Parliament, the Crown, and who decides what

The UK Parliament sits in the Palace of Westminster: the House of Commons, elected, and the House of Lords, appointed and hereditary remnants. Government is formed by whoever can command the Commons. The prime minister is not directly elected as president. General elections are at most five years apart, and often sooner.

Reserved matters — defence, most foreign policy, the currency, immigration, the constitution — stay at Westminster. Everything else is a negotiation with devolution, and the negotiation is the politics.

The Scottish Parliament at Holyrood legislates on health, education, justice, most transport and a meaningful slice of tax. The Senedd in Cardiff Bay does the same for Wales, with a smaller tax footprint and a younger parliament. The Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont shares power between traditions; when it collapses, civil servants keep the lights on and politics stalls. All three are worth seeing as buildings. Holyrood and the Senedd were designed to look unlike Westminster on purpose.

Local councils run bins, many schools, planning and the dull glory of daily life. If a high street looks loved or neglected, a council is somewhere in the story. Combined authorities and metro mayors — London, Manchester, the West Midlands, and others — sit between council and nation, mostly on transport and housing.

The monarch is head of state, opens Parliament, and assents to laws that Parliament has already passed. Day-to-day power sits with ministers. The royal palaces a visitor queues for — Buckingham Palace’s state rooms in summer, Windsor, the Tower, Holyroodhouse — are historic estates and working residences, not the government.

You can watch the state without paying it much. Prime Minister’s Questions is theatre and a useful one. Debates are on television. A morning in the public gallery, if you can get in, teaches more than a crown-jewels shuffle. The jewels are still extraordinary. Go early, or don’t.