quote:Originally posted by Not Invented Here: If the Queen really wanted to, I believe she is within her power to pick a tramp off the street and make him PM. Whether she'd manage it is another matter...
I'd go out on a limb and say "no chance in hell", myself.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
The monarchy only exists by the good will of Parliament anyway. I am under the impression that a law dissolving it completely would be trivially easy to draft. (That is, from a technical/legal standpoint. I don't think even dedicated British monarchists argue for its retention with an appeal to law, do they? It's all tradition and cultural heritage stuff, or so it appears to my admittedly uninformed eye.)
((The British monarchs well remember the most interesting thing about King Charles I.))
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Not Invented Here: At least you guys have an inbuilt expiry dates on your Presidents (Although I admit the idea of Jeb taking over is scary).
Jeb just got served a steaming plate of crow to gnaw on for the duration of his term. Almost all the initiaves he put forth this year have been voted down by florida voters.
Add to that, his obvious association with a President that will only become less popular over the next couple of years....
The only thing that can save the Bush dynasty is another terrorist attack.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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It really is getting time for Gordon Brown to either shit or get off the pot. I'm starting to wonder if he has the nerve to actually run for the leadership at all. There's now a lot of doubt as to whether the "Agreement" decided on at the famous Granita meeting in 1994 ever guaranteed him an eventual ascension to the premiership, instead focusing on his autonomy in terms of economic policy. But surely he can't still believe that Blair is going to turn around one day and just thrown in the towel?
The problem is, Brown's loyalty has always been to the Labour Party (whereas for Blair even being Labour was just a marriage of convenience). He doesn't want to lead an open revolt and damage the Party. Sir Anthony Meyer was the stalking-horse in the first leadership challenge against Thatcher: after it failed he saw out the rest of his life (he died a coupla years ago) a virtual pariah to the Conservative party, and Michael (now Lord) Heseltine, the true power behind the attempt to unseat Maggie, was never really forgiven by the Tories either.
I'm just afraid he's going to just bide his time until there's no time left; if Blair goes for one potential goal, to equal or better Thatcher's time at No. 10, that means no change of leadership before 2008, leaving at best two years for Brown to establish himself as a viable Prime Minister with a respectable chance of winning the next election.
quote:Originally posted by Sol System: The monarchy only exists by the good will of Parliament anyway. I am under the impression that a law dissolving it completely would be trivially easy to draft. (That is, from a technical/legal standpoint. I don't think even dedicated British monarchists argue for its retention with an appeal to law, do they? It's all tradition and cultural heritage stuff, or so it appears to my admittedly uninformed eye.)
((The British monarchs well remember the most interesting thing about King Charles I.))
The bizarre thing about this is that after Cromwell died, Parliament invited the Monarchy back to take over the country. So while yes, the Monarchy only exists because of the good will of Parliament, and by extension, the people, we still asked it to be there in the first place. Perhaps no-one in Britain was quite ready for an elected head of state (Unlike the Venetians, who had a wicked-cool method of electing the Doge. And then essentially interning him in his palace so he couldn't do anything without getting permission from about 5 people first).
So yes, I don't think the Queen could ever really use her power of veto without upsetting pretty much everyone. I just wish that Blair would sometimes remember that he too is only in his job through the 'will of the people' and the will of his own party, and that both have pretty much evaporated.
Apologies to the Americans for semi-hijacking this thread to discuss British constitutional issues.
Registered: May 2005
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This is what happens when you have rule by Custom rather than Constitution. As someone over at the Gaurdian's newsblog commented, the only people who actually voted for Blair are the inhabitants of his Sedgefield constituency.
I voted Lib-Dem in 1997 (because I was living in a safe Conservative seat where Labour's presence was nonexistent, leaving Lib-Dem the only viable alternative); Labour in 2001, but then my MP in London was Diane Abbott who's cool (but who was also, though not so obviously at the time, not a Blair fan); and I didn't vote last year because I missed the (unpublicised) deadline for Electoral Roll registration: I'm not sure who I'd've voted for, the Labour incumbent of my Bristol seat is a Blairite whose voting record in the Commons leaves a lot to be desired. But I've never voted for Blair, rather he and his party/policies have influenced the way I did vote each time.
posted
Sad to say, I understand the backstabbing fucko Venitians far better than the current British political system: You're saying "the only people who actually voted for Blair are the inhabitants of his Sedgefield constituency"...and yet...he's your "elected leader".
