatively little attention given to
the educational needs of the rest.
The traditional approach , together with the dislike of centralized authority, also helps to
explain why the British school system got a national curriculum (a national specification
11
of learning objectives) so much later than other European countries. If your aim is so
vague and universal , it is difficult to specify what its elements are. It is for the same
reason that British schools and universities have tended to give such a high priority to
sport. The idea is that it helps to develop the 'complete' person , The importance of
school as a 'community' can increase this emphasis. Sporting success enhances the
reputation of an institution. Until the last quarter twentieth century. certain sports at
some universities (especially Oxford and Cambridge) and medical schools were played
to an international standard. People with poor academic records were sometimes
accepted as students because of their sporting prowess (although, unlike in the USA, this
practice was always unofficial).

Recent developments
Some ofthe many changes that took place in British education in the second half ofthe
twentieth century simply reflected the wider social process of increased egalitarianism.
The elitist institutions which first set the pattern no longer set the trend , and are
themselves less elitist.
In other cases the changes have been the result of government policy, Before 1965 most
children in the country had to take an exam at about the age of eleven, at the end of their
primary schooling. If they passed this exam , they went to a grammar school where they
were taught academic subjects to prepare them for university, the professions ,
managerial jobs or other highly-skilled jobs; if they failed, they went to a secondary
modern school, where the lessons had a more practical and technical bias. Many people
argued that it was wrong for a person's future life to be decided at so young an age. The
children who went to 'secondary moderns' tended to be seen as 'failures'. Moreover, it
was noticed that the children who passed this exam (known as the' eleven plus') were
almost all from middle-class families. The system seemed to reinforce class distinctions.
It was also unfair because the proportion of children who went to a grammar school
varied greatly from area to area (from 15% to 40%).
During the 1960s these criticisms came to be accepted by a majority of the public. Over
the next decade the division into grammar schools and secondary modern schools was
changed. These days, most eleven -year-olds all go on to the same local school. These
schools are known as comprehensive schools. (The decision to make this change was in
the hands of LEAs, so it did not happen at the same time all over the country. In fact,
there are still one or two places where the old system is still in force.)

12
However, the comprehensive system has also had its critics. Many people felt that there
should be more choice available to parents and disliked the uniformity of education
given to teenagers. In addition ,there is a wide spread feeling that educational standards
fell during the 1980s and that the average eleven-year old in Britain is significantly less
literate and less numerate than his or her European counterpart.
Starting in the late 1980s, two major changes were introduced by the government. The
first of these was the setting up of a national curriculum. For the first time in British
education there is now a set of learning objectives for each year of compulsory school
and all state schools are obliged to work towards these objectives. The national
curriculum is being introduced gradually and will not be operating fully in all parts of
Britain until the end ofthe 1990S. The other major change is that schools can now decide
to 'opt out' of the control of the LEA and put themselves directly under the control of the
appropriate government department. These' grant-maintained' schools get their money
directly from central government. This does not mean , however, that there is more
central control. Provided they fulfil basic requirements, grant-maintained schools do not
have to ask anybody else about how to spend their money.
One final point about the persistence of decentralization : there are really three, not one,
national curricula. There is one for England and Wales, another for Scotland and another
for Northern Ireland. The organization of subjects and the details of the learning
objectives vary slightly from one to the other. There is even a difference between
England and Wales. Only in the latter is the Welsh language part of the curriculum.

Learning for its own sake

One effect of the tradit ional British emphasis on academic learning as opposed to
practical traini ng can be seen in the way that people gain qualifications for certain
professions.
In many cases this has not traditionally been done within universities, Instead, people go
to specialized institutions which are separate from any university, You can study
architecture at university, but most architects have learnt their Profession at a separate
School of Architecture. You can study law at university but this alone does not qualify
you to be 10a lawyer (see chapter II). You cannot get a teacher's qualification by doing
an ordinary university course - most teachers get theirs at teacher training colleges, Until
recently. schools were not usually involved in helping people to gel qualifications for
skilled manual jobs such as bricklaying or carpentry or machine- operating.

