# Questions on British Politics **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 23, 2007, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792 "2007-07-23T01:29:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/1 "2007-07-23T01:29:48Z")
I’ve got a handful of questions, but I’m gonna shoot from the hip, so here goes: My fiancee and I are watching a program on the Queen and her relationship with the British government on public television. Being somewhat more astute in the United States Constitution than your average dude, I’m struck by the similarities and differences between the Brits and the Americans. 1. The prime minister seems to be elected from the majority party (that party gaining the most seats) in the Parliament. I have no idea how many seats there are between the House of Lords and Commons, but as I understand, the majority party of the Commons gets to elect the Prime Minister, with the House of Lords’ consent. Is this how it works? 2. According to the program, I understand that candidates to the office of Prime Minister must give up their heraldic titles. . . is this true? Being American, we don’t have Titles, and thus there’s no reason to worry about it. There are some instances where a candidate, if a military member, must give up his/her commission to serve in a civil office (it’s a case-by-case basis, but regulations usually favor those elected to the office in cases of separation). Does a Prime Minister elect have to resign his/her title? If so, can he/she regain it after leaving the office of the PM? 3. Having now typed this up, I realize the United States has a single, stand alone document from which to guide the federal government–i.e. the Constitution. Does the British system have a similar document or code of laws? Tripler More questions to follow. . . [sub]methinks I need a Parliamentary legal class[/sub]. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/2 "2007-07-23T01:44:57Z")
1. The Prime Minister is the leader of the party which has a majority in the House of Commons. What the House of Lords wants is irrelevant. It only becomes interesting if no party has a majority, and some kind of coalition has to be formed. 2. There is no legal reason why a member of the House of Lords (a peer) could not be Prime Minister, and that did happen in the 19th century, but it is now an accepted convention that the Prime Minister must be a member of the House of Commons. The last peer to become PM was Alec Douglas-Home, who resigned his peerage as Earl of Home and got himself elected in a by-election to the House of Commons in 1963. Given that he followed the convention by resigning his peerage, it would seem that the convention is very well-established now. 3. No. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/3 "2007-07-23T01:57:44Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] …Given that he followed the convention by resigning his peerage, it would seem that the convention is very well-established now… [/QUOTE] Of course now that hereditary peers are no longer automatically entitled to sit in the Lords they can now stand for election to the Commons. So a peer could become Prime Minister without renouncing his/her title and the government could still function normally (ie Question Time) and without raising any accountability issues. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/4 "2007-07-23T02:01:07Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] 1. The Prime Minister is the leader of the party which has a majority in the House of Commons. What the House of Lords wants is irrelevant. It only becomes interesting if no party has a majority, and some kind of coalition has to be formed. [/quote] And the political parties go into the election with an acknowledged leader, so the voters know who will be PM in the event that any given party wins an overall majority. > [@Giles](#): > > 1. There is no legal reason why a member of the House of Lords (a peer) could not be Prime Minister, and that did happen in the 19th century, but it is now an accepted convention that the Prime Minister must be a member of the House of Commons. The last peer to become PM was Alec Douglas-Home, who resigned his peerage as Earl of Home and got himself elected in a by-election to the House of Commons in 1963. Given that he followed the convention by resigning his peerage, it would seem that the convention is very well-established now. This convention is less likely to hold now that the House of Lords has been reformed. Hereditary peers used not to be able to sit in the Commons because they (pretty much) automatically got a seat in the Lords. Since the reform of the House of Lords this is no longer the case and peers can be elected to the Commons: [Michael Ancram.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ancram) I’d suggest that it would now be \*theoretically \* possible for a peer to become PM while sitting in the House of Commons. \*Politically \* impossible though. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/5 "2007-07-23T02:51:12Z")
