Fortaleza

The British electorate has never elected the Prime Minister so the many people who harp on about this 'Brown not even being elected' nonsense are pontificating under a serious misapprehension.

One man, one vote. You use that vote for your chosen representative for your constituency. The party who win the majority of constituencies is invited to form a government. The leader of that party then usually is named Prime Minister.

In 1997 just 33,526 voters out of 31,286,284 votes cast voted for Tony Blair. This means an overwhelming majority of people (31,252,758) did not directly vote for Blair. Now, many of the 13.5m people who voted for the Labour party may have done so because they liked the party being led by Blair - this is true, but it is wrong to say they voted him PM.

In theory, any party who wins an election can change their leader - and thus our PM - any number of times in their five year cycle. Each party has its own rules for electing their leader, but none of them I believe use a system where they throw it open to the whole electorate.

So when you cast your vote next summer for your local Tory candidate, unless you live in Witney, I doubt you'll be one of the 26,000+ Cameron voters.

chulo

That isn`t a misconception.

The public, those of some form of intellect, are well aware that there one vote for there local leader could result in that parties leader being made PM.



Anybody voting Labour is voting for the Labour leader and don`t forget Gordon Brown isn`t the only man making decesions within govt.

I don`t believe people are unaware of that.Its not really the point.Party support isn`t for one man, anybody voting for the leader because he looks good or the opposite is an idiot, problem is the UK has a lot of idiots, as are there US cousins, who also follow rather than think.

The point of "Time To Leave" was not removing Labour for mismanagement, its to remove Gordon Brown for being iliterate, ilmannered, ilinformed and insensitive.

Fortaleza

As I said before, you could all vote for the Tories next summer under the misapprehention you are voting for Cameron as PM. There is nothing to stop the Tories (apart from the fact it would be really stupid!!) to oust Cameron as leader AFTER the election, and vote in a different leader - thus a different PM - and there would be sweet FA the British electorate could do about it for five years. In that sense, the electorate does not vote for a PM.

So those who gripe on about Brown not being elected PM are clearly unaware that no PM has been directly elected by the electorate.

chulo

Yes they do and yes they are.

Which is why any deputy taking office in that manner has to call an election within the legal time frame.

The point being that you can decide who your leader is, it is straight forward and easy to understand.

Fortaleza

Many incorrect things are straightforward and easy to understand, doesn't make them any less incorrect.

Was Jim Callaghan elected Prime Minister by the electorate in 1976?

What about John Major in 1990? Fair enough, he fought the 1992 election as leader of the Tories and the Tories won. (Although some cynics may argue that Kinnock's Labour LOST the election rather than the Tories won it, but that's another argument completely)

You are right to say that a party's deputy leader should call an election within the legal time frame - a party leadership election, which is not open to the electorate at large.

We vote for a party to lead us. In that five years of government, if the party decides to change their leader five times, the electorate does not get a say - unless they are qualified to vote under said party's rules on leadership elections.

Casa Santo Estevo

Very true and you will have no say in the President of the Eu no vote no nothing. I sometimes wonder why you are all worried about and of the names in this conversation when none of them will have any real power in the future.

As a side note about spelling I was interested to read that even the Sun managed to spell the Mrs Janes name incorrectly.
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/11/...-a-name-wrong/
Interesting points of political views made here too.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/gree...n-gordon-brown

chulo

So when I listen to Mr Cameron promoting his ideas, plans etc etc and I like them.

Do I vote Labour or Conservative.

steviedeluxe

It's become all too apparent already that the banks hold all the strings (and power).

chulo

I don`t like Mr Brown, I don`t believe its good PR to have a leader who looks like and acts like Igor.

So do I vote Conservative or Labour.

Casa Santo Estevo

You go on looks alone? What about polices of the party the good or ugly looking leader leads?

Casa Santo Estevo

Yep...errrr vote Barclays anyone?

Lordy

Cameron will be the next PM, cut, cut cut... privatise the NHS, education, the police... the Armed forces.... slash public service jobs, slash benefits, slash your wrists if you're young poor and out of work... public unrest... mass civil disobedience, riots, curfews and marshal law...

I'll never vote Nu Labor again... Will never vote Tory... Liberals are... well... what are Liberals?... Greens are all over the place... BNP are a bunch of racist tossers... I've been disenfranchised by a bunch of Islington bastards

It seems I've a choice between conservatives and Conservatives. Democracy aint dead yet, but it's sure coughing up blood.

HBG

I’m always reminded of the battles won on the playing fields of Eaton. That’s our history, and where has it got us?

Well, we haven’t done too bad. Maybe we should give it another go? Get out of Europe, split the UK into four, and leave the Welsh where they want to be, in Wales.

Scotland will be the obvious winner, both Brown and Cameron are Jocks.

Blair is a Jock too, and the Queen has a big estate up there.

My money’s on the Jocks.

Fortaleza

Let us take a ridiculous scenario to illustrate the folly of your argument.

So, you listen to Mr Cameron promoting his ideas and you like them. You decide you want to vote for him. Yet, as you are not in Witney constituency, you cannot directly do so. Instead, you vote for the party he represents. However, it just so happens that the Conservative candidate in your constituency has views that make Hitler look like a socialist in comparison and this person is everything that you hate in a person. So, how do you vote? Do you put in the w@nker just to get your buddy Dave in or do you vote with your conscience?

Bless you, it seems you will never fully grasp this, and as you so sweepingly summised earlier, there are far too many in the electorate who are ill informed and act 'like sheep' I think you put it. Unfortunately for you - and the funny part is that you seem oblivious to it - you are one of them. To paraphrase you from earlier, I have no idea whether or not you are 'ilinformed', 'ilmannered' or 'iliterate', but you are clearly ill-informed and, hilariously given your current gripe over Mr Brown's orthography, illiterate. As for ill-mannered, the jury's out on that one

bil

Chulo is just another person trapped in a belief system. It would not matter what GB did. If he fed the 5 thousand, chulo and his ilk would complain that he had casued litter with all the bread crumbs.

For these people, this letter from GB was a great opportunity to throw dirt, but it appears that a lot of the electorate are disgusted by all the cheap politicking. As for the Sun then getting her name wrong, laugh? Boy, did I laugh. Hypocrisy of the highest order.

So Brown is a dour, crumpled Scot with apparantly little ability to spin? I thought that after His Tonyness and the Mandelson spinworm, we were all sick of spin and wanted something a bit more real.

I'll vote for Brown over that smarmy Etonian and his chums any day.