Recently on Dr North’s blog ‘Turbulent Times’, on which his coverage of the Ukraine war has been second to none, I have often posted the comment, over the last few weeks, that Putin’s mind and soul have been corrupted by 20 years in power.
Then yesterday I replied to a Tweet, on the corruption at the heart of the SNP in Scotland, as it occurred to me that after 15 years in power the same could be said for the SNP government.
It is with very good reason that American Presidents only serve a maximum of two four-year terms. This precedent was set by George Washington who feared that if he died in office America would view the presidency as a life time appointment. So instead, he stood down from power, after eight years, setting the standard. It wasn’t until 1951 that the Constitution was actually amended to make this official.
There is no technical reason why our own PM cannot serve for as long as their party and the House of Commons gives them their confidence. Even though that is the case no PM since 1902 has served for more than 11 years, which Mrs Thatcher did, and many would argue power had gone to her head towards the end.
There is that classic line in a Spitting Image show when Mrs Thatcher is dinning out with her cabinet and is asked by the waitress, after ordering her main course, ‘What about the vegetables’ to which she replies ‘Oh they’ll have the same as me’!
Currently the PMs we get are chosen in the main by their parties so at the last election in 2019 Johnson became PM by virtue of 25,351 votes that were cast in his constituency of Uxbridge and Ruislip with a total electorate of 70,369.
However, only 48,189 of his electors voted and Johnson’s majority of 7,210 was only marginally better than his 5,034 in 2017 which was the smallest majority of any sitting PM since 1902.
Turning to the bigger picture the Conservatives won in 2019 with 13,968,565 votes which only represented 43.6% of the 32,014,110 who voted and was even worse at only 29.34% of the total electorate of 47,587,254.
Johnson also faced little serious competition from Corbyn but the fact remains it cannot be said that he became our PM based on a majority of popular support.
In conclusion, at the time of an election, as covered in our third demand ‘A Separation of Power’ it would be far more democratic to have our PMs elected by popular vote and for a maximum of two terms thus ensuring power doesn’t go to their heads.
You'll note that Putin massaged the constitution initially by having his puppet elected president while he became pm. He has since massaged the constitution and made it his play thing.
ReplyDeleteYes I know that hence he has been in power for 20 years which has corrupted his mind and soul.
ReplyDeleteHe is also apparently now worth $40 billion while only having an official salary of around $150,000 a year. So clearly corruption is now endemic in his administration.
Niall, wrt this;
ReplyDelete‘Turning to the bigger picture the Conservatives won in 2019 with 13,968,565 votes which only represented 43.6% of the 32,014,110 who voted and was even worse at only 29.34% of the total electorate of 47,587,254.’
and yet that 43.6% of the vote delivered an 80 seat majority. I can see that is outrageous but you can’t apparently.
Seriously, how does that reflect 'the wishes and desires' of the electorate?
It doesn't and I favour far more sortition in our governance but elected politicians are still needed to carry out the often boring work of governance but need to be subject to the wishes of the majority.
DeleteIMO whether under FPTP or PR governments seldom represent the wishes of the majority.
Public choice theory has offered an explanation for this. The result being politicians act in their own interest. We are told mob rule is bad and elected politicians are more considered. We are now in a situation where illegal immigrants are possibly going to be flown to another country where our law doesn't extend. Am I the only one who sees the insanity of this?
DeleteThere is little joined up thinking in our governance just party politcal point scoring.
DeleteI think there is far too much disparity in constituency populations.
ReplyDeleteI'll believe it when I see it but I gather this government is sorting this out with the resurrection of the boundary report.
DeleteThe changes will favour the Conservatives as for too long Labour MPs in inner cities have had an advantage as populations have moved out to the suburbs.
So, altering the constituency populations would give the Conservatives a greater seat majority with the same proportion of the vote.
DeleteAs Niall has pointed out, the Conservatives won a 80 seat majority at the 2019 election with less than 44% of the vote so I don't see how this would address the issue of better representing the wishes of the people.