UK
We live in the United Kingdom (or the UK) and this is the UK flag.
There are four countries in the UK: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The people who live in the UK vote for who makes decisions in the UK. This is called democracy.
Big decisions about what happens in the UK are made by the Government.
The Government is run by the Prime Minister and people in his team called the Cabinet.
They make decisions about what will happen in the UK.
Discussions about what the government should think about are made by the UK parliament.
Parliament is made up of people called Members of Parliament or MPs.
MPs are either in a group called a party (like Labour, Green, SNP, Plaid Cymru or Conservative) or they can work on their own.
The job of an MP is to speak in parliament for people from a local area.
Smaller, more local decisions are made by local authorities. Sometimes these are called local councils.
Local authorities are run by local councillors.
People in the UK vote for MPs and local councillors to speak for them and represent their views.
You can vote for MPs when there is a general election. The party which has the most MPs voted for becomes the government.
You can vote for local councillors in local elections. The local councillors who get the most votes are put in charge of local authorities.
