Monarchy of the United Kingdom in the context of "First Minister of Scotland"

A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by England, and then Great Britain or the United Kingdom within the English and later British Empire. There was usually a governor to represent the Crown, appointed by the British monarch on the advice of the UK Government, with or without the assistance of a local council. In some cases, this council was split into two: an executive council and a legislative council, and the executive council was similar to the Privy Council that advises the monarch. Members of executive councils were appointed by the governors, and British citizens resident in Crown colonies either had no representation in local government, or limited representation in a lower house. In several Crown colonies, this limited representation grew over time. As the House of Commons of the British Parliament has never included seats for any of the colonies, there was no direct representation in the sovereign government for British subjects or citizens residing in Crown colonies.

The administration of Crown colonies changed over time and in the 1800s some became, with a loosening of the power of royal governors, self-governing colonies, within which the sovereign state (the UK Government) delegated legislation for most local internal matters of governance to elected assemblies, with consent of the governor, overseen by the Colonial Office and the Board of Trade and Plantations. The Colonial Office gave way to the Dominion Office for some of these territories in 1925. Elected lower houses had their beginnings in the House of Burgesses of the Colony of Virginia in 1619 and the House of Assembly of the Parliament of Bermuda in 1620. While initially limited in government even with an elected lower house, over the centuries in some Crown colonies, more independent authority was given.

The Constitution of the Empire of Japan (Kyūjitai: 大日本帝國憲法; Shinjitai: 大日本帝国憲法, romanized: Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kenpō), known informally as the Meiji Constitution (明治憲法, Meiji Kenpō), was the constitution of the Empire of Japan which was proclaimed on February 11, 1889, and remained in force between November 29, 1890, until May 2, 1947. Enacted after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, it provided for a form of mixed constitutional and absolute monarchy, based jointly on the German and British models. In theory, the Emperor of Japan governed the empire with the advice of his ministers; in practice, the Emperor was head of state but the Prime Minister was the actual head of government. Under the Meiji Constitution, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet were not necessarily chosen from the elected members of parliament.

During the Allied occupation of Japan, the Meiji Constitution was replaced with the "Postwar Constitution" on November 3, 1946; the latter document has been in force since May 3, 1947. In order to maintain legal continuity, the Postwar Constitution was enacted as an amendment to the Meiji Constitution.

The Province of Canada (or the United Province of Canada or the United Canadas) was a British colony in British North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham, in the Report on the Affairs of British North America following the Rebellions of 1837–1838.

The Act of Union 1840, passed on 23 July 1840 by the British Parliament and proclaimed by the Crown on 10 February 1841, merged the Colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada by abolishing their separate parliaments and replacing them with a single one with two houses, a Legislative Council as the upper chamber and the Legislative Assembly as the lower chamber. In the aftermath of the Rebellions of 1837–1838, unification of the two Canadas was driven by two factors. Firstly, Upper Canada was near bankruptcy because it lacked stable tax revenues, and needed the resources of the more populous Lower Canada to fund its internal transportation improvements. Secondly, unification was an attempt to swamp the French vote by giving each of the former provinces the same number of parliamentary seats, despite the larger population of Lower Canada.

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. Since 1999, varying degree of powers have been devolved to the devolved national parliaments of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Each devolved parliament has different devolved powers, with Scotland being the most powerful amongst the three devolved parliaments. The central UK Parliament retains the power to legislate in reserved matters, including broadcasting, defence, and currency.

It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. Parliament possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories. While Parliament is bicameral, it has three parts: the sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The three parts acting together to legislate may be described as the King-in-Parliament. The Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation.

The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet, and selects its ministers. Modern prime ministers hold office by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons, so they are invariably members of Parliament.

The office of prime minister is not established by any statute or constitutional document, but exists only by long-established convention, whereby the monarch appoints as prime minister the person most likely to command the confidence of the House of Commons. In practice, this is the leader of the political party that holds the largest number of seats in the Commons. The prime minister is ex officio also First Lord of the Treasury (an office often associated with the premiership between 1721 and 1895, after 1902 always united to it, and, after 1905, an official title of the position), Minister for the Civil Service, the minister responsible for national security, and Minister for the Union. The prime minister's official residence and office is 10 Downing Street in London.

Parliamentary sovereignty is a longstanding concept central to the functioning of the constitution of the United Kingdom, but which is also not fully defined and has long been debated. Since the subordination of the monarchy under parliament, and the increasingly democratic methods of parliamentary government, there have been the questions of whether parliament holds a supreme ability to legislate and whether or not it should.

Parliamentary sovereignty is a description of the extent to which the Parliament of the United Kingdom has absolute and unlimited power. It is framed in terms of the extent of authority that parliament holds, and whether there are any sorts of law that it cannot pass. In other countries, a written constitution often binds the parliament to act in a certain way, but there is no codified constitution in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, parliament is central to the institutions of state. The concept is exclusive to the UK Parliament and therefore does not extend to the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The government is led by the prime minister (Keir Starmer since 5 July 2024) who selects all the other ministers. The government is currently supported by the Labour party, which has had a majority in the House of Commons since 2024. The prime minister and his most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, known as the Cabinet.

Ministers of the Crown are responsible to the House in which they sit; they make statements in that House and take questions from members of that House. For most senior ministers this is usually the elected House of Commons rather than the House of Lords. The government is dependent on Parliament to make primary legislation, and general elections are held at least once every five years to elect a new House of Commons, unless the prime minister advises the monarch to dissolve Parliament, in which case an election may be held sooner. After an election, the monarch selects as prime minister the leader of the party most likely to command the confidence of the House of Commons, usually by possessing a majority of MPs.

A grant is a fund given by a person or organization, often a public body, charitable foundation, a specialised grant-making institution, or in some cases a business with a corporate social responsibility mission, to an individual or another entity, usually, a non-profit organisation, sometimes a business or a local government body, for a specific purpose linked to public benefit. Unlike loans, grants are not intended to be paid back. Examples include student grants, research grants, the Sovereign Grant paid by the UK Treasury to the monarch, and some European Regional Development Fund payments in the European Union.

Unionism in Ireland is a political tradition that professes loyalty to the crown of the United Kingdom and to the union it represents with England, Scotland and Wales. The overwhelming sentiment of Ireland's Protestant minority, unionism mobilised in the decades following Catholic Emancipation in 1829 to oppose restoration of a separate Irish parliament. Since Partition in 1921, as Ulster unionism its goal has been to retain Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom and to resist the prospect of an all-Ireland republic. Within the framework of the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which concluded three decades of political violence, unionists have shared office with Irish nationalists in a reformed Northern Ireland Assembly. As of February 2024, they no longer do so as the larger faction: they serve in an executive with an Irish republican (Sinn Féin) First Minister.

Unionism became an overarching partisan affiliation in Ireland late in the nineteenth century. Typically Presbyterian agrarian-reform Liberals coalesced with traditionally Anglican, Orange Order allied, Conservatives against the Irish Home Rule Bills of 1886 and 1893. Joined by loyalist labour, on the eve of World War I this broad opposition to Irish self-government concentrated in Belfast and its hinterlands as Ulster unionism and prepared an armed resistance—the Ulster Volunteers.

The Lady Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London, England, and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lady Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional powers, rights, and privileges, including the title and style The Right Honourable Lady Mayor of London.

One of the world's oldest continuously elected civic offices, it is entirely separate from the directly elected mayor of London, a political office controlling a budget which covers the much larger area of Greater London. Dame Susan Langley serves as the 697th Lord/Lady Mayor (for 2025–2026).