Playing catch-up
Another slack summer. I have once again become embroiled in energy-sapping debates with utilitarian friends and have expended considerable keyboard wear on attempts to elucidate my objections to the ban on smoking in "public" places that has recently come into force here: a curiously depressing crusade, particularly when, having stated quite clearly that my objections were meta-legal in nature and not rooted in my being a smoker (for comparison I noted my contempt for the ban on hunting with hounds, which I nurse, and of which I actively support the flouting, despite having never so much as sat on a horse and moreover finding hunting rather unpleasant), the first reply I received asserted that of course I would object: I was a smoker, and if I weren't a smoker I couldn't object. Even when we were able to get past that little reading comprehension stumbling block, the attitudes shown by my friends towards legitimate legal procedure, their faith in democracy as a positive power and consequently their apparently unquestioning acceptance of democracy as sovereign, when taken together, offered a rather bleak picture.
This is also my first post under our new Dear Leader, whose accession highlights once again the procedural flaws in our constitution (such as it is). Constitutionally it is unexceptionable, as many Brown cheerleaders have been at pains to emphasise. We do not elect a PM as such (otherwise he would a President): we elect individual representatives of particular parties and that party with the most elected representatives is invited by the monarch to form a government, and traditionally (though not necessarily), the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister. If the leader of the majority party were to change, so would the Prime Minister, and it cannot be denied either that Brown has precedent on his side under both Labour and Conservative governments.
But technicality is not a strong enough argument. It must be accepted that most people vote for a Prime Minister by proxy. The party leaders are the focus of the national election campaigns; it is they who appear in the party political broadcasts, they who are the subject of vilification by the opposing parties in national advertising campaigns, and they who appear in the print media offering their vision of (of course) a better Britain. When people go to the polls they go with this in mind - certainly closer to the fronts of their minds than are the invariably soporific and anonymous campaigns of their constituency candidates. If they like a party leader, they vote for that party: it would be most illuminating, I suspect, to discover what proportion of those who voted at the last election are actually able to name their MP off the tops of their heads.
This goes double for the Blair government: not only was that administration coincidental with an unprecedented explosion of media access and coverage, which it encouraged and exploited to the full and which served to highlight yet more the role of the Prime Minister and diminish yet further the role of the constituency representative, but also the reforms enacted by Blair and the attitudes entrenched by his style of government (often accused of being presidential, with his contempt for Parliament and his close circle of advisers) have concentrated the focus yet more closely on the Prime Minister alone. In the light of this circumstance, to defend Brown's accession on the basis of its strict constitutional propriety is to dismiss perfectly legitimate concerns about the extent to which he has, in what you might call "real terms", the authority and consent of the people to govern. Wisely, he appears to recognise this, and while many of his acts thus far as PM have most decidedly warranted Simon Heffer's vision of the "Brown terror", he has also taken welcome steps to head off accusations of unmandated power by returning some long-lost authority to Parliament. But he will also know that nothing will solidify his moral authority like winning an election as leader of the Labour party, and the longer he leaves it the weaker he will appear to believe he is. Here, too, though, precedent is on his side, as John Major had practically to be dragged, heels leaving wavy lines on the floor as it were, to Buckingham Palace to seek permission to go to the country, at the very last minute, in 1992, so unconvinced was he of the prospects of a win following his similar accession to PM. Yet win he did, although whether Brown can count on the same degree of indiscipline and incompetence from David Cameron's Tories as Major could from Neil Kinnock's Labour Party is questionable.
And so to Boris. Boris for Mayor. That's the rumour. I would welcome Boris for Mayor (I don't think it would surprise my extensive and devoted readership that I would welcome one of Ken Livingstone's newts as Mayor over Livingstone himself, but I would particularly welcome Boris): he is, as I read recently, one of that rare breed of politician who is not merely tolerated but actively liked. Even people who are essentially lefties (like some of those friends mentioned at the top of this post) like Boris. Although I am not a Conservative, I would far rather see a Conservative Mayor (and government, for that matter) than a Labour Mayor (or government), and Boris I would like to see most of all. The only worry I would have about a Johnson mayoralty is the Olympic Games. It is doubtful whether anyone could rescue the Games from the trough of spiralling expense and the widespread apathy or pessimism into which they have fallen. Livingstone's grubby fingermarks are all over this imminent embarrassing failure, and there's a part of me which would rather like him still to be in office when they happen, just so we can all be quite clear whose fault it is. If Boris were elected in 2008 he would be saddled with the responsibility for someone else's stellar incompetence.
This is also my first post under our new Dear Leader, whose accession highlights once again the procedural flaws in our constitution (such as it is). Constitutionally it is unexceptionable, as many Brown cheerleaders have been at pains to emphasise. We do not elect a PM as such (otherwise he would a President): we elect individual representatives of particular parties and that party with the most elected representatives is invited by the monarch to form a government, and traditionally (though not necessarily), the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister. If the leader of the majority party were to change, so would the Prime Minister, and it cannot be denied either that Brown has precedent on his side under both Labour and Conservative governments.
But technicality is not a strong enough argument. It must be accepted that most people vote for a Prime Minister by proxy. The party leaders are the focus of the national election campaigns; it is they who appear in the party political broadcasts, they who are the subject of vilification by the opposing parties in national advertising campaigns, and they who appear in the print media offering their vision of (of course) a better Britain. When people go to the polls they go with this in mind - certainly closer to the fronts of their minds than are the invariably soporific and anonymous campaigns of their constituency candidates. If they like a party leader, they vote for that party: it would be most illuminating, I suspect, to discover what proportion of those who voted at the last election are actually able to name their MP off the tops of their heads.
This goes double for the Blair government: not only was that administration coincidental with an unprecedented explosion of media access and coverage, which it encouraged and exploited to the full and which served to highlight yet more the role of the Prime Minister and diminish yet further the role of the constituency representative, but also the reforms enacted by Blair and the attitudes entrenched by his style of government (often accused of being presidential, with his contempt for Parliament and his close circle of advisers) have concentrated the focus yet more closely on the Prime Minister alone. In the light of this circumstance, to defend Brown's accession on the basis of its strict constitutional propriety is to dismiss perfectly legitimate concerns about the extent to which he has, in what you might call "real terms", the authority and consent of the people to govern. Wisely, he appears to recognise this, and while many of his acts thus far as PM have most decidedly warranted Simon Heffer's vision of the "Brown terror", he has also taken welcome steps to head off accusations of unmandated power by returning some long-lost authority to Parliament. But he will also know that nothing will solidify his moral authority like winning an election as leader of the Labour party, and the longer he leaves it the weaker he will appear to believe he is. Here, too, though, precedent is on his side, as John Major had practically to be dragged, heels leaving wavy lines on the floor as it were, to Buckingham Palace to seek permission to go to the country, at the very last minute, in 1992, so unconvinced was he of the prospects of a win following his similar accession to PM. Yet win he did, although whether Brown can count on the same degree of indiscipline and incompetence from David Cameron's Tories as Major could from Neil Kinnock's Labour Party is questionable.
And so to Boris. Boris for Mayor. That's the rumour. I would welcome Boris for Mayor (I don't think it would surprise my extensive and devoted readership that I would welcome one of Ken Livingstone's newts as Mayor over Livingstone himself, but I would particularly welcome Boris): he is, as I read recently, one of that rare breed of politician who is not merely tolerated but actively liked. Even people who are essentially lefties (like some of those friends mentioned at the top of this post) like Boris. Although I am not a Conservative, I would far rather see a Conservative Mayor (and government, for that matter) than a Labour Mayor (or government), and Boris I would like to see most of all. The only worry I would have about a Johnson mayoralty is the Olympic Games. It is doubtful whether anyone could rescue the Games from the trough of spiralling expense and the widespread apathy or pessimism into which they have fallen. Livingstone's grubby fingermarks are all over this imminent embarrassing failure, and there's a part of me which would rather like him still to be in office when they happen, just so we can all be quite clear whose fault it is. If Boris were elected in 2008 he would be saddled with the responsibility for someone else's stellar incompetence.
posted by Novus at 10:23
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