Handbook

Chapter 4: A modern, thriving society

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The UK today and religion

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The UK Today: People, Cities and Faith

At Land's End, the far south-western tip of England, a famous signpost shows how far it is to John O'Groats, at the northern tip of Scotland. Every year people set off from here and travel all the way north on foot or by bike, often to raise money for charity. It's the longest journey you can make on the island of Great Britain.

On the way you would pass big cities and quiet countryside, hear many different accents and languages, and see churches, mosques and Hindu temples. This chapter covers two sections of chapter 4 of the handbook, The UK today and Religion: the UK's cities, how many people live here, which languages they speak and what they believe.

Four nations, four capitals

The UK is in north-west Europe. On the mainland, the two places furthest apart are John O'Groats, at the top of Scotland, and Land's End, at the far south-western tip of England. They are roughly 870 miles apart, or about 1,400 kilometres.

Strictly speaking, neither number is quite what it seems. The 870 miles is the distance by road; in a straight line the two places are only about 600 miles (around 970 km) apart. And John O'Groats isn't even the most northerly point of the mainland. That is Dunnet Head, about 18 km to the west, but John O'Groats is far better known, so people still treat it as the finishing line.

Most people live in a town or city, but large parts of Britain are still countryside. Lots of people head out of town on holiday or at weekends to go walking, camping or fishing.

The UK is made up of four countries, and each one has its own capital city:

• London: the capital of England, and of the whole UK
• Edinburgh: the capital of Scotland
• Cardiff: the capital of Wales
• Belfast: the capital of Northern Ireland

Each country also has other main cities. A test question might ask which city is in Scotland or which is in Wales, so it's worth knowing where each one is. Here they are in alphabetical order:

Pounds and pence: the money in your pocket

The UK's currency is the pound sterling, written with the symbol £. One pound is worth 100 pence (written "p" for short).

Banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland print their own banknotes, with designs that differ from Bank of England notes. These notes are valid all over the UK, but a shop or business can choose not to take them. So don't be surprised if a shop assistant in London looks twice at a Scottish note.

Beyond English: Welsh and Gaelic

The way people speak changes a lot from one part of the UK to another. English itself has many accents and dialects: a person from Liverpool and a person from Glasgow can sound almost as if they speak different languages.

Some parts of the UK also have a language of their own:

• Wales: lots of people speak Welsh. It is not a kind of English but a separate language. Children can learn it at school, and it is also taught at university.
• Scotland: in parts of the Highlands and Islands, some people speak Gaelic, which is also a separate language from English.
• Northern Ireland: some people speak Irish Gaelic.

Population: from 4 million to 66 million

In 1600, when Elizabeth I was on the throne, the population was only a little over 4 million. By 2017 it had passed 66 million. Here is how it changed over these four hundred years:

In recent years the population has grown faster than before. There are two reasons: people moving to the UK and people living longer.

People are spread very unevenly across the four nations. About 84% live in England, and that share has stayed much the same over time. Scotland has just over 8%, Wales about 5% and Northern Ireland under 3%.

Living longer

People in Britain now live longer than at any time in history, because living standards and health care have both improved. There are more people aged 85 or older than ever before. That has a cost: more money is needed for pensions and health care.

Ethnic diversity: more mixed than a century ago

Compared with a hundred years ago, the UK today is much more varied, both in people's ethnic backgrounds and in their religions. Because of immigration after the Second World War, nearly 10% of people have at least one parent or grandparent who was born abroad. The UK is a multinational, multiracial society whose culture is rich and varied.

People in the UK have family roots all over the world, and the mix is changing fast, especially in big cities such as London. That makes exact figures hard to pin down. In surveys, the group that most people choose is white. It covers people whose families came from Europe, America, Australia, Canada or New Zealand. Other large groups are of Asian, black and mixed descent.

Much of this mix goes back to the years after the Second World War. In 1948 the ship Empire Windrush brought the first large group of migrants from the Caribbean, and many more people later came from India, Pakistan and other countries (see Britain Since 1945). That is the story behind the "nearly 10%" of people with a parent or grandparent born abroad.

An equal society

In the UK it is against the law to treat someone unfairly because of their sex, or because they are married or not married. Men and women have equal rights at work, in owning property, and in marriage and divorce. When parents are married, the mother and father share equal responsibility for their children.

Today women make up about half of the people in work. On average, girls get better results at school than boys, and more women than men go to university.

Women have far more job opportunities than in the past. They work in every part of the economy, and more women than ever hold senior jobs, including in fields that used to be mostly male. At the same time, men now do a wider range of jobs than before. Nobody expects women to stay at home any more, and many carry on working after having children. In many families both partners work and share the childcare and housework.

It is a big change in a short time. A hundred years ago, women in Britain couldn't even vote: some women got the vote in 1918, and women only gained the same voting rights as men in 1928 (see The Two World Wars). Today the main law protecting people from discrimination is the Equality Act 2010, which protects nine "characteristics", including sex, age, race, religion, and marriage or civil partnership.

Religion: a historically Christian country

Historically, the UK is a Christian country. Here are the results of the 2011 Census, the count of everyone living in the country that takes place every ten years:

Across the UK you'll also find places of worship for other faiths: mosques, Hindu temples, synagogues (Jewish), gurdwaras (Sikh) and Buddhist temples. But the law gives everyone the right to pick their own religion, or to have none at all. When the 2011 Census asked, a quarter of people (25%) answered that they had no religion.

The Church of England

England's Church and state are linked by the constitution. The state's official Church is the Church of England. In other countries it is known as the Anglican Church, and in Scotland and the USA it is called the Episcopal Church. It's a Protestant Church that goes back to the Reformation of the 1530s, when Henry VIII broke with Rome (see The Tudors).

• The monarch is head of this Church.
• Its spiritual leader is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• The monarch has the right to appoint the Archbishop and other senior clergy, but in practice the Prime Minister and a committee chosen by the Church usually decide.
• A number of its bishops have seats in the House of Lords.

The Church of Scotland and other Churches

Scotland's national Church is the Church of Scotland. It is a Presbyterian Church, run by ministers and elders rather than bishops. Its main meeting is called the General Assembly, and the person who chairs it is the Moderator. Each Moderator serves for just one year and often speaks for the Church in public.

Wales and Northern Ireland have no established Church (no official state Church). Other Protestant groups in the UK include Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and Quakers. There are other Christian denominations too, and the largest of them is the Roman Catholic Church.

Wales used to be part of the Church of England. In 1920 the Church in Wales was separated from the state and became the independent Church in Wales, which is why Wales has no established Church today. In Scotland, Presbyterian Churches have no bishops at all. So although St Giles' in Edinburgh is called a cathedral, it was a bishop's seat only for two short periods in the 17th century; its other name is the High Kirk of Edinburgh.

Four patron saints, four special days

Each of the four nations has its own patron saint, a saint who is thought to watch over that country, and every saint has a day of their own:

1 Mar
St David's Day
Wales

17 Mar
St Patrick's Day
Northern Ireland

23 Apr
St George's Day
England

30 Nov
St Andrew's Day
Scotland

• 1 March: St David's Day, Wales
• 17 March: St Patrick's Day, Northern Ireland
• 23 April: St George's Day, England
• 30 November: St Andrew's Day, Scotland

Only Scotland and Northern Ireland make their saint's day an official holiday, and even in Scotland some businesses and offices stay open. There are celebrations all over the UK, especially in places where many people have Scottish, Northern Irish or Irish roots.

In England and Wales these days are not public holidays any more, but people still celebrate them with parades and small festivals.

The saints themselves have colourful stories. St George, the dragon-slayer of legend, is said to have been a soldier in the Roman army and never set foot in England. St Patrick, by his own account, was born in Britain, captured as a young man and taken to Ireland as a slave, and later went back to spread Christianity. St David was a 6th-century Welsh bishop, and on his day many people wear a daffodil, the national flower of Wales. St Andrew, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, gives Scotland's flag its white diagonal cross, from the story that he was put to death on an X-shaped cross; his day has been a bank holiday in Scotland since 2007. Put the crosses of St George, St Andrew and St Patrick together and you get the Union Flag (see A Global Power).

Chapter summary