**Cunctator** , why would it be politically impossible? The reason a peer hasn’t been Prime Minister for the past century is because the convention is firmly established that the PM must have a seat in the Commons and be accountable to the elected reps every day the Commons sits. A peer could not sit in the Commons without resigning his peerage. Now that hereditary peers no longer have an automatic seat in the Lords and are eligible to sit in the Commons, why couldn’t a peer be PM, sitting in the Commons? If Lord Such-and-Such joins a party, gets the party nomination for a constitutency, wins the constituency, and works his way up the party hierarchy to the point of winning the leadership in an open convention, why would it be politically impossible for Lord Such-and-Such to become PM? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/6 "2007-07-23T02:59:28Z")
Anyone mind if I throw in a question of my own that’s always been nagging at me? No? Great! How often are general elections held? I’ve heard many references to the Prime Minister calling an election, but I assume there’s some limit to how long they can go without one, or there would be no way to kick the ruling party out. Unless the opposition party can also call elections… Can they? That’s one of those things I’ve always been confused about, but have never cared enough to research. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/7 "2007-07-23T03:08:41Z")
[QUOTE=Smeghead] …How often are general elections held? I’ve heard many references to the Prime Minister calling an election, but I assume there’s some limit to how long they can go without one, or there would be no way to kick the ruling party out… [/QUOTE] By law elections must be held at least once every five years (unless parliament passes a law to extend it’s term like it did during WWII). Only the Queen can disolve parliament and call new elections, but by convention she only does so if the Prime Minister “advises” her to or in a constitutional crisis requiring new elections. ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/8 "2007-07-23T03:22:56Z")
[QUOTE=Giles] 1. There is no legal reason why a member of the House of Lords (a peer) could not be Prime Minister, and that did happen in the 19th century, but it is now an accepted convention that the Prime Minister must be a member of the House of Commons. The last peer to become PM was Alec Douglas-Home, who resigned his peerage as Earl of Home and got himself elected in a by-election to the House of Commons in 1963. Given that he followed the convention by resigning his peerage, it would seem that the convention is very well-established now. [/quote] 2.A. Forgive me–I assume ‘peerage’ equates to “pecking order in nobility”. I know nothing of nobility other than my own applications of military knowledge to a family hereditary: I know a baron is lowest, earl is next, duke is next highest . . . and there on forth. . . (my ignorance ain’t in question). But it seems that the House of Lords, as apparent in the title, is someone who has . . . ‘a title’. I mentally, and roughly equate this house to our Senate, where the higher house has different powers, but without titles of state. How does one get into the House of Lords without being a Baron or a Knight (if possible)? Is it a requirement to be one, or does being elected make you a peer? 2.B. It seems that by recent custom, the PMs are elected from the House of Commons. **Giles** referenced this in his post, I just wanted to verify I understood him correctly. . . Tripler Man, I really need to take a Parliamentary class. Thanks though, guys! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/9 "2007-07-23T03:39:57Z")
[QUOTE=Tripler] 2.B. It seems that by recent custom, the PMs are elected from the House of Commons. **Giles** referenced this in his post, I just wanted to verify I understood him correctly. . . [/QUOTE] The last peer who was Prime Minister was the Marquess of Shaftesbury, from 1895 to 1902. Siunce then, every PM has sat in the Commons. The last time a peer was in serious running for the PM’s position was in 1923, when [Lord Curzon](http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/pm.htm) hoped to become PM on the retirement of Prime Minister Bonar Law. However, Baldwin became PM instead, in part because it was thought that it was no longer appropriate for the PM to be in the Lords. (The Lords had lost their power to defeat legislation in the _Parliament Act_ of 1911, and was no longer an equal partner in Parliament.) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/10 "2007-07-23T03:49:10Z")
Oh, and this was one of the cases where the choice of Prime Minister was made by the King himself. He explained to Lord Curzon why he was choosing Baldwin: > [@](#): > > CURZON: ‘Am I understand then, Sir, that you consider that no peer can ever be Prime Minister?’ > > KING: ‘No, I didn’t say that. What I said was that there were circumstances in which it was very undesireable that a peer should be Prime Minister and in my view this was such a case.’ > > CURZON: ‘But then what about the Foreign Secretary. [Curzon was Foreign Secretary at the time.] He is almost as important as the Prime Minister, particularly in these days. How is it I can be a peer and Foreign Secretary at the same time without your objecting?’ > > KING: ‘Because the Prime Minister is responsible for everything you do.’ (Rose, _King George V_, pp. 272-273.) ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/11 "2007-07-23T04:00:45Z")