13
A nation of ignoramuses?
Does the earth go around the sun or does the sun go around the earth?
This was one ofthe questions a representative sample of I3,000 adults was asked in a
study conducted by the European Commission in 1993 .
Guess which state in the European Union came last in knowledge of basic astronomical
and evolutionary facts! A third of those questioned in Britain got that sun-earth question
wrong, and half of them did not know how long it takes for the earth to go around the
sun. Most spectacularly, nearly half thought that early human beings were alive at the
same time as dinosaurs.
These results reinforced the feeling in Britain that people's basic
scientific knowledge is unacceptably low. But the results of the EC survey were not all
depressing for British scientists and educationalists. In biology, the British appeared
comparatively knowledgeable (although still not top of the European league). The
survey also showed that, contrary to what was supposed, scientists are very highly
respected.

Exams and qualifications

GCSE = General Certificate of Secondary Education. The exams taken by most fifteen -
to sixteen-year-olds in England ,Wales and Northern Ireland. Marks are given for each
subject separately. The syllabuses and methods of examinations of the various
examining boards differ. However, there is a uniform system of marks . all being graded
from A to G. Grades A, B and C are regarded as good' grades.

SCE = Scottish Certificate of Education. The Scottish equivalent of GCSE. These exams
are set by the Scottish Examinations Board. Grades are awarded in numbers ( 1 = the
best).

A Levels = Advanced Levels.

Higher-level academic exams set by the same examining boards that set GCSE exams.
They arc taken mostly by people around the age of eighteen who wish to go on to higher
education.

SCE 'Highers' = The Scottish equivalent of A-levels.

14
GNVQ = General National Vocational Qualification . Courses and exams in job-related
subjects. They arc divided into five levels, the lowest level being equivalent to GCSEs/
SCEs and the third level to A-levels./'Highers. Most commonly GNVQ courses are
studied at Colleges of Further Education, but more and more schools are also offering
them.

Degree : A qualification from a university. (Other qualifications obtained after

secondary education are usually called 'certificate' or 'diploma'). Students studying for a
first degree are called undergraduates. When they have been awarded a degree, they are
known as graduates. Most people get honours degrees, awarded in different classes.
These are:
Class I (known as .a first')
Class IU ('a 2 ,1' or 'an upper second')
Class lUI ('a 2 ,2 ' or 'a lower second')
Class III ('a third')
A student who is below one of these gets a pass degree [i.c. not an
honours degree) .

Bachelor's Degree :The general name for a first degree , most commonly a BA (=
Bachelor of Arts) or BSc (= Bachelor of Science)

Master's Degree: The general name for a second (postgraduate) degree, most
commonly an MA or MSc. At Scottish universities, however, these titles are used for
first degrees.

Doctorate : The highest academic qualification . This usually (but not everywhere)
carries the title PhD ( = Doctor of Philosophy) . The time taken to complete a doctorate
varies, but it is generally expected to involve three years of more-or-less full-time study.

15
 Economy and Everyday Life

The distribution of wealth

In the early I970S Britain had one ofthe most equitable distributions of wealth in we
stern Europe. By the early I990S it had one of the least equitable. The rich had got richer
but the poor had not. Some surveys suggested that, by this time, the gap between the rich
est 10% of the population and the poorest 10% was as great as it had been in the late
nineteenth century and that large numbers of households we re living below the 'poverty
line', which meant that they did not have enough money for basic things such as food
and heating.
Class and wealth do not run parallel in Britain , so it is not a country where people are
especially keen to flaunt their wealth. Similarly, people are generally not ashamed to be
poor. Of course, they don't like being poor, but they do not feel obliged to hide the fact.
This can sometimes lead to an acceptance of poverty which is surprising for an
'advanced ' country. When , in 1992 , news of its increasing extent came to wider public

16
attention, the government ne ither pretended that greater poverty did not exist, nor
promised to do anything radical about it. Instead, it issued, through the Ministry of
Agriculture, a suggested diet which it claimed even the poorest could afford. There
were, of course , public comments about the patronizing nature of this action , but
criticism in the press concentrated on how unrealistic the diet was, on how the figures
didn't add up (and on the mystery of how a person should prepare and eat the
recommended half an egg a week!).
One reason for the increasing disparity of wealth in Britain in the I970S and I980s is that
rates ofincome tax changed. For a short period in the 1960s the basic rate was 40%. By
the early eighties it was 30% and it then went down to 25%. During the same period, the
top rate of income tax fell from a high of 98% to 40%. of course, these figures do not
mean that this is how much is deducted from a person's earnings. People in different
situations are allowed to earn varying amounts before tax is deducted. People earning
twice the average wage have about 25% of their gross income deducted . Somebody
earn ing less than half the average wage pays very little tax at all. Nevertheless, there is,
at the rime of writing , a great disparity in different people 's 'take-home pay' . During
the 1980s, rates of pay for the best-paid jobs increased faster than those for badly-paid
jobs.
People in the best-paid jobs now take home about ten times as much as those in the
lowest paid jobs. Many company directors, for example, take home seven times as much
as the average wage.

