LATEST MOAN FROM YOU AND ME - 2022

I think our "democratic" system has become so muddled from its original idea that we appear to have almost two systems running along side each other.
The theoretical way it's supposed to work and the reality.
In theory we vote for a person but in practice most people vote for a party.
And in general elections you often hear people state which person they are going to vote for to be PM.

I think there is a case for having to call a general election at times like this rather than the party being able to swap leaders and then carry on as if nothing has happened.

 

Apparently for security reasons they had to have two planes.
But the queen is obviously not up to the job anymore, time to retire, but I guess she's a bit dubious about handing it all over to her soppy son.

 

Which sounds about right to me.
Mustn't show they are just the same as ordinary people, that would never do.

 

Oh that's unfair, @pete! The Queen has always shown dignity, even when the other members of the royal family were behaving disgracefully. I'd say that she sacrificed a fair bit of 'normal' happiness in order to fulfill her duties as sovereign. A kinder way of looking at things is that she's trying to maintain her dignity to the end.

 

HM at 96 years old and still working. How many people would give over their entire life to work?

I have respect for the Queen - not so much Andy.

 

Royalty, especially old royalty, has always tried to make out they are better than the masses.
They have had some hard knocks in recent years and a lot about how they carry on, and have carried on over many years has come out.
I'm not anti royal as such, but wish they would just be a bit more normal.

 

The way I always look at it is if she'd had an ordinary life, she'd have been allowed to retire a long time ago. She'd have been able to go and grab a pie, mushy peas and a pint down her local workies club, nip out for a game of bingo whenever she wants, and moan about some character or plot line from Emmerdale with her mates. She'd have been able to stop at the top of escalators and pretend to rummage in her hand bag just to cause a chaotic pile up behind her for a laugh, and make sure she's at the front of every queue so she can wait til she's getting served before opening her bag, finding her purse, counting up her change as slowly as possible while been subtly amused in the knowledge that everyone behind her is secretly getting raged with impatience, but won't say or do anything because everyone knows that an old lady that lived through a war, and raised kids and grand kids in a society where until recently, women were treat unfairly as second class, is a hard case.

Poor old Liz can't do any of those things because the people have expectations of her, and she does her best to meet expectations.

I have the utmost respect for her not because she's the monarch, but because she is a very dignified, disciplined, and formidable person.

 

@NigelJ I cannot imagine their being a general election to vote one person as PM. It would be a total sh show!

I belong to a political party here and therefore was allowed to vote for our party's new leader and will know at the end of the month who the top dog is but I cannot imagine having an open race for the PM. There's be a pile of nutters joining in and muddying the whole process.

 

OR, she could be sitting in a draughty freezing cold hovel with a leaky roof and wondering where the next penny is coming from.

Now I wonder if she would choose option one or two.

 

I thought that was what I wrote.
But the theory is that you vote for a person, your MP, but most people dont even know who their MP is, they just vote for the party.
But some people vote for a person, because they are voting for a PM.
That's what I mean the whole system is a muddle.

 

No more than the current system
As Shiney clarified

In the general election you vote for party to form the next government, the monarch then invites (by tradition) the leader of that party to form a government. At this point the party can change their leader, by any acceptable means and the monarch invites the new leader to form a government.
It then depends on that leader when the next general election takes place.
The arguement is that if the Prime Minister loses the confidence of the party and resigns this should trigger a general election; rather than as just happened a small self selecting bunch of party members voting in a new leader who automatically becomes Prime Minister and forms a new government.