How does the British Prime Minister come to office? - Page 2

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

It should have been John Smith :-(

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

IIRC it's possible for a member of the House of Lords to be PM too. I wonder who the last such worthy man was.

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

It's the old story. Your name is Peter Rumble, you're an MP for Shrickesham, Devonshire, age 47, when suddenly your great-uncle, the 76th Duke of Wongerfiddeldally (pronounce: "Wuddly") dies without any other heir than ....

Who are you to refuse the title and the vaste posessions? But if you want to stay an MP for your constituency, I believe you will have to!


Cees

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Is Wongerfiddeldally related to the Earl of Flufferdoodle?

But even as recently as 1940, when Chamberlain had to step down many members of the Conservative party preferred Halifax - a member of the House of Lords - to that upstart Churchill. So even at that late a date it was possible for a member of Lords to take over as PM.

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Wuddly and Fluffy?
No doubt! They go out hunting together.


Cees

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Any fans of the Fast Show?

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

I can't believe we made it almost to the end of the first page before the Monty Python jokes started...

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

As usual, Wikipedia has the answer:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Douglas_Home

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Just wanted to revive the thread to report on an interesting development in Canada for those who are interested.

Yesterday, the Conservative Party has advised their campaign organizers to stand by and open their campaign offices on October 20. This is four days after the Throne Speech which signals the opening of the new session of parliament.

If the current government had a comfortable majority, this would not be a problem. The throne speech would be held, and later the MPs vote for or against it. With a majority government, the vote always passes.

But now, we have a minority government in power where the ruling party holds less than half of the seats in parliament. And a throne speech vote is considered a confidence vote! If the majority of MPs vote against the throne speech (i.e. all the other parties "gang up" on the government ), then there's no other choice but to dissolve parliament before it even begun and call an election.

So far so good. If a minority government doesn't want to lose power, they'd better start negotiating with the other parties before the speech is held. And that's almost always the case -- except for now.

The ruling party plans to ignore the requests from the other parties. The other parties that make up most of the house will vote against the speech and force an election. Just the way the ruling party wants it. The Conservatives don't want to call the next election; they want to force the other parties to call it and possibly make them look bad at the same time!

The Official Opposition is currently the Liberal Party. However, they've encountered a problem when their candidates were shut out of three byelections (mid-term elections held in ridings where the seats were recently vacated) just a couple of weeks ago, seeding doubts in the leadership abilities of their current leader. And all this just before the Throne Speech!

The ruling party was handed an early Christmas gift this year. The opposition is severely weakened, the ruling party wants an election to gain control of the house, and the other parties will be the ones forced into triggering off the election by voting against a speech they don't like! Impeccable timing!

It doesn't matter which party is in power. They all know how this game is played and all of them would have exploited this opportunity in exactly the same manner. But you must admit it's kinda fun when you see this happen!

So what effect will an election have on Canada's economy? In my opinion, hardly any at all. We'll still have budget surpluses paying off our debt, our dollar will still be worth too much, the job and inflation rate will still follow their current trends... We'll just take a break in a month or two to go out and mark an "X" on a paper ballot, then watch TV all night to see who wins.

That's it for now. Have I missed anything?

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Local councils, sort of city councils, really. So strictly speaking it doesn't affect Gordon Brown or the national government directly, any more than say an election for New York City council affects the White House or Congress.

Having said that, it is a reflection of the current sentiment of the electorate, so it does suggest if polls were called today, Labour would fare badly, perhaps badly enough to allow a Tory victory.

Next election is due by June 2010.

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

True - at least in the immediate term. In the long run, it can have an effect. Suppose Party X assumes control of the local council that has for donkey's years been run by Party Y. If Party X does a good job, then more diehard voters for Party Y may become more willing to vote for Party X in future elections, be they for local councils or Parliament.

Local election results also tend to be used as propaganda weapons. E.g. the Conservatives will have a field day telling Labour that the local elections have given a clear mandate from the people that the country no longer has faith in Mr Brown and his government, so why doesn't he resign and let the people vote for who they want?, etc, etc, yawn, yawn. If you think the battle for the Democratic candidacy is tedious, it is as nothing compared with the tit for tat squabblilng that is UK Prime Minister's question time.

But in terms of day to day running of the country, Yee-Ming is correct - it has little effect. And on top of this, the government a few years ago introduced fairly strict controls on what local councils could levy in local taxes after a couple of councils started to get above themselves. The situation is slightly different in Scotland and Wales, where there are regional governments that can do slightly more. E.g. here in Wales, university fees are lower and we don't pay for medical prescriptions (in England, folks pay circa 6 pounds or roughly 12 dollars for each item).

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

This sort of thing might be one of the reasons that Labour has lost seats:

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Cumbria | Father fined for overfilling bin

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Local/Municipal elections are a big deal in France as well, and are run nationally, much like US congressional races since the mid-90s. Winning a major city like Paris, Bordeaux or Marseilles can be as important as winning a major state here, at least in terms of perception.

Perhaps due to the smaller size of country, and population distribution, the mayor of Paris wields significantly more political power over there than say the mayor of NYC here.

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H

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

I think the council officials concerned should be ashamed of themselves. Four inches is not much to get excited about ...

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Odd how a failed political movement is often described as being consigned to the "dustbin of history".

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Mayor of London: Ken Livingstone (Red Ken) has been deposed and replaced by Boris Johnson.

"Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (he is still known to family members as Al) was born in New York to English parents in 1964 and was, until recently, an American citizen."

I don't know much about him because I live in the US, but he seems like quite a colorful character.

One of his quotes:
"Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3" - on the campaign trail in 2004

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | The Boris Johnson story

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

This is something of an understatement. In an age of politicians petrified of saying anything unless triple checked, approved (and preferably also written) by the party machine, Boris is a complete maverick. He is also far, far cleverer than the upper class twit that he is often portrayed to be. I seriously doubt if his career will stop with being Mayor of London.

Re: How does the British Prime Minister come to office?

Damn. He has my vote.

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H