It is neither constitutional monarchy nor parliamentary democracy for Crown and Parliament to cede the power to choose the Prime Minister to the paying members of a private club of children and foreign nationals. While in 2019, party members elected the candidate who had led in every round among Conservative MPs, Liz Truss has never led in any. In the last, she took 113 votes, 31.6 per cent. Taking the House of Commons as a whole, that was 17.38 per cent.
Before appointing this Prime Minister, the Queen should put the name to a Yes-No ballot of all Conservative MPs. If the majority voted Yes, then let that be honoured. If not, then the same question should be put to a division of the House of Commons. Most Opposition parties have no parliamentary representation, and only in the most wildly improbable circumstances could any install its Leader as Prime Minister without a General Election. But when that office were guaranteed to be assumed by a party's Leader, then the shortlist of two determined by its MPs should be submitted to an election among all registered parliamentary electors in the United Kingdom. No party could afford that. But the State could.
It is neither constitutional monarchy nor parliamentary democracy for Crown and Parliament to cede the power to choose the Prime Minister to the paying members of a private club of children and foreign nationals
ReplyDeleteOf course it is. Under our glorious system, any new PM must go and seek the approval of the Monarch to be appointed-and can only do so if his or her party has a majority in Parliament. That’s Parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy. The PM in Britain doesn’t have presidential powers hence we don’t have a presidential system,
If "That’s Parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy", then Britain must be the world's only example of either, including the other 14 sovereign states Headed by the Queen, and Britain must have become a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy a mere three years ago.
DeleteArmed with the Royal Prerogative, the Prime Minister is not so much a President as an absolute monarch. Since it is the Queen who summons Parliament at all, then it is in effect the Prime Minister who does so, and he could in the meantime use Orders in Council to enact primary legislation effectively by decree. If he just never got the Queen to summon Parliament, then that would be that.
This post is clearly written by someone who understands neither constitutional monarchy nor parliamentary democracy.
ReplyDeleteUnder our glorious system, any new PM must travel to Balmoral on Monday to seek the Queen’s blessing, and can only be chosen as PM in the first place if his or her party has a parliamentary majority (without which he or she couldn’t pass any laws).
Hence of course we don’t have a presidential system, which is what the leftwing Blairites wanted,( hence their Bennite abolition of hereditary peers as a precursor to abolishing a hereditary head of state).
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, this is why your public school never suggested that you might one day be Prime Minister.
DeleteArmed with the Royal Prerogative, the Prime Minister is not so much a President as an absolute monarch. Since it is the Queen who summons Parliament at all, then it is in effect the Prime Minister who does so, and he could in the meantime use Orders in Council to enact primary legislation effectively by decree. If he just never got the Queen to summon Parliament, then that would be that.
ReplyDeleteThe PM can only wield Royal Prerogative and indeed be PM at all if he or she has the confidence of the House (the Opposition could have easily stopped Johnson proroguing Parliament in 2019 by simply voting for a general election or a new “caretaker PM” but it wimped out of both) and no PM could permanently stop Parliament sitting as income tax and corporation tax have to be reapproved at a new Budget each year and only Parliament can approve taxes.
You clearly didn’t go to a very good school.
No, people think that, but it is not true, not even the bit about finance, which is purely a matter of convention. You might have to deal with civil unrest, although you might not, but of course that can be done.
DeleteYour schoolmasters must never have thought you promising enough to tell you the truth. Thankfully, no one will ever have told Truss, either. Sunak knows these things, though.
Boris Johnson became Prime Minister while Parliament was not sitting, and that is far from uncommon. If he had just never called it back, then it would just never have come back. And life would have gone on.