The next Prime Minister

There is something disheartening about the current process to replace the Prime Minister. It goes without saying that I am delighted to see the back of Johnson. His policies aside, if he had any, his lying, cronyism and corruption should have seen him move from No. 10 to court. Do not pass go.

Having watched the unfoldig  mayhem around his replacement though, I am not convinced that we will be getting anything better. Seeing the prospective candidates slag each other off in the televised debates made me laugh, only it’s not funny. Their accusations and hand ringing belied the fact that their party has been in government for 12 years. I know this is politics but there was no sense of responsibility or contrition over any failings of the government in which they served. 

We are left with two candidates, Sunak and Truss, both time-served at a senior level in government, with seemingly opposed views on how to resolve the country’s ails, many of which this government has caused. They are both touting failed neoliberal policies, trying to out cosplay the spirit of Thatcher and prove their Brexit credibility.

Except that we are not left with anything. The decision as to who replaces Johnson will be down to a tiny fraction of the electorate, less than 0.5%. Once again, what we call democracy in this country is shown up as a mockery. We are being played. Johnson wins a vote of no confidence, then suffers a torrent of resignations yet once again, having agreed to step down, wins a vote of no confidence. If his MPs are prepared to jettison the Prime Minister then there can be no confidence in the government he leads. It should have folded and a general election should have been called.

The ultimate irony however, is that his replacement has been chosen using a form of proportional representation. All MPs have been given multiple opportunities to choose unlike the national electorate which gets one bite of the cherry under our undemocratic first past the post system.

Even the Conservative Party knows that FPTP is an abomination, otherwise why not use it to choose its new leader. They keep the system however, as it keeps the party in power.