All Prime Ministers should be precarious, for they serve only at our pleasure
Why resist verification?
“Such instability is bad for the country and for democracy.”
So said William Hague in a column last Monday in which with his usual lucidity he supported the conventional wisdom that it is bad to have had six Prime Ministers in the past decade, or seven if Sir Keir Starmer is defenestrated before 13th July 2026, which would be less than ten years since David Cameron made way for Theresa May.
On the contrary, I would argue, such instability is good for the country and for democracy. We expect our masters to be precarious.
They stay in office only as long as they can win a vote of confidence, and that confidence we reserve the right to withhold whenever we wish.
The American president serves a fixed term of four years: this can only be shortened by the seldom effective process of impeachment, or by the natural causes from which four presidents died in office, or by the assassinations which carried off four others.
In Britain we enjoy the freedom to chuck out a Prime Minister whenever we feel like it. At the heart of our idea of liberty lies the ability to blame the tenant of 10 Downing Street for our present discontents.
The coup de grâce sometimes occurs at a general election. In the election of 1945, perhaps the most democratic moment in our history, we threw out Churchill, our victorious and world-renowned war leader, because we did not want him and his fellow Conservatives to lead the peacetime reconstruction which was required.
More often a PM is finished off by MPs from his or her own party who despair of holding their seats if they stick with the present incumbent.
But the ultimate power lies with the voters. The House of Commons is acutely responsive to public opinion. Within the last decade, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss all had to go when Conservative MPs lost faith in their ability to turn things round.
Labour MPs will decide in the coming months whether Starmer too has reached the point of no return. As they struggle to make up their minds, they will be assisted by the outcome of this Thursday’s by-election in Gorton and Denton, and the results of the elections to be held in England, Scotland and Wales on 7th May.
According to Hague, voters “are left disillusioned and impotent” by frequent changes in PM, while “the whole process of government is seriously weakened by interminable changes of policy and personnel all the way down the chain”.
He omits a more fundamental reason for the rapid turnover of PMs, and indeed for the inefficiency of government, which is that we the people have not yet decided in what direction we wish to be led.
The political class is paralysed because the wider nation is indecisive. As T.E.Utley remarked in a brilliant essay in 1956,
“It is, of course, the natural vice of democracy to elude …
Why resist verification?
“Such instability is bad for the country and for democracy.”
So said William Hague in a column last Monday in which with his usual lucidity he supported the conventional wisdom that it is bad to have had six Prime Ministers in the past decade, or seven if Sir Keir Starmer is defenestrated before 13th July 2026, which would be less than ten years since David Cameron made way for Theresa May.
On the contrary, I would argue, such instability is good for the country and for democracy. We expect our masters to be precarious.
They stay in office only as long as they can win a vote of confidence, and that confidence we reserve the right to withhold whenever we wish.
The American president serves a fixed term of four years: this can only be shortened by the seldom effective process of impeachment, or by the natural causes from which four presidents died in office, or by the assassinations which carried off four others.
In Britain we enjoy the freedom to chuck out a Prime Minister whenever we feel like it. At the heart of our idea of liberty lies the ability to blame the tenant of 10 Downing Street for our present discontents.
The coup de grâce sometimes occurs at a general election. In the election of 1945, perhaps the most democratic moment in our history, we threw out Churchill, our victorious and world-renowned war leader, because we did not want him and his fellow Conservatives to lead the peacetime reconstruction which was required.
More often a PM is finished off by MPs from his or her own party who despair of holding their seats if they stick with the present incumbent.
But the ultimate power lies with the voters. The House of Commons is acutely responsive to public opinion. Within the last decade, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss all had to go when Conservative MPs lost faith in their ability to turn things round.
Labour MPs will decide in the coming months whether Starmer too has reached the point of no return. As they struggle to make up their minds, they will be assisted by the outcome of this Thursday’s by-election in Gorton and Denton, and the results of the elections to be held in England, Scotland and Wales on 7th May.
According to Hague, voters “are left disillusioned and impotent” by frequent changes in PM, while “the whole process of government is seriously weakened by interminable changes of policy and personnel all the way down the chain”.
He omits a more fundamental reason for the rapid turnover of PMs, and indeed for the inefficiency of government, which is that we the people have not yet decided in what direction we wish to be led.
The political class is paralysed because the wider nation is indecisive. As T.E.Utley remarked in a brilliant essay in 1956,
“It is, of course, the natural vice of democracy to elude …
All Prime Ministers should be precarious, for they serve only at our pleasure
Why resist verification?
“Such instability is bad for the country and for democracy.”
So said William Hague in a column last Monday in which with his usual lucidity he supported the conventional wisdom that it is bad to have had six Prime Ministers in the past decade, or seven if Sir Keir Starmer is defenestrated before 13th July 2026, which would be less than ten years since David Cameron made way for Theresa May.
On the contrary, I would argue, such instability is good for the country and for democracy. We expect our masters to be precarious.
They stay in office only as long as they can win a vote of confidence, and that confidence we reserve the right to withhold whenever we wish.
The American president serves a fixed term of four years: this can only be shortened by the seldom effective process of impeachment, or by the natural causes from which four presidents died in office, or by the assassinations which carried off four others.
In Britain we enjoy the freedom to chuck out a Prime Minister whenever we feel like it. At the heart of our idea of liberty lies the ability to blame the tenant of 10 Downing Street for our present discontents.
The coup de grâce sometimes occurs at a general election. In the election of 1945, perhaps the most democratic moment in our history, we threw out Churchill, our victorious and world-renowned war leader, because we did not want him and his fellow Conservatives to lead the peacetime reconstruction which was required.
More often a PM is finished off by MPs from his or her own party who despair of holding their seats if they stick with the present incumbent.
But the ultimate power lies with the voters. The House of Commons is acutely responsive to public opinion. Within the last decade, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss all had to go when Conservative MPs lost faith in their ability to turn things round.
Labour MPs will decide in the coming months whether Starmer too has reached the point of no return. As they struggle to make up their minds, they will be assisted by the outcome of this Thursday’s by-election in Gorton and Denton, and the results of the elections to be held in England, Scotland and Wales on 7th May.
According to Hague, voters “are left disillusioned and impotent” by frequent changes in PM, while “the whole process of government is seriously weakened by interminable changes of policy and personnel all the way down the chain”.
He omits a more fundamental reason for the rapid turnover of PMs, and indeed for the inefficiency of government, which is that we the people have not yet decided in what direction we wish to be led.
The political class is paralysed because the wider nation is indecisive. As T.E.Utley remarked in a brilliant essay in 1956,
“It is, of course, the natural vice of democracy to elude …
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