I'm guessing the U.K. prime minister is like a president to the U.K..
Thru out the whole movie I thought Simon Foster was the prime minister, until towards the end they made it pretty clearly his not the prime minister.
If Simon is not the prime minister, then what is his job?
(my sig)Dictionary definition of Saw 6- The best saw movie since the first saw.
The PM is not as powerful in his govt as the president is in ours.
Simon is the Minister for Int'l Development. He is also an MP, hence his visit to his constituency.
Simon is the Minister for Int'l Development. He is also an MP, hence his visit to his constituency.
Minister of Parliment
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MEMBER of Parliament. A minister is a member of the executive, i.e. the government, and can be drawn from either house of the legislature, i.e. Parliament (although by tradition only members of the lower house, the House of Commons, are afforded the title 'MP').
shareOn the contrary, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is incredibly powerful within his own political system and far more so than the President of the United States or respective head of government of any Western European country. The PM directly controls through the chief whip the majority of the commons in a strict party discipline system without the checks and balances system seen in Washington. We go to war on the say so of the PM alone, we initiate a budget on the say so of the PM and to be designed by the treasury and No.10 alone, the cabinet who is appointed by and serves at the whim of the PM without Parliamentary interference introduces most bills into parliament (plus the Parliamentary timetable is devised by a member of the cabinet) - who uses party discipline to pass them, plus also the timing of elections are up to the PM who could go to the Queen to have Parliament dissolved tomorrow followed by elections 30 days later. Within British political circles, the term 'the elected dictatorship' carries much weight.
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It was voted on for PR reasons, the first time in British history that Parliament has been given a vote on going to war, and the result was not binding - going to war is a Royal Prerogative, a right that has over the years transferred from the Crown to Downing Street.
As I said before, we do not have a written constitution that bounds the Presidency to the will of Congress like yours does - imagine if Obama was the official party leader of the Democrats and was a member of Congress whilst President, was at the head of a strict whip system that will see members expelled if they vote against a 'three line whip' and who members depend on for re-election funding - because that is what we have which is why the British PM is without parallel in the Western World.
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I never said Her Majesty exercises the Royal Prerogative, all such powers are vested in the Prime Minister of Her Majesty's Government included in which is the right to go to war which parliament has no authority over. The vote on the Iraq War was merely a resolution casting an opinion, no legislation has ever existed to say parliament has the right to make war hence it is a Royal Prerogative as the authority for war in the British constitution can still only be found in the principle of the Divine Right of Kings.
Plus you are wrong with regard to the whip system, party hierarchies have far greater control over MPs and the parliamentary diary than exists in other countries, if an MP ignores a three line whip they will be expelled from their parlimentary party and will be forced to sit as an independent as happens every now and then. And the whip system has nothing to do with public expectation and the Commons isn't designed with a party system in mind - we in a few weeks will be giving a mandate to individuals to serve constituencies and not parties. There is a reason why the mid-late Nineteenth Century saw 'the golden age of parliament' and that was because there was greater MP freedom than ever before and since with MPs reflecting their local voters more accurately.
And I'm not talking specifically about the Blair era, I'm talking about the idea of the 'elected dictatorship,' that phrase was coined in the seventies when cabinet government began giving way to a PM who holds far too much influence with far too little checks on it. Though whilst I have kept my own partisan views out of this you obviously haven't done likