Tuesday 11 May 2010

The unelected David Cameron

William Hague has warned the Liberal Democrats that "It would be wrong to construct a government, which would not be stable [and] which would not have a Prime Minister elected by the people".

But the General Election was last Thursday.

Obviously, David Cameron has not been elected Prime Minister by the people at the General Election itself. If he had been, he would have been at Buckingham Palace and then at Downing Street with a Commons majority last Friday morning, in the way that Tony Blair was in 1997 and Margaret Thatcher was in 1979.

So certainly this morning Cameron remains unelected, and indeed not Prime Minister at all. So it is hard to see how he could fit Hague's criteria of "being elected by the people". If Cameron does eventually negotiate his way to Downing Street with the blessing of Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, perhaps he too could legitimately be referred to as an unelected Prime Minister!

Cameron's party's share of the Parliamentary seats does give him a good chance of negotiating his way into power, as one of the possible and perhaps still most likely outcome of the general election fallout. And there is, as yet, little sense that he has given any thought to falling on his sword after falling short electorally of what his party expected, in case another leader could better conclude the negotiations!

Other Prime Ministers - Gordon Brown, John Major, James Callaghan, Alec Douglas-Home and Harold Macmillan - became Prime Minister without being directly elected, because we have a Parliamentary democracy. If the Conservatives believe this should be a directly elected post, that is an entirely new position which the party has never previously held in its history, and they ought to be proposing constitutional and electoral reform to achieve that.

Meanwhile, let us generously wish the unelected David Cameron well in his bid to be appointed Prime Minister in the next days or weeks.

4 comments:

Newmania said...

..and if New Labour believed in proportional mandate then they would not have been wrecking the country on a vote of a million less than David Cameron achieved and a smaller proportion. Don`t give me that make me PR oh lord but not yet, shit that’s just an stash for a rainy day . Does anyone think we would be reforming electoral system an outcome desired by no-one , if New labour had won .
Anyone who does obviously missed the fact that the same promise was reneged on by Blair and Brown for ten years and now who runs the country ?

Fucking Alistair Campbell and Mandelson and anyway the whole argument is based on a fallacy .We have a majoritarian chamber . I have had less than no say in anything done by my country for ten years and I am typical of a vastly larger body of opinion than the Lib Dems . Most of whose votes were anti Labour / Conservative Politics , so many are based on lies , and there is no line whatsoever to excluding the the voter from the governing process .
In any case what is apolitical Party ? Just a name what opinions get excluded ...well lets see. The majority who dislike Europe , the majority who dislike immigration, the majority who dislike social progressives , the majority who want us to keep Trident , the majority who watt to suffer not victims . We are already skewed to the left .

Let us not forget that this deal can only be cobbled together by excluding Wales and Scotland form cuts and they are also exempted already form the disgraceful and shameful National Government you Pink Mugabe`s are stitching up . Have you seen the size of the Conservative Majority on England
There is increasingly only one answer to this its sad but we need an English Parliament and it can vote on the basis its decides suits it . We don niotbn have to accept a system imposed without referendum by the lying whore traitors of the smallest Party who lied when they said they were equidistant lied and lied and lied AGAIN

JuliusHMarx said...

I am glad that someone is finally making the point that David Cameron is an unelected Prime Minister, not just because we have a parliamentary system but also because he did not gain a majority in the House of Commons. The Conservatives and their allies in the media are starting to sound ridiculous about this. I think that the Labour Party should call their bluff. Gordon Brown should go to the Queen and recommend that she sends for David Cameron. David Cameron will have to explain that he cannot command a majority in the House. This will mean he either comes out from Buckingham Palace looking very silly and will have to explain to the public that he wasn’t elected either, or he goes to a Queen’s Speech which is voted down. Either way the Queen will then return to a Lab/Lib coalition which will then be seen to have legitimacy. Is this too risky? Are there pitfalls to this approach?

Incidentally commentators talk about the maths not stacking up with a Lib/Lab coalition but if Cameron does not secure a government the Conservatives will be in chaos within months…

Unknown said...

What a disingenuous post.

The Conservatives have the most seats and the most votes. Therefore they have the most democratic legitimacy. (and a lot more legitimacy than the Labour Party presently squatting in number 10).

A Lib Con Coalition would have a clear electoral mandate. Whining and carping about that doesn't change it.

Craig said...

"Prime Ministers should be voted into 10 Downing Street by the people of Britain, not because their party has stitched up some deal"

David Cameron - Campaiging in Essex, 24th April 2010