Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

An unelected bureaucrat lording it over us. And an incompetent one at that who walked before he was pushed! No thank you!

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

In 1963.

IIRC the last peer to hold any of the great offices was Lord Carrington, who resigned as Foreign Secretary in 1982 having apparently given Argentina the impression that we wouldn’t defend the Falkland Islands.

The Prime Minister is appointed by the Queen, on advice from the outgoing PM who tells her who is most likely to enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons. It is vanishingly unlikely that even MPs on the government benches would support a candidate from the Lords. It would be absolutely impossible to justify to their constituents, it would breach almost 60 years of convention and it would give rise to all sorts of difficult headlines as the Lord PM sought to buy off a sitting MP in a sufficiently safe seat for him to try to get into the Commons at a by election.

All of which I’m sure you know, so what’s your point really?

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Once again…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-600451 Johnson, who set the terms of reference, and who will see the report first, will then decide if he’s done anything wrong, and if he wants to refer himself for further investigation, he could.

what has he done in the past that makes you think this might happen?

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Exactly.

The man who denied seeing any parties is now saying he's not seen any bullying by the whips. That's pretty much an admission that there has been such bullying.

If there's not a trending hashtag #LabourForBoJo then I'm sure there will be one soon. ;)

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Sorry but I actually think the media have been pathetic here. How long have they sat on that Reynolds Email, too many gotcha moments. Sure Johnson and the No. 10 cabal, are clearly guilty of several misdemeanours, Starmer also breaking the rules too, having a beer with a colleague is not working in my eyes. If I started drinking on shift, while working I’d be sacked for gross misconduct, but I think there is a time and place to deal with this and I don’t think it’s during the potential prospect of a devastating war.

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Oh, come off it, Andrew, this is becoming a farce and you are just feeding into it.

The world of politics is brutal, and the Whips have always strong-armed MPs to tow the party line - Whips on both sides, that is.

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

1963 is highly relevant. If you don’t understand the role and power of convention in parliamentary affairs you really have no business making such daft assertions.

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

This topic is becoming a farce. Look, when I started this poll, I actually voted he should go, but now I don’t. I get there is angry people out there, who sacrificed last minute chances go be with loved ones and many lies have been told by No. 10. But I actually think there is many people out there, who now don’t care, millions of people broke lockdown rules, and I’m convinced on here, there is quite a few of you who perhaps didn’t stick to them either.

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

You are correct to point at the importance of convention in parliamentary affairs. But to be fair to Seph, you should not discount the importance of precedents, which are equally important.

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Again, just because you can arrange words in a sentence doesn’t mean you’re making any sense.

Precedent and convention are two cheeks of the same arse. There is a reason why the last member of the Lords to become PM sought election to the Commons at the earliest opportunity. By 1963 our parliamentary democracy had matured to the point where it was no longer acceptable for the Prime Minister not to be directly accountable to the elected house. In effect, the precedent of Alex Douglas Home resigning his peerage so he could get elected created the convention that the PM must be a sitting MP.

Neither precedent nor convention simply arise out of nowhere. There is always some pressing reason, whether it be a national emergency or a sea-change in attitudes around what’s deemed acceptable. It is highly unlikely that any national emergency is about to arise that would justify creating an unelected prime minister, even temporarily, and your attempt to raise precedent as a possible reason why it might happen is as daft as Seph’s.

---------- Post added at 14:52 ---------- Previous post was at 14:51 ----------

Politically, no, it’s not possible, and that’s all that actually matters. We have almost arrived at the point where the changing of a prime minister mid-term makes demands for a snap general election irresistible. To think any party would get away with arranging a safe by election seat for an ex-member of the House of Lords is pure fantasy.

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

It’s an informed opinion and I stand by it. We will not see any member of the House of Lords directly become prime minister in our lifetimes. The only possible route would be for a peer to renounce their title simply to attempt to become an MP and then attempt to become their party’s leader at some later date.

Re: All those No.10 lockdown parties
 

Not in that sequence - the Leader of the Conservative Party has to be a MP; so he would need to renounce his peerage, stand for election (and win, which is fairly important), only then can he be nominated (and have to win the contest) to be Leader of the Party, then, at the end of this very long and convuluted sequence of events, could he possibly be PM.

I think Truss, Sunak, Raab, Patel, et al, may not sit idly by whilst this was happening...