English vocabulary in the news: Hung Parliament

If you have seen the results of the UK elections in the news recently, you will have certainly seen the expression ‘hung parliament’. What does it mean, though?

A ‘parliament’ is a group of politicians who govern a country. In the UK, the politicians in Parliament are called MPs (Members of Parliament) and the overall leader is the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister is from the political party that gets the most votes in the elections. However, when the results of an election are too close and no party has a big enough majority, we call it a ‘hung parliament’.

When there is a hung parliament, two parties will usually choose to work together in a coalition to form a majority. In the case of the UK elections, it is not clear who will form a coalition, yet.

1 thought on “English vocabulary in the news: Hung Parliament”

  1. Pingback: Words in the News: Hung Parliament | English Advantage

Comments are closed.