[QUOTE=Northern Piper] **Cunctator** , why would it be politically impossible? The reason a peer hasn’t been Prime Minister for the past century is because the convention is firmly established that the PM must have a seat in the Commons and be accountable to the elected reps every day the Commons sits. A peer could not sit in the Commons without resigning his peerage. Now that hereditary peers no longer have an automatic seat in the Lords and are eligible to sit in the Commons, why couldn’t a peer be PM, sitting in the Commons? If Lord Such-and-Such joins a party, gets the party nomination for a constitutency, wins the constituency, and works his way up the party hierarchy to the point of winning the leadership in an open convention, why would it be politically impossible for Lord Such-and-Such to become PM? [/QUOTE] All very true. In hindsight ‘impossible’ was the wrong word. Perhaps ‘very unlikely’ would be better. I don’t have any great knowledge of UK politics but I really can’t see the modern Conservative party going into an election being led by Lord X. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/12 "2007-07-23T04:25:19Z")
A couple of points: –The way you get to be in the House of Lords is either by being chosen a life peer (peerage title that expires with the person’s death) or if you are a hereditary peer, being elected by your fellow hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. Peerages are technically awarded by the monarch but of course the PM makes the actual decisions. Knights are not peers; they can and do sit in the Commons without restriction. –Although the Commons must be dissolved by law after five years, they are always dissolved by the monarch (on the advice of the PM) before then. The latest a Commons was allowed to sit in peacetime in the last 90 years was the 1959-64 parliment, which was dissolved after 4 years 9 months. The main reason this is done is that it allows the party in power to pick the most favorable time for it to win. –Lord Halifax was actually seriously considered as PM after Chamberlin’s resignation in 1940. He declined to be PM mainly for the reason our other posters mentioned–since he couldn’t be in the House of Commons, he couldn’t be accountable to the Commons. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/13 "2007-07-23T09:14:24Z")
[QUOTE=Tripler] 2.B. It seems that by recent custom, the PMs are elected from the House of Commons. **Giles** referenced this in his post, I just wanted to verify I understood him correctly. . . [/QUOTE] PMs are not exactly “elected from the House of Commons”. The voters elect each member of the Commons in a general election, knowing their party affiliations and who among them happen to be the leaders of each party. After the election, he or she who can “command a majority”, i.e. the leader of the biggest party, becomes PM. If the PM resigns as leader of his/her party, as Tony Blair recently did (he could have stayed on in the Commons, but chose to resign his seat too), the new leader of the biggest party (Gordon Brown) becomes PM. So the people who directly choose the PM are those who choose the biggest party’s leader. Which varies by party, but it’s generally some combination of the party’s MPs and its ordinary members. “Peerage” is a general term referring to any honour (Earl, Duke, etc., but not a mere knighthood - Sir Elton John is not a member of the House of Lords, for example) which give the holder membership of the House of Lords. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/14 "2007-07-23T09:16:55Z")
[QUOTE=Tripler] 3. Having now typed this up, I realize the United States has a single, stand alone document from which to guide the federal government–i.e. the Constitution. Does the British system have a similar document or code of laws? [/QUOTE] Not one single document but many, a long list of legal precedent; [wikipedia link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom). ---
**Author:** ![ColonelDax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@ColonelDax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColonelDax)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/15 "2007-07-23T09:23:18Z")
[QUOTE=Smeghead] How often are general elections held? [/QUOTE] Just mentioning the standard factoid that two general elections were called in 1974, the first in [February](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election%2C_February_1974) and the second in [October](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election%2C_October_1974). ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/16 "2007-07-23T09:53:14Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] “Peerage” is a general term referring to any honour which give the holder membership of the House of Lords. [/QUOTE] And I don’t know why I said that, because as others have said it is no longer true that peers automatically get a seat in the Lords. Otherwise, their role is largely one of tradition and ceremony. They do get to inherent Daddy’s huge county house, usually. Anyway, the House of Lords is referred to as the upper house, but it is far less powerful, relatively, than the US Senate or most other upper houses in bicameral systems. It can send bills back to the Commons a few times, but ultimately can’t block them. If you look at coverage of British politics, it’s all about the Commons, because that’s where the power is. The Lords is largely irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/17 "2007-07-23T10:20:50Z")
