An article from BBC News today discusses a minor blow to Tony Blair's bid for re-election. Seems one Derek Cattell, a member of the Labour party's executive board in Sedgefield, which is Mr. Blair's home constituency, has resigned from the Labour party in protest ove the war in Iraq (now??? why not 2 years ago??-ed.) Mr. Cattell has announced that he is now supporting Reg Keys, the father of an Iraq casualty, who is running independently for Mr Blair's seat. An explanation of why Mr. Blair must run again is below the fold...
But what's rather funny about all of this are the names and party affiliations of some of the other candidates up against Mr. Blair:
Jonathan Cockburn, Blair Must Go Party
Fiona Luckhurst-Matthews, Veritas
Baroney Maroney Staniforth, Monster Raving Loony Party
Heh. The joys of a multi-party system.
More Brit election analysis as we get closer to the big day (May 5), I just had to share my amusement at the candidate list...
Kudos to the Beeb (who rarely ever get my praise) for a wonderfully comprehensive webpage listing all of the issues and all of the party platforms (or manifestos as they call them in th UK) here and especially here.
For those of you who are not familiar with the British system, the Prime Minister is like a combination of our Speaker of the House and the President. He wields approximately the same kind of power as the President in terms of making policy decisions, leading the government, and approving legislation (although the monarch has the final say-so). However, the PM is a regular MP (Member of Parliament) as well, and must be re-elected for each term. In this way, the PM is like the Speaker of the House. He/She is the party leader of the majority-elected party in the lower house of the UK legislature, and as such represents a constituency as well as being responsible for other duties related to the PM job. Like the PM, all of the cabinet are also highly placed MPs (Foreign secretary, Home secretary, Defence secretary, etc.).
Posted by caltechgirl at April 18, 2005 11:14 AM | TrackBack"He wields approximately the same kind of power as the President in terms of making policy decisions, leading the government, and approving legislation (although the monarch has the final say-so)."
Well, yes and no. A British PM with a working majority in the Commons is a vastly more powerful political figure than any US president: there's a reason Lord Hailsham called the office an elected dictatorship, and it's only become more so since he said that back in the 60's.
"He/She is the party leader of the majority-elected party in the lower house of the UK legislature..."
Yes, but for those unfamiliar with the system, the question then becomes what happens if no one has no majority (a "hung parliament"). It happens far less in British-modeled "Westminster" parliamentary systems than on the Continent where you often have even more parties, but then you either have a very precarious minority government (as is essentially the situation right now in Canada), or multiple parties have to form a coalition. There hasn't been a coalition government in the UK since WWII, and a peacetime coalition since the 20's, but I think it's a more likely possibility after the upcoming election than it probably has been in decades: the Tories are regaining much of what they've lost since 1997, but aren't back quite enough to win it, especially given that much of their vote will just be "wasted" by getting stronger in seats they already hold.
Indeed, there are multiple recipes in results of this election for serious constitutional crises, especially in combination: think of the Tories winning the most votes but Labour still having the most seats, combine that with a hung parliament and/or combine that with the Tories getting a plurality of seats in England and Labour having to rely on Scottish and Welsh MP's for a majority even though they'd be voting on thngs for England that in their constituencies are matters for their own devolved legislatures rather than for Westminster. Could be a very interesting mess, I'm sure. ;-)
Posted by: Dave J at April 19, 2005 12:18 AM