The Plot

[Gromit]

// Why is it that we have had five Conservative prime ministers since 2010, with not one of the previous four having left office as the result of losing a general election? That is a democratic deficit which the mother of parliaments should be deeply ashamed of and which, as you and I know, is the result of the machinations of a small group of individuals embedded deep at the centre of the party and Downing Street. //

Does a Plot exist ?

[Old_Geezer]

It is nothing of the sort. The public elects their representative (who, generally speaking, doesn't bother finding out what their constituents' overall view on any subject is so can't know how they should be representing them). Those elected who are in parties are entitled to choose who leads their party. The general public can't sensibly have a say in that. And because we've failed to move on from a monarchy, the king/queen chooses which individual to ask to form a government. Aside from the UK not moving with the times and still having royalty, it's all above board and unashamed. It is unfortunate to have so many inadequates chosen for 'first among equals' in such a short time though. But that's because there are few worthy of the post that are in a position to go for it, or who want it. Until we get another candidate prepared to do what the public's decisions demand, we're stuck with just the facade of democracy.

[Rosetta]

I wouldn't want the alternative system of presidential type elections, just look at the present incumbent and main opposition candidate as examples of directly elected leaders

[Old_Geezer]

You don't need a president. You already have a PM. Sort the system properly and that should be as good and likely better.

[jno]

I do remember a lot of rightwing whinging about Gordon Brown being PM without having faced a general election. That seems to have died down a bit lately.

[naomi24]

The electorate doesn't select or elect Prime Ministers. Who and what are you quoting, Gromit?

[johnny.5]

A lot of the electorate do vote specifically on the leader of the party not necessary the party or the policies . A lot of people liked Boris a lot of people disliked Corbyn Elections are won on personalities

[ichkeria]

The problem with what has happened since 2010 is that a change of leader often brings a change of policies - a lot of Boris Johnson’s supporters, including the abject Nadine Dorries, are making that very point: does a party still have a right to govern if it changes its policies mid term? The disastrous Truss-Kwarteng interregnum was the result of the preferences of unelected party members overruling the preferences of elected MPs. It all really went pear-shaped when Johnson was ejected in a panic to try to get one particular policy through: “getting Brexit done” rightly or wrongly overruled anything else and mantra good Tories were dispatched by their own parties for failing to go down this one path. The conservatives have never recovered from that.

[ichkeria]

Johnson was “elected” (!)

Of course he was subsequently “ejected” too …

[ichkeria]

“Getting Brexit dîne” was not of itself the problem but my point is it had to be done, or was done, in a way that has led to the problems the party has now.

[1ozzy]

And the plot thickens.
Doesn't matter who you vote for.
The party in power will do what they want to feather their own nest.

[naomi24]

Cancel my question. I've just read Nadine's resignation letter. I don't doubt a plot existed.

[ichkeria]

Nadine Dorries lost the plot a long time ago :-) She is an embarrassment to her party

[naomi24]

I don't doubt it. Truth has a strange way of embarrassing some people.

[drmorgans]

Why don't the plotters just install the person as PM they want, if they have the power to get rid of the several they didn't?

[ichkeria]

One of the most spectacular political misjudgments in recent times must be Cameron’s idea that a referendum in EU membership - or the promise of one - would lance the boil in the Tory party that was serious Euroscepticism.
Look what has happened to the party since: and it’s got worse by virtue of them having clung to power, because it’s quite likely Labour would have saved them some of the travails since had it come to power earlier.

[ichkeria]

I hadn’t realised that Gromit’s quote was actually from Dorries’s letter.
I have now read and skimmed through this appalling diatribe in particular this choice morsel:
“The offer to continue in my Cabinet role was extended to me by your predecessor, Liz Truss, and I am grateful for your personal phone call on the morning you appointed your cabinet in October, even if I declined to take the call.”

I can tho of only one word to describe this woman: think Crufts, females and words rhyming with the opposite of “poor”

[naomi24]

I think she should have gone when she said she was going, and that her frankness is perhaps ill-advised, but would the electorate prefer to remain in ignorance of the deep rifts within government because the truth is not what they want to hear? Perhaps so.

[drmorgans]

I don't think anyone could be unaware of the rifts in the Cons, and Labour and the Scots Nats too.

[naomi24]

And yet there is apparently almost blanket ignorance of a plot to unseat Boris Johnson. Hmmm…. is the electorate really aware of the extent of the rifts - or just in convenient denial?