Not to overstate it, but the race for the US Presidency seems to garner more attention on the BBC than the PMship does, when did this first occur?
Thanks for any info.
O
Is there an election for Prime Minister this fall?
I don’t think this question can be answered factually. Since it is a matter of opinion, off to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Since Bishop Ussher could figure out that the world was created on Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC, why wouldn’t we be able to pin this down? 
If I recall correctly, the Prime Minister is pretty much already selected before the old one has been ousted, and once the old one has been outed, there’s something like a two week period while they formalize all the voting and “campaigning” and stuff. The race for the US president has been going on for something near two years now.
So, pretty much there’s neither much time nor much point for the media to pay much attention to the race for Prime Minister. But just because the media does or doesn’t pay attention to something doesn’t mean it’s more or less important. Paris Hilton certainly isn’t important, but you wouldn’t know that from media coverage.
Hehe, sorry about that, let me restate my OP. When did President of the United States > Prime Minister of Great Britain, IN Britain?
Ourrah- Not yet. Next Question?
Good Lord.
It didn’t. It may seem so at times(does it?). But it didn’t.
Good Lord. Do people think this?
Shouldn’t your question be, “Is the President of the U.S. more important than the Prime Minister of England?”
Why do you assume it is?
Good Lord!
The US election is an 18+ month-long 24/7 theater of massive egos spending hundreds of millions of dollars on self-promotion, and the local news outlets giving them hundreds of hours of coverage. Regardless of its importance, it pretty much heaves itself into the world’s attention by sheer force of size, duration and noise level.
I can’t speak for the UK, but in Japan (which also uses a PM system) the process is basically a week of closed-door wrangling between factions, followed by an announcement of “This is your new Prime Minister. No questions? Good.” The newspapers and TV programs here turn to the US elections just because they continually provide something new to talk about.
This seems too obvious, but surely the past 7 1/2 years have proven that the American president has an enormous influence on the rest of the world, to a much greater extent than almost any other world leader. So of course other countries are interested in the results of the national elections in the US.
We’re interested. As it takes such a bloody long time it therefore occupies the media a lot.
Is it more important to us than who is our own PM? No, of course not.
I think people may have been confused by the last change over from Blair to Brown. This was NOT an election. But a change in leadership of the party in power (we don’t elect the PM, we elect the party). Some people are a bit annoyed by this.
As mentioned in other threads, we in Canada, look poised for a federal election. If it happens, it will be announced within a couple of weeks, and it will all be over with before the next U.S. Presidential election.
How the fuck you can spend 3 years electing a President, I have no idea.
Never. It is a matter of great interest to us - it’s a great spectator sport, after all - and we do need something to disract us from the disaster that is Gordon Brown.
We don’t have a ‘race for the Premiership’ of the manner of the US Presidency. Each party elects its own leader, and that leader becomes PM when his/her party commands a majority in the House of Commons at a General Election (about every 4/5 years).
General Elections get a LOT of media interest - when Tony Blair became PM in 1997 you’d think the Beatles had reformed - but given that our general elections last c.6 weeks from calling to voting, we’re hardly in a position to get quite as whipped up as you lot in the US do.
Why would you ever think it did? Don’t get me wrong, the US President IS of great interest to us - always useful to have some warning of which wars we’re getting dragged into next - but, as with most countries, domestic politics ALWAYS come first.
We’re more likely to ruin your country than you are.
We play close attention because, as the old adage goes, when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.
Plus a lot of our news in boring, so we steal yours.
Oh its always been more important to us who the
POTUS is then who the P.M.is.
Pretty soon we’re going to change our electoral laws so that only the wealthy or people with wealthy backers can be elected P.M,also we’re going to start allowing paid for T.V. ads to be broadcast slagging off political opponents.
After that we hope to get rid of the Monarchy so that we can invest our head of government with being head of state aswell giving him/her absolute power as far as you can in a liberal democracy AND remove a valuable safeguard from the abuse of power by our leaders.
After that we hope to leave the E.U.revert to using Imperial measurements,teaching creationism in our schools,permit universal gun ownership,abolish our National Health Service for "Pay only"medecine,abolish the welfare state and finally petition to become the 51st.state of the U.S.A.
Or it could be we like to see how our kids are getting along as a relatively new nation.
OR curiousity as to whether one of the most powerful nations on Earth is going to elect somebody as fuckwitted as Dubya to POTUS…
OR we mostly couldn’t give a flying fuck about it BUT our major media networks have found that it is a relatively cheap way to fill up news air time while allowing our media hacks to have quite a pleasant little assignment with paid partying thrown in.
(Much more pleasant doing the Washington circuit then the M.E.,E. Africa or Russia etc.)
I leave you to take your pick of the options.
well lets see
events happen in england… i think sum cows got sick or sumthin
events happen in america…we get dragged into a war, retaliated against, an the latest is our whole country is on the verge of recession because a single bank in america goes under
dubya is good for a laugh tho… when he isnt scaring the s*** out of us:(
btw: it really takes 3 years for u guys to decide who to elect? wow, all that preperation time an u still manage to screw it up twice with the same guy!!:smack:
i dont mean to insult any americans, i know most of u are smart an sensible, but that just makes it all the harder to understand.
What law has the sitting monarch refused to give Assent to in the last, say, 100 years?
It’s not a safeguard, it’s a rubber stamp.