They also signed a duplicate indoors because of the rain, but it later acquired its own problem.
Wow, I never heard about that. What an idjit.
So that the Tories received a majority in this month’s election, does that mean the Fixed Terms Act is DOA?
No, it still operates, unless someone repeals/amends the law.
That might just be enough for the Queen to lose her option.
If the Sovereign refuses her Prime Minister’s advice, formally tendered, then he must resign as he lacks the confidence of his Sovereign.
Of course, she could “strongly hint that that he not ask…” but if he’s dumb enough to ask anyway publicly, then his options are limited should the queen refuse.
But again, this is THE nuclear option. (a) She’d better be sure public opinion is firmly on her side and will stay that way, or like Daffy Duck and the trick with dynamite and gasoline and matches “I can only do it once”. (b) of course, once the PM resigns, she needs a new PM who needs to get the confidence of the house (I.e. majority vote of support) or they’re right back where they started… election time.
People who may have objected to an early election may still object more strongly to the queen insinuating herself beyond her traditional role.
I’d love for the Government to attempt to undo it. Perhaps a Private Members Bill so make it more bipartisan and invite Labour support.
When it was up to the UK Prime Ministers to decide when to call an election, there was a great temptation to tinker with the economy to engineer a little economic boom to help with them get re-elected.
We had a lot of that and it did nothing the stability of the economy. Five year terms and handing responsibility for setting interest rate over to the Bank of England might do something to influence the vice of ‘short-termism’ that dogs UK politics.
So - we brace ourselves for all the bad stuff that new governments do in their first parliament. They assume (probably correctly) that it will all be forgotten in five years time.
Alas, I don’t have the journal entry from my student days a few years ago, but I read the opposite - unfixed terms lowered the temptation to do this but to strike when the iron’s hot, while such tinkering is rampant in countries with fixed terms.
Plus, I recall one cynical commentator suggesting that the population’s memory span was about 2 years. Hence (as a counter to calls for proportional representation) the benefit of a majority government was that they could apply the medicine - tough but necessary measures - early in the mandate, then sweeten the deal as election time approaches. A minority government was forever having to appease its third party supporters and could not take unpopular but necessary measures.
No fixed term meant the majority could have an extra year to spoon the medicine down the public’s throat.