Problems Associated With Hung Parliaments. Part Three

MPs are assembled in the House of Commons to form a Government. The Speaker calls for nominations for the position of Prime Minister. Each nomination must have a proposer and, say, ten"seconders". If only one nomination is received then that person is deemed to have been elected unanimously. If there are only two nominations then the person who receives the most votes is the winner. At this point I suggest that if three or more nominations are received a different method to the simple "first past the post" may have been preferred, and legislated for, if that was the case then it would be applied. ( NB I think that long and careful deliberation would be needed, to evolve a fair method of arriving at a winner, when three or more nominations for a position are received).

When the Prime Minister has been elected The Speaker calls for nominations for the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer and the same method is used. The process is repeated for other positions of Minister and when that phase is completed Deputies for all Ministers are elected.

Safe in the knowledge that she or he, and the Government, enjoys the confidence of the the House of Commons the Prime Minister can seek an audience with the Queen to complete the established ritual.

This method of selecting a government could apply to to a Commons full of independent MPs or for a hung Parliament. There is nothing to stop it being used in the situation where a party holds an overall majority, in fact I feel that it should be written into a Constitution as being the way that has to be used to select a new government. The Prime Minister of the previous Government acts in a caretaker basis until a Prime Minister is elected. In the case of a party holding a majority the method I have suggested may ascertain several things, it would cement the authority of the persons elected as well as establishing the popularity of members of the "opposition" who were nominated for a position. Even though they knew that they would not win that position they could carry the title, with honour, of, for example, Leader of the Opposition or Shadow Chancellor etc. It is possible that the method could be cleverly exploited by members who wished to chip away at a supposed difference of opinion among the majority party members as to who should fill a particular office.

My next blogs will continue upholding my contention that for true democracy Party Politics should be consigned to the dustbin of history. In addition I will indulge in another flight of fantasy and suggest a few ideas in relation to a written constitution for the UK, thank you

Frederick W Gilling Friday 23 April 2010