Not necessarily - it would be whoever was most likely to be able to command a majority (as Quartz says). The leader of the largest party would be given first dibs on attempting it, but they may not be able to do so - in which case the Queen would (with help from her advisors) attempt to find someone who could.
Let’s say we have a general election tomorrow. It ends in a hung parliament - the tories win 45% of the seats, labour win 35% and the Lib Dems win 20%
There’s a whole load of different outcomes this could result in - sure, Cameron may be able to form a cross-party government with the Lib Dems but if he couldn’t, then her Maj would likely invite one of the other leaders to have a go.
Maybe Labour offer them Proportional Representation as a sweetener, for example, and the Lib Dems then agree. Bingo - Labour PM even though they aren’t the largest party.
Indeed, it may not even be the Party Leader that ended up leading such a government - The Lib Dems may agree to form a government with Labour, say, but not under Gordon Brown. In which case it may well be another leading Labour MP (who is acceptable to both parties) that gets the nod to form the government.
Churchill wasn’t the leader of his party when he was Prime Minister, for example - Chamberlain carried on in that role - but Labour (and others) refused to join a coalition government under Chamberlain as PM.
The only two situations where I could envisage a vacancy for a PM would be the death of the incumbent or where the PM is booted out. In the latter case, for example, Maggie Thatcher was asked to leave, or, more accurately Michael Heseltine challenged her. John Major won the second ballot and therefore became party leader and PM.
In the Labour party the Leader is elected by an electoral college. But Gordon Brown was assumed to have the support of the majority of Labour MPs, and therefore did a Mugabe (I jest), and became leader without competition. So neither the country nor his party actually voted for his accession.
Bureaucrats tend to be very heavy as a group. Lots of sitting down and paperwork, or alternatively, heavy work by large men on the roads. I’m just not very big. If you want support, get a kickstand.
( )
Actually, I just plain get irritated by bureaucracy, which is inevitably poorly designed and ill-maintained. Your “valuable contributions to society” are perhaps necessary but nevertheless obnoxious and inefficient.
Not necessarily. A minor party might well say that it will only join under Y’s leadership instead of under X’s (perhaps X and Y represent different wings of the majority party). Or a MP might attract other MPs from many other parties, forming a broad coalition. This has yet to happen in my lifetime, but that doesn’t mean it won’t.
)