Just wondering the timing of world events. When will the British office of Prime Minister come up for election? - Jinx
There is no fixed term . So in theory he could call a general election today. There is a maximum time of five years ( which runs out next May ) so any time between now and then he will call the election. There were stories in some papers last week mentioning February but that has been denied by the government. He will choose an election date that he thinks will give him the best advantage of winning.
The last election date was June 11th 2001, so five years from then is June 2006, surely?
Er, no, the next general election doesn’t need to be held until June 2006.
But it is usually regarded as a sign of weakness if a PM puts off the election until the last possible moment. Holding the election after four years is considered the norm, so, all things being equal, the spring of 2005 still looks the most likely timing. For various complicated reasons, including the weather, holidays, parliamentary business and rival events, they usually prefer to pick a date in or around May or, failing that, October. He has some room for manoeuvre but not as much as it might seem in theory.
Just to correct myself, June 7th 2001 (oh, the humiliation).
The Canadian PM called an election for June 28, 2004, while his party was involved in a scandal and despite the fact that he could wait for another year. Waiting until the end of the five-year term is generally frowned upon, so the election was called and he won a minority. Minority governments (where one party wins more seats than the others, but not more than half the total number of seats) are possible in parliamentary systems, though more common where there’s a larger number of parties. It’s possible that the PM in a minority government won’t be the leader of the party with the greatest number of seats; two or more parties with fewer seats can get together and ask the head of state if they can form a government. This would normally only be done if it looks like the party with the most seats won’t be able to win a confidence vote (e.g. on a budget or major legislation) or if actually loses one. The head of state can then decide to allow another party or other parties to form a government, or can call an election.
Also, since the UK has a parliamentary system, Blair is PM because he’s the leader of his party. If he ceases to be the leader before or after the next election, the new leader of the party will become PM. People in countries under parliamentary systems don’t vote for leaders; they vote for people they want to send to parliament, and the party with the largest number of MPs gets to form a government with a cabinet (the executive branch). So, if Blair or members of his government feel that his leadership may not help the party in the upcoming election, Blair can step down. (I’m not sure how the party leaders are chosen in the UK, but in Canada it’s done at a single conference to which the party sends delegates, or in a system where all members of the party are entitled to vote for a new leader.)
One of the factors that pushed Prime Minister Martin to call a federal election last spring, even though he could have waited to the fall or even the next year, is that he didn’t become Prime Minister by winning an election, but because the Liberal Party of Canada chose him as leader of the party. When Prime Minister Chrétien retired last Christmas, Martin became PM.
It’s bad politically for a new Prime Minister in those circumstances to wait too long before calling elections, because there can be a sense that he doesn’t have legitimacy - he’s just serving out the previous PM’s time. So an incoming Prime Minister (or provincial Premier) will often call an election shortly after becoming PM, to earn his own political mandate.
Oh, and a bit of vocabulary: although the wording of the OP makes sense colloquially, it’s actually incorrect as a matter of constitutional law, on a couple of points.
First, there is no “office of the Prime Minister.” It has no legal existence. Tony Blair’s official position is that he’s the First Lord of the Treasury.
Second, there is no term to that non-existent office, in the sense that a PM does not cease to hold office after a set term. A PM serves as long as he/she has the confidence of the Commons, or until he/she wishes to retire, or until the Queen sacks him/her. Since the PM’s control of the Commons may change after an election, colloquially we can talk about the PM’s terms, but really we’re talking about the terms of the House of Commons, not the PM.
For example, Margaret Thatcher was PM from 1979 to 1900, winning three general elections, but she was only sworn into office once, in 1979. And she ceased to be PM, not because of the passage of set term or because she lost an election, but because she lost the confidence of the Commons when her own party essentially removed her as leader of the party.
So that’s why it felt like a nightmare. I always thought there was something weird about her.
… and leading the UK backwards through two world wars, that of 1945-1939 and that of 1919-1914. She truly led Britain into the 19th century.
The PM doesn’t have a term of office - he’s PM as long as he can command a majority in the House of Commons. A general election must be held sometime in the next 18 months, but Blair might not be PM by that time (q.v. Margaret Thatcher / John Major).
:smack: :o :smack: :o :smack: :o :smack:
Now that’s a real Conservative!!
(BTW, during that period my wife’s closest friend had a good friend who was a Mrs. Thatcher who had a daughter named Torey – long before Maggie ever became prominent!)
There is no such thing as an election for the prime minister.
The PM is just the leader of the party voted in by the members of the party not the public. Blair like every other MP will stand in a constituency against opposition candidates. He could loose his seats but the party could still win a majority of seat and so form a government. British people vote for their local candidate (granted they do generally vote on party lines but not necessarily)
So who is the head of state in Canada who gives permission to form a government?
These parliamentary governments really confuse Americans.
Like, who gave Hindenberg the authority to give Hitler permission to be chancellor? If the head of state isn’t a herditary monarch, where is he/she coming from?
Hindenberg’s authority technically derived from the electorate. The Weimar constitution envisaged the President being directly elected every 7 years.
The initial appointment of Friedrich Ebert as President was part of the initial adoption of the consititution and there wasn’t an election. When he died in 1925, there was an election held and Hindenberg won it. When his first term expired, an election was held in 1932 and he won again. Subsequent events, of course, then destroyed this arrangement.
Given the political turbulence of the time, thought was given in 1932 to changing the constitution to appoint Hindenberg to another term without an election, but that proved impractical.
The Governor General, acting on behalf of Her Majesty.
From the Constitution Act, 1867:
The GovGen’s choice is of course governed by the poltical realties. If one party holds a majority in the Commons, the GovGen calls the leader of that party to be sworn in as PM. If there’s no party with a majority, as is the case currently, the GovGen normally calls the person leading the single largest party, which is currently the Liberals. That’s not an absolute requirement, though - in one case in the 20s, the second largest party formed the government.
This illustrates the point that there is no term to the Prime Minister’s tenure in office. Prime Minister Martin was sworn in around last Christmas, and went to the polls in June. When the electorate returned a minority Commons, he didn’t resign and then get re-appointed by the GovGen. He stayed on as Prime Minister, since he had the single largest group in the Commons.
When exactly does the clock start running on that five-year mandate? Does the next election have to be held within five years of the previous election, or does Parliament have to be dissolved within five years of its first sitting, which could lead to elections a little more than five years apart?
I realize it’s pretty much a moot point since the government seldom if ever waits until the exact end of the mandate, but I still wonder when that “exact end” is.
The five-year maximum term for the Commons is set by the combined effect of the Septennial Act of 1715 and the Parliament Act of 1911. I can’t find the actual texts of either on-line, but I did find a research paper on the U.K. Parliament’s Research Papers site. (The paper is a .pdf and I can’t link directly to it.) It’s paper 04-38, entitled “Electoral Timetables.”
At page 10, the authors state: