branch of government should use the term, and although it is on occasion used in a geographical sense in Irish parliamentary debates, this is often done in a way that excludes the Republic of Ireland. In October 2006, The Times quoted a spokesman for the Irish Embassy in London as saying that they would discourage its use. During a stop-over visit to the Republic of Ireland in 1989, the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, indicated that he assumed Ireland's head of state was Queen Elizabeth II, given that she was the British Queen and his officials said that Ireland was a part of the British Isles. There have been several suggestions for replacements for the term British Isles. Although there is no single accepted replacement, the terms Great Britain and Ireland, The British Isles and Ireland and Britain and Ireland are all used. In Northern Ireland, some nationalists use these islands or these isles as an alternative. Britain The word Britain is ambiguous, being used variously to mean Great Britain, the United Kingdom, and for some, England. The usage of Britain can be contentious, with many people in Northern Ireland objecting to its application to their region. While some organisations, including the BBC, prefer to use Britain as shorthand for Great Britain, others prefer, where precision is not required, to use Britain to mean the United Kingdom. The UK Government itself states a preference for using the UK over Britain in its style guide, but does not describe the latter as incorrect, and says elsewhere that "it is only the one specific nominal term "Great Britain", which invariably excludes Northern Ireland." England The word England is often used synecdochically to refer to Great Britain, or the United Kingdom as a whole, or sometimes the British Isles. References to England as an island, to an "English passport", or to Scottish or Welsh places as being in England are examples of this usage of the term "England". Such usage often causes offence, particularly to those from the non-English parts of the United Kingdom. Because of this, most politicians and official figures have avoided this usage since the early 20th century. However, there are frequent examples of this usage from earlier times. For a long time it was common for fans of the England football team to wave the British Union Jack; the use of the specifically English St George's Cross