Liz Truss resigns as British PM

Started by vandermolen, October 20, 2022, 04:39:57 AM

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vandermolen

Quote from: Pohjolas Daughter on October 29, 2022, 02:26:22 PM
Huh?  I wouldn't have thought that Boris would have been invited?  Thought that it was just for current heads?

And I'm not certain what you mean by "hammer"...against?

PD
Boris can't bear to be out of the limelight. That's the only explanation.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: vandermolen on October 30, 2022, 10:16:02 AM
Boris can't bear to be out of the limelight. That's the only explanation.
Or wanting to be reimbursed and getting a free trip to Egypt and visiting with some "old pals" from his former days in power?  :-\

I did just run across this interesting article stating basically that there will be a kind of pre-summit get together hosted by the King at B.P.  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-63447714

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Karl Henning

Quote from: vandermolen on October 30, 2022, 10:16:02 AM
Boris can't bear to be out of the limelight. That's the only explanation.

Neither Trump nor Boris can bear the fact of their irrelevancy.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Spotted Horses

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on October 30, 2022, 10:41:10 AM
Neither Trump nor Boris can bear the fact of their irrelevancy.

I wish Trump were irrelevant.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

Fëanor

Quote from: absolutelybaching on October 29, 2022, 06:31:21 AM
You are correct that the monarch (or his representative) exercising choice in apparent defiance of the popular will would be a quick route to a constitutional disaster.

But it's happened!

I cited earlier the case of Churchill in 1940.

I could also cite Alex Douglas Home, who the queen appointed PM because Macmillan sort-of recommended her to do so, despite almost everyone in the party thinking that Rab Butler should have got the job.

I would then also cite Gough Whitlam, Australian PM who was sacked by a governor general because he couldn't get his budget through the Senate ...and sacking a democratically elected PM has annoyed the heck out of Aussies ever since.

So your point about constitutional trouble if these perogative powers are exercised is entirely conceded as valid. Nevertheless, they exist and can (and have) been exercised in the not-so distant past.

Thank you for pointing out to me these rare instances.

The circumstance were also unusual and thus the monarch and viceroy didn't act in entirely arbitrary ways though not necessarily as everyone thought they should.

I'm just old enough to remember and being a bit interested in the Douglas-Home instance.   In that case, (without looking deeply into the matter), it seems to me that there was no clear Conservative Party-agreed leader to replace MacMillan, so MacMillan's suggestion was arguably as good as any.

I don't know anything about the Australian Senate but, perhaps, if a PM cannot get a bill past the Senate, then it is tantamount to vote of no confidence which, if it happened in the Commons, would require that the PM resign.

Florestan

Quote from: absolutelybaching on October 30, 2022, 11:48:57 AM
Irrelevant. Of course the times were exceptional, but they were met by the exercise of prerogative powers which are definitely *not* exceptional. They exist, persist, and need to be taken into account by anyone that thinks they know how the constitution actually works or expresses an opinion on how they think it ought to work.

So, the monarch may, in theory, nominate any MP for the office of PM. Now, the question is: may s/he, in theory, nominate a non-MP? Actually, may the monarch, in theory, nominate whichever person they please?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Spotted Horses

Even if the monarch nominates  the wrong person, that person still has to form a government and wind a vote of confidence in order to become prime minister. That is the point of nominating an MP from the majority party.
There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. - Duke Ellington

Fëanor

#147
Quote from: absolutelybaching on October 31, 2022, 08:16:22 AM
...
The point of the Australian story is that the normal convention if a government can't get an important bill through the Senate (especially a budget, which is what 1975 was about), is the PM does indeed go to the Governor General and ask for an election. Except in 1975, the Governor General didn't let the PM request an election, but sacked him before the request could be made. He immediately appointed the Leader of the Opposition as PM, on the promise that he'd pass a budget and immediately call a new election. The new PM moved so fast to pass the budget through the lower house that the dismissed PM's MPs didn't know what was happening and didn't know to vote it down. So, the new PM got the budget through the lower house which he didn't control -and then was able to walk it through the Senate, which he did control. Again, the point is that the monarch (or her representative) dismissed and appointed a Prime Minister as a matter of the exercise of the royal prerogative, rather than taking account of 'who had the majority, who was democratically elected' and so on. Australians have generally hated this pointed reminder of the existence of royal prerogative powers ever since!

So I suppose the 2008-09 situation in Canada is a bit of a contrast on account of what the Governor General, Michelle Jean, did and did not do.  In December of '08 the Liberal Party and New Democratic Party agreed,with support from the Quebec-base Bloc Québécois, to defeat the Conservative Party by a vote of no-confidence on the Budget, and ask the GG to recognize the Liberal Party leader as PM.

The Conservative leader and PM, Stephen Harper cynically avoided the no-confidence vote by asking the GG to prorogue Parliament to be reconvened towards the end of January '09, which the GG did.  In the interval the Liberal Party leader changed and the putative coalition dissolved;  the Conservatives made a few concessions on the Budget which passed on account of the abstention of a few Liberal MPs.

What the potential coalition did actually not request and what the GG did not do, was recognize the coalition merely because it was declare.  On the other hand what the GG did do was grant the prorogation.  The GG acted appropriately in the constitutional sense:  she gave no consideration to the coalition ahead a defeat of the government by a no-confidence vote, but granted the PM's request for prorogation because she felt she must acquiesce to an undefeated PM's request.

Florestan

Quote from: absolutelybaching on October 31, 2022, 08:21:35 AM
the idea of appointing a private individual PM would be ludicrous: the PM has to get his or her programme of government through Parliament, and sitting in it somewhere is generally regarded as a prerequisite for doing that job effectively. Were the monarch to appoint a private individual as PM, you'd expect the new PM to have to get elected to the Commons in pretty short order!

Quote from: Spotted Horses on October 31, 2022, 07:45:32 AM
Even if the monarch nominates  the wrong person, that person still has to form a government and wind a vote of confidence in order to become prime minister. That is the point of nominating an MP from the majority party.

Yes and this is exactly my point: although in theory the monarch may do as he pleases, in practice this power is greatly circumscribed by pragmatism and common-sense. There is no reason to suppose that Charles III will ever nominate as PM anyone elsse than the leader of the majoritarian party. That in theory he may do otherwise is, well, irrelevant.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

Quote from: absolutelybaching on October 31, 2022, 08:16:22 AM
the PM is, in fact, created by the monarch, not by popular vote.

Techincally yes but it's not created ex nihilo. The result of the popular vote plays a very important role in the process.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

Quote from: absolutelybaching on November 02, 2022, 12:59:04 AM
No-one is denying that, in the UK at least, elections have a very large part to play in deciding who becomes PM. But, the entire discussion kicked off when someone up-thread mentioned a 'popularly-elected Prime Minister' or 'no-body voted for her to be Prime Minister'. And we see variations on this sort of thing all the time, when Labour and other MPs say things like 'Sunak should call an election, as he has no mandate'.

Pointing out that he does have a mandate, since he leads the largest party in the Commons; or that no-one ever has, nor ever will, democratically elect a Prime Minister -these are not "technicalities". They are how the constitution of this country works.

Well, this is how the constitution of parliamentarian and semi-presidential republics works too. Nobody becomes PM in Italy, Germany or Romania because people voted him/her for that position: they are nominated by the President. But everybody, from the last voter to the President themselves, knows that in 99% of the cases the leader of the majoritarian party or coalition will be nominated as PM, even though the Constitution, in all three cases, does not expressly require them to do so.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

Quote from: absolutelybaching on November 02, 2022, 02:52:08 AM
I don't know what you're apparently trying to continue to argue about then.

Not arguing about anything, just pointing out that the UK is not exceptional in this respect. AFAIK,there is no country in the world where the PM is elected directly by the people.

QuoteThe point was merely to detonate the complaints made by others up-thread that 'Grrr! No-one elected Sunak/Truss as PM; it's a democratic outrage!!'.
As in "Correct, no-one voted them in as PM because no-one ever votes in a PM; and it's not a democratic outrage, because that's how the constitution works".

Can we agree that point has been made?!

Yes. I don't see what is un-democratic in a PM being selected from within, or by, the leadership of the party which won the latest elections.



Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Florestan

Quote from: absolutelybaching on November 02, 2022, 03:19:44 AM
The point in these pages was not to determine or declare whether it was democratic or undemocratic. It was merely to explain what the procedures are.

My response was to this bit you quoted: 'Grrr! No-one elected Sunak/Truss as PM; it's a democratic outrage!!'. Ummm, no, it's not.

We're basically on the same side of the fence so let's agree to agree and move on.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Fëanor

#153
Quote from: Florestan on November 02, 2022, 02:17:21 AM
Well, this is how the constitution of parliamentarian and semi-presidential republics works too. Nobody becomes PM in Italy, Germany or Romania because people voted him/her for that position: they are nominated by the President. But everybody, from the last voter to the President themselves, knows that in 99% of the cases the leader of the majoritarian party or coalition will be nominated as PM, even though the Constitution, in all three cases, does not expressly require them to do so.

This is the essence of the matter.  Would it help a country's constitution required the President/Monarch to do this?  Maybe, or maybe just a little flexibility desirable in some circumstances.

BTW, when you say "majoritarian" I presume you mean the party with majority of MPs OR at least the party with plurality of MPs based on the expectation that they will receive some additional support from parties with fewer MPs, with or without a declared coalition.


Florestan

Quote from: Fëanor on November 02, 2022, 06:17:46 AM
This is the essence of the matter.  Would it help a country's constitution required the President/Monarch to do this?  Maybe, or maybe just a little flexibility desirable in some circumstances.

I think that flexibility is necessary and beneficial. For instance, a few years ago the leader of the Romanian Social-Democratic Party (which had just won the elections) was such a divisive and controversial person that he refrained himself from being PM and suggested another person to the President. Had the latter been required to nominate the SDP boss the situation would have been really explosive.

QuoteBTW, when you say "majoritarian" I presume you mean the party with majority of MPs OR at least the party with plurality of MPs based on the hope that they will receive some additional support from parties with fewer MPs, with or without a declared coalition.

Precisely. Is there another, better term for such a party?
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini