Quote:
Originally Posted by Angua
There is basically a caretaker government in place to deal with essential stuff, but otherwise we have no Government or MPs during elections.
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Not true.
The government is still the government because it is appointed by the Queen, not by parliament or by the electorate.
When a general election is to be held, the Prime Minister asks the Queen to dissolve parliament. The Queen does so. From that point on, there are no MPs. There are still government ministers. By convention they don’t do anything radical during the election period but they still hold office and they continue to do so unless and until the Prime Minister resigns.
After an election’s results are known, the PM will either continue in post, or else (s)he will go to Buckingham Palace, tell the Queen that (s)he can no longer form a government likely to enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons, and advise the Queen which member of the House of Commons most likely will have the confidence of the House. The Prime Minister then resigns, and the person they have advised the Queen should appoint is summoned to the Palace and invited to form a government.
In our system, all of that normally happens within hours of an election result being known but in 2010, while the Coalition was being formed, it took several days.
To return to the main point however. The government continues to exist and has full executive power during an election campaign.