At last Suella  Braverman has made the lifestyle choice to take time off from government and return to the job she really loves, stealing Dalmatian puppies. In her wake she has left the unelected Prime Minister the unenviable job of filling his government from the shrinking pool of MPs that haven’t been disgraced, thrown out of the party, or lost their seat in a bye election.

So he has examined all 349 other Tory MPs and decided the that the best person to be Foreign Secretary was, er … none of them. Instead he picked some chap called Dave who happened to be passing, and was at a loose end, and managed to convince him to take the job. As no one had elected Dave the PM had to use his almost untrammelled executive power and pronounced him Lord Cameron.

If anything shows how unfit our present system of government is it this fiasco. After the nation voted for 650 MPs to represent them the Prime Minister simply decided that the voters had got it wrong and chose someone else for one of the four most important jobs in our country. Democratic? I think not. And Dave will be in the House of Lords for life (or until we introduce democracy ).

And it isn’t just a one off. Every time this government hits a bump in the road they all change seats as part of the Conservatives own job creation scheme. For example, in the last 13 years we have had 13 Secretaries of State for Housing – no wonder we have a terrible housing crisis. And it is the same all over government. Also, six Chancellors, ten education Secretaries, twelve culture Secretaries etc. What a shambles! Time for a change, and not just a change of government but also improvements to our way of government including PR and a written Constitution that describes the limits to the power of the executive.

John Patrinos
November 2023