The widening gap between rich and poor

The graph shows that for every pound that the poorest 20% of the
population in Britain had in 1978 , most people had two pounds and the richest 20% of
the population had three pounds . In 1994 the gap in wealth had grown . The richest
people were about 50% richer, and most people were about 25% richer. The poorest
people had, however, become slightly poorer.

Collecting Tax
The government organization which is responsible for collecting taxes in Britain is
called the Inland Revenue. For employees, paying their income tax is not some thing
they have to worry about. It is deducted from their pay cheque or pay packet before they
receive it.

17
This system is known as PAYE ( = pay as you earn) . The tax added to the price of
something you buy is called VAT ( = value added tax).

The old lady of Thread needle Street

This is the nickname of the Bank of England. the institution which controls the supply of
money in Britain and which is located ,of course, in the 'square mile'. Notice how the
name suggests both familiarity and ,age - and also conservative habits.
The bank has been described as 'fascinated by its own past'. It is also not able that the
people who work there are reported to be proud of the nickname.

The high street banks

The so-called ' big four' banks,which each have a branch in almost every town in Britain
are: the National Westminster Bank (Natwest) : Barclays Bank; Lloyds Bank; Midland
Bank. The Bank of Scotland also has a very huge number of branches. So does the
Trustee Savings Bank (TSB).

Currency and cash

The currency of Britain is the pound sterling, whose symbol is '£",always written before
the amount. Informally, a pound is sometimes called a 'quid', so £20 might be expressed
as 'twenty quid'. There are 100 pence (written 'p': pronounced 'pea ') in a pound.
The one-pound coin has four different designs: an English one, a Scottish one, a
Northern Irish one and a Welsh one (on which the inscription on the side is in Welsh; on
all the others it is in Latin).
In Scotland, banknotes with a Scottish design are issued. These notes are perfectly legal
in England, Wales and Northern Ireland , but banks and shops are not obliged to accept
them if they don't want to and no body has the right to demand change in Scottish notes.
Before 1971 Britain used the 'LSD' system. There were twelve pennies in a shilling and
twenty shillings in a pound. Amounts were written like this: £3 r as. 6d. (=three pounds,
twelve shillings and sixpence). If you read any novels set in Britain before 1971, you
may come across the following:
a farthing = a quarter of a penny (not used after I960)
a ha 'penny (halfpenny) = half of a penny
a three penny bit = threepence
a tanner = an informal name for a sixpenny coin
a bob = an informal name for a shilling
18
a half crown = two -and-a-half shillings (or two and sixpence)

Spending money: shopping

The British are not very adventurous shoppers. They like reliability and buy brand -
name goods wherever possible, preferably with the price clearly marked (they are not
very keen on haggling over prices).
It is therefore not surprising that a very high proportion of the country's shops are
branches of chain stores.
Visitors from northern European countries are some times surprised by the shabbiness of
shop-window displays, even in prosperous areas. This is not necessarily a sign of
economic depression.
It is just that the British do not demand art in their shop windows. In general, they have
been rather slow to take on the idea that shopping might actually be fun. On the positive
side, visitors are also sometimes struck by the variety of types of shop. Most shops are
chain stores ,but among those that are not, there is much individuality. Independent
shopowners feel no need to follow conventional ideas about what a particular shop does
and doesn't sell.
In the last quarter of the twentieth century supermarkets began moving out of town,
where there was lots of free parking space. As they did so, they became bigger, turning
in to 'hypermarkets' stocking a wider variety of items. For example, most of them now
sell alcoholic drinks, which are conventionally bought at shops called 'off-licences'.
They also sell petrol and some items traditionally found in chemists and newsagents.
However, this trend has not gone as far as it has in some other European countries. For
example, few supermarkets sell clothes, shoes, kitchen utensils or electrical goods. They
still concentrate mainly on everyday needs.

19