There is a reason why JRM is a backbencher!!! And will always be one!!!! Even the Tories are not that daft to elect the unelectable as their leader.
Nigel Farage has withdrawn his application for Foreign Secretary stating he had no idea you had to elected as an MP before you could apply
Which curiously enough the public seem hell-bent on voting for. It will just be a Corpocracy instead of a Plutocracy.
Constitutionally, you don’t. The only minister who has to be an MP is the Prime Minister. Hopefully they must have come up with a different reason for Farage.
No one seems to have told Melanie Philips. lol. EDIT: And yes she has suggested he should be drafted in for PM so he would need to be elected. How's the Craig McKinlay investigation going?
computer says no. "What happens if the current PM and ministers of the cabinet lose their seats in the next election? " A person can only be the Prime Minister or a minister if they are a member of parliament. So, if the Prime Minister or a minister lost their seat in an election they would no longer be a member of parliament. The Prime Minister is the leader of the government and is chosen by a vote of the members of the government. The Prime Minister keeps their job as long as they are a member of parliament and retains the support of the government. If the Prime Minister lost their seat at the next election, their party would need to elect a new leader. This happened in 2007, when the then Prime Minister, John Howard, was not re-elected to his seat. His party then needed to elected a new party leader who became Leader of the Opposition (since the party also lost the election). Since federation in 1901, only two serving Prime Ministers have lost their seats at an election. The other was Stanley Melbourne Bruce in 1929. Ministers are members of parliament and are appointed by the Prime Minister. If a minister lost their seat, the Prime Minister would need to appoint a new minister.
In fact, in strict legal and constitutional terms, ministers are not allowed to be MPs (though they can be lords). That is because being a minister is an office of profit under the Crown, and such people are barred from being MPs by the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Act of Union 1707. The ban was intended to ensure separation of powers between parliament and government --and more particularly the independence of parliament from the government-- as a similar ban still does in the US. However, in the UK this rule has been ignored ever since our present constitution, with government in parliament, was created by Robert Walpole's quiet revolution against the short-lived Williamite constitution that preceded it. Walpole was determined to achieve his revolution by stealth, and got around this rule by the ploy of ignoring the usual and intended meaning of office of profit (see the article linked to above) and instead defining it to mean only two particular ceremonial posts. Since parliament is supreme, no court can question this interpretation. And so the situation has remained ever since. An interesting further development is that since MPs started to receive a salary in (I think) the 1920s, being an MP is itself an office of profit...
The references to John Howard, Stanley Melbourne Bruce and "federation" tell me that's talking about Australian politics. In the UK you can have a minister, I think even a prime minister, who was a member of the House of Lords. It's really not that long since Gordon Brown made Mandelson a lord so he could make him business secretary. In practice it's unlikely the prime minister will ever again be a member of the House of Lords because none of the major parties is ever likely to elect a leader who isn't an MP.
So thats another 2 resignations today. More to follow each day, so I read.......with hints that more will go from cabinet. And Raab has been in the job for one day and blocked from keeping the leave "SpAd" that was in position!!! Already being undermined so he might be off as quickly as he got in there.
The thing that annoys me Raab being Brexit secretary is that we've lost ANOTHER housing minister. We're in the middle of a housing crisis and we can't keep somebody in the post for even 6 months atm. They come in with no knowledge, start to finally understand the situation and then they're taken off somewhere else and we start all over again!! How are we meant to solve this crisis with noone to lead it?
Sorry to change the subject a bit........Can anyone else see the similarities to what is happening with Trumps trade war with China? To a similar trade war with the Japanese, back in the 40s, that made them enter the second world war? Or is it my imagination? He is alienating himself and the US from all and sundry................
The parallels between now and the 1930's are pretty chilling. But there is nothing new under the Sun. I'm currently reading Tom Holland's Dynasty, about the death of the Roman Republic. Trump is basically Julius Caeser, a charismatic populist with comtempt for the law, appealing to the frothy sentimental faux patriotism of the masses. The Romans fought for centuries to establish their Republic and their Citizens rights in law - in the end they surrendered those rights meekly to a series of despots from within their own social elite.
