This companion to the British Constitution was born out of the view that the tendency for modern political studies to concentrate on processes rather than structures results in a failure to understand basic political terminology. Readers coming to politics for the first time often do not have the basic vocabulary with which to understand the subject. This book is an attempt to provide that basic vocabulary. An introductory survey of concepts relating to the constitutional framework leads to a glossary in which basic terminology is clearly defined and extensively cross-referenced. The glossary can therefore be used as a reference to find the meaning of a word or expression, as an aid to developing a newcomer's ideas or to provide illustrative material for essays.