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What's confusing about it? The government wields executive power, Parliament legislates and holds the government to account.

by M2Ys4U 6y ago

iso1631 6y ago
The confusing part is that the government has to maintain the confidence of the house, and is comprised of members of parliament. Normally the government whips mean that parliament does whatever the government tell it to do, so "holds the government to account" is a laughable statement. Unlike the US system where the president can easily not have the confidence of the Senate or House (R president, D House, D Senate for example), and appoints his own secretaries from a pool of 300+m people, in the UK, the prime minister appoints ministers from parliament (usually the house of commons but can appoint from house of lords). Technically the PM could make a new lord (like Blair did with Sugar), but it's convoluted, and conventionally the main jobs must go to MPs Most people think "I like Boris, I vote for him as PM, he runs the country". In the last 5 years this has broken down and parliament has asserted itself more -- this independence was punished at the ballot box in December 2019.
- M2Ys4U 6y ago
  > The confusing part is that the government has to maintain the confidence of the house, and is comprised of members of parliament. Confidence of the Commons, yes. The government doesn't have a majority in the Lords. >Normally the government whips mean that parliament does whatever the government tell it to do, so "holds the government to account" is a laughable statement. To an extent, that's true. The select committee system enables alternate power base within Parliament (especially the Commons) so that independently-minded backbench MPs to scrutinise ministers and other public officials with less interference from the whips. And over the past 2 parliaments we have seen the rise of the Tory "research groups" - especially the ERG - which have been very influential on the government. I'm not saying that everything is perfect here, until we ditch the first-past-the-post electoral system everything is still screwed up, but the government does have to listen to Parliament when the latter wants something.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    The Tory "Research groups" and the 1918 are influential inside the tory party, but tories always stick together. Nothing new, Redwood challenged Major in the 90s, and Thatcher lost support of the tory party before that, but various backbenchers might arrange for PMs to leave, but they would never dream of voting against the government in a vote of confidence. Parliament isn't important, internal politics of the conservative party are important. (And Labour, but less so as (apart from Blair), Labour don't win elections) The government in the last few years has broken the law time and time again, but nothing happens. They did lose support of parliament, some tory members actually rebelled - including grandees like Ken Clarke. The electorate put them where they belong. Democracy doesn't really exist in the UK, we have 40+ years of a dysfunctional opposition party that only won thanks to Blair, and the only times that parliament started to assert itself, it was massively punished. AV wasn't perfect, but it was still far better than FPTP, and the masively rejected it. We can have a government that kills hundreds of thousands of people, flushes billions into the back pockets of tory donors, and we reward them with ever higher approval ratings.

What's confusing about it? The government wields executive power, Parliament legislates and holds the government to account.

by M2Ys4U 6y ago

What's confusing about it? The government wields executive power, Parliament legislates and holds the government to account.

iso1631 6y ago

The confusing part is that the government has to maintain the confidence of the house, and is comprised of members of parliament. Normally the government whips mean that parliament does whatever the government tell it to do, so "holds the government to account" is a laughable statement. Unlike the US system where the president can easily not have the confidence of the Senate or House (R president, D House, D Senate for example), and appoints his own secretaries from a pool of 300+m people, in the UK, the prime minister appoints ministers from parliament (usually the house of commons but can appoint from house of lords). Technically the PM could make a new lord (like Blair did with Sugar), but it's convoluted, and conventionally the main jobs must go to MPs Most people think "I like Boris, I vote for him as PM, he runs the country". In the last 5 years this has broken down and parliament has asserted itself more -- this independence was punished at the ballot box in December 2019.

M2Ys4U 6y ago
> The confusing part is that the government has to maintain the confidence of the house, and is comprised of members of parliament. Confidence of the Commons, yes. The government doesn't have a majority in the Lords. >Normally the government whips mean that parliament does whatever the government tell it to do, so "holds the government to account" is a laughable statement. To an extent, that's true. The select committee system enables alternate power base within Parliament (especially the Commons) so that independently-minded backbench MPs to scrutinise ministers and other public officials with less interference from the whips. And over the past 2 parliaments we have seen the rise of the Tory "research groups" - especially the ERG - which have been very influential on the government. I'm not saying that everything is perfect here, until we ditch the first-past-the-post electoral system everything is still screwed up, but the government does have to listen to Parliament when the latter wants something.
- iso1631 6y ago
  The Tory "Research groups" and the 1918 are influential inside the tory party, but tories always stick together. Nothing new, Redwood challenged Major in the 90s, and Thatcher lost support of the tory party before that, but various backbenchers might arrange for PMs to leave, but they would never dream of voting against the government in a vote of confidence. Parliament isn't important, internal politics of the conservative party are important. (And Labour, but less so as (apart from Blair), Labour don't win elections) The government in the last few years has broken the law time and time again, but nothing happens. They did lose support of parliament, some tory members actually rebelled - including grandees like Ken Clarke. The electorate put them where they belong. Democracy doesn't really exist in the UK, we have 40+ years of a dysfunctional opposition party that only won thanks to Blair, and the only times that parliament started to assert itself, it was massively punished. AV wasn't perfect, but it was still far better than FPTP, and the masively rejected it. We can have a government that kills hundreds of thousands of people, flushes billions into the back pockets of tory donors, and we reward them with ever higher approval ratings.