Funny how the appointment of Mervyn Davies to a peerage so that he can serve as Trade Minister has suddenly drawn attention to how many non-elected ministers we now have
I am grateful to Peter Riddell for the information that they are known in Whitehall as GOATS, following Gordon Brown’s expressed desire to have a government of all the talents
I was wondering if the bookies are offering odds on when we might have a prime minister drawn from the House of Lords, one who does not even bother to renounce his peerage & seek election
Can you renounce a Life Peerage anyway?
Lord Home renounced his hereditary peerage & won a by election so that he could serve as PM in the House of Commons after the resignation of Harold Macmillan. I was still a student & can remember the very heated debates on the subject. There were even suggestions in some quarters that the Queen should have used her constitutional power to appoint Rab Butler instead
One consequence was the abandonment of the Conservative process of letting their leader 'emerge' and to have one elected by MPs. Without such a system in place Mrs Thatcher could never have become prime minister
We have not had a prime minister in the Lords since 1895, though they were common enough before then – all hereditary of course. As far as I can find out there is no constitutional reason why we should not have another, though it could presumably be a difficult job for the monarch to decide whether the person put forward was likely to command the support of the House of Commons – or indeed of the electorate.
It could be exciting – I almost look forward to it
On a more serious note, it is concerning that so many members of the government have not been elected. Not least for the Labour Party who seem to have been unable in over 10 years in government to bring forward enough people of the right calibre & experience to serve in these posts. I wonder what Sydney & Beatrice Webb would have to say about that
