Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK "government" is used both very generally (as you're construing it) to mean institutions including courts, police, the Bank of England, a local municipal authority, and thus about half of everything, and specifically to mean the executive, which in the UK is run directly by politicians from the ruling party in the legislature. Unless it's clear from context people usually mean the latter, and the executive s…
Interesting. Does the UK have another word other than “government” that has the US English meaning—any institution of or controlled by the state?
In everyday speech, not really. We don't have a codified constitution so things are sometimes a little ambiguous. I guess people might use terms like "the state" or "the powers that be".
There is the legal concept of "The Crown" [1], which is kind of like the legal personality of the state. It sits at the root of a hierarchy, with the executive, legislature, courts, military etc. below it. The monarch, as head of state, exercises the powers of The Crown, although mostly in a ceremonial way on the advice of the government [2]. But nobody talks about The Crown in everyday speech.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crown
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_prerogative_in_the_Unite...