FAO Old Git, re conversation last night

....about how appropriate it is or isn’t that the PM is being chosen by Tory party members.

Actually I wasn’t wearing ‘leftie specs’ at all, and your post re Gordon Brown, and all the PMs before who didn’t come to power through a general election, is missing the point.

In all previous cases, the new PM has been chosen by MPs. Either through an election amongst themselves or through a coronation. Now you can argue about the rights and wrongs of that, but those MPS were elected. And the ones choosing the new PM were elected with sufficient support to have a parliamentary majority. So you can argue that there is some democratic legitimacy to that. We chose our representatives, they are choosing the new PM.

This is different. Elected MPs are not choosing the new PM, for the first time. Instead the PM is being chosen by 120,000 Conservative party members, who were elected by no-one. And, in the short run at least, Tory MPs will have little choice but to support him or her, or face deselection themselves.

It’s a very strange way to choose a PM, and more questions should be being asked about it.

Posted By: Tricky Hawes, Jun 8, 09:43:51