How's that shit work?
I mean, we've had some potential for electoral fraud (discussed at length) but you guys seem to have completely bypassed the issue...
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Abbadon: How's that shit work?
Not very well these days...
It's because, by convention, the Queen chooses the leader of the party with a Parliamentry Majority to be PM. As I pointed out earlier, theoretically she can actually pick anyone, but this way means that you avoid the situation that you guys can have in the US where the Legislature can be of a different party to the Administration, and so simply vote against all the Administration bills the President tries to get passed into law.
On the other hand, it results in the situation, as you've just pointed out, that the public in the UK does not actually vote for who is PM (His party does). He gets elected as the MP of his constituency, and then backstabs his way up the greasy pole until the initials swap themselves round (Or does he get to be called The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP PM? Honourable my arse). So not only do we end up with a hereditary Head of State (Queenie), we have a practically unelected Head of Government (El Blairo). Plus seen as how the PM is actually the De Facto Head of State anyway these days, score 0 for democracy.
Personally I think it's crap that our Ministers are picked from Parliament. It means that the only real way to improve your local lot is to luck your MP being made a minister, as evidenced by Alistair Darling's constituents in Scotland getting lots of lovely railways whilst he was busy cancelling new lines in England when he was Transport Secretary. I'd love to know exactly what benefits Sedgefield gets out of Blair being PM, if he's ever got enough time to visit them.
Just out of interest, how exactly does the US system work? Is Bush both Head of Government and State? Or do you have something equivalent to the 'Office' of Prime Minister?
Registered: May 2005
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That's an odd question. Or maybe it isn't, but of all the twisty ins and outs of American politics, the President's job (and his role as head of state and head of government, though it isn't that he does both jobs so much as they don't exist as seperate concepts here) would seem well defined at a cursory glance. I mean, we send the same guy to the big showy state dinners and tours of your nation here's national chocolate reserve as we do to the G8 summit.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Da_bang80
A few sectors short of an Empire
Member # 528
posted
I saw This On MSN. And I thought everybody liked getting mail...
-------------------- Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I cannot accept. And the wisdom to hide the bodies of all the people I had to kill today because they pissed me off.
Imagine if, instead of a president, we had a figurehead monarch, and the person with the executive power was the House majority leader. Kinda like that.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Tp put it into perspective, Bush would be Queen, and the Prime Minister would be John Boehner (and before him, Tom DeLay, aargh). We don't really have a majority leader in the House of Lords, but I guess, stretching the analogy a bit, Ted Stevens would be Lord Chancellor (or even, since the proper President of the Senate is the VP, that makes Dick Cheney Lord Chancellor?).
(on the face of it, there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, except that Michael Martin isn't 3rd in line of succession to the "throne", and Dennis Hastert is)
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I don't know. If I were trying to describe our voting system, I wouldn't bother with the Queen. She has, from a practical point of view, nothing to do with it.
Technically, could Bush have walked out 5 minutes after being elected and another Republican run as President for the 4 years before the next election?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Actually, that's a good question - can any of the major US elections be brought forward? Or do they all have to happen at their regularly-scheduled times?
"Technically, could Bush have walked out 5 minutes after being elected and another Republican run as President for the 4 years before the next election?"
I'm not sure I understand this question, though. You mean, let's say in 2004, the election returns are officially certified and Bush has won, but he decides he doesn't want the office after all?
I think this falls under the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads, in part:
quote:Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
In other words, in the earlier example, Cheney would then become the President (or in this case President-elect).
"can any of the major US elections be brought forward? Or do they all have to happen at their regularly-scheduled times?"
There isn't, as far as I am aware, any legislation in place dealing with delaying or postponing elections at the federal level. This was the source of fun conspiracy-minded speculation two years ago. Various regions have their own laws about local elections. (9/11 delayed the NYC mayoral election by several weeks, I think, and last year's hurricane season disrupted one in Miami.) I suspect there are local laws in place in many places about delaying (locally) the presidential election in case of major disaster. I'm not sure how that would play into the election at large, but I don't think the votes are officially delivered until January, providing some leeway, and also states have some jurisdiction over their Electoral College representatives, so I presume they could issue the necessary instructions.
Registered: Mar 1999
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