[QUOTE=installLSC] –Lord Halifax was actually seriously considered as PM after Chamberlin’s resignation in 1940. He declined to be PM mainly for the reason our other posters mentioned–since he couldn’t be in the House of Commons, he couldn’t be accountable to the Commons. [/QUOTE] Thanks, **installLSC** , I’d forgotten about Halifax when I posted about Curzon being the last peer in the running. In addition to the peerage issue, however, there was another reason why Halifax didn’t get it and Churchill did - Churchill was determined to fight Hitler, because he had correctly determined that Nazi Germany was a criminal regime that had to be stopped. He had the support of the younger, more miltant members of the Conservative party. Halifax was more in the Chamberlain school, and may have thought there was some way to reach an understanding with Hitler. See Lukacs, [Five Days in London - May, 1940](http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/Five-Days-London-May-May-John-Lukacs/9780300084665-item.html?ref=Search+Books%3a+'days+in+london') for a fascinating read of the power struggle that occurred within the Conservative Party. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/18 "2007-07-23T11:17:33Z")
[QUOTE=Northern Piper] The last peer who was Prime Minister was the Marquess of Shaftesbury, from 1895 to 1902. [/quote] I believe you mean the Marquess of Salisbury. > [@](#): > > The last time a peer was in serious running for the PM’s position was in 1923, when [Lord Curzon](http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/pm.htm) hoped to become PM on the retirement of Prime Minister Bonar Law. The appointment of [Alec Douglas-Home](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Douglas-Home) is not without interest. When Macmillan resigned in 1963: > [@](#): > > Following a series of consultations to determine who could command support from across the party and prove the best compromise candidate, Macmillan advised Queen Elizabeth II. Though it was argued that he had no right to advise the Queen as to whom to invite to kiss hands as Prime Minister, and the Queen was under no obligation to accept his advice, the Queen duly invited the Earl of Home to become Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury. > > Home, the first UK Prime Minister born in the 20th century, believed it would not be practical to serve as PM from the Lords (it was widely believed that Lord Curzon had not been invited to become prime minister in 1923 because of his seat in the Lords). Using the Peerage Act 1963, which had only been passed earlier in the same year after Tony Benn’s campaign to renounce his peerage, Home disclaimed his Earldom and other peerages on 23 October 1963. For the next two weeks he belonged to neither House of Parliament - an extremely uncommon (although not unique) occurrence for a sitting Prime Minister. As “Sir Alec Douglas-Home”, he contested a by-election in the safe seat of Kinross & West Perthshire. Home duly won on 8 November, entering the history books as the last peer to become Prime Minister and the only Prime Minister to resign the Lords to enter the Commons. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/19 "2007-07-23T11:33:36Z")
[QUOTE=Chez Guevara] I believe you mean the Marquess of Salisbury. [/quote] Quite right - I did. Thanks for the correction. > [@](#): > > The appointment of [Alec Douglas-Home](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Douglas-Home) is not without interest. When Macmillan resigned in 1963: Fascinating - I didn’t realise Douglas-Home was actually still in the Lords when he was appointed. Ignorance fought! ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2007, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792/20 "2007-07-23T12:01:13Z")
While it is true that hereditary peers who no longer sit in the Lords can be elected to the Commons, it is not at all obvious that those peers who still sit in the Lords can resign their seat there in order to get elected to the Commons. There are two complications. In the case of life peers, they cannot disclaim their peerage, as that option is open only to someone who has inherited one. The argument is that if they didn’t want a peerage, they shouldn’t have accepted one. This became an issue several years ago as the European Parliament plans to ban MEPs from sitting in national legislatures, which will mean that those MEPs with life peerages will be forced to resign from the European Parliament, unlike the other MEPs affected who will have the option of resigning from their national legislature. Then there are those excepted hereditaries peers who were allowed to retain their seats in the Lords after the 1999 reform. It is unclear whether they can resign that seat without also disclaiming their title. The 1999 Act appointed those exempted peers for life and made no provision for them to resign. [QUOTE=Tripler] If so, can he/she regain it after leaving the office of the PM? [/QUOTE] That’s a complicated issue. In the case of Alec Douglas Home, he subsequently returned to the Lords with a life peerage as Baron Home of the Hirsel. Moreover, Viscount Hailsham, the other peer to have disclaimed his peerage in 1963 to stand in the Conservative leadership election, later became a life peer as Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone. Also, the son of a disclaimed peer has the option, on his father’s death, of reclaiming the peerage, so that the title is revived as if nothing had happened. (Subsequent heirs do not have that option.) Both Home’s son and Hailsham’s son took up that option, so both titles have since been revived. Hailsham’s son, the present 3rd Viscount, was already an MP when he inherited in 2001 and so, under the 1999 reform, was able to remain in the Commons. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-british-politics/412792.md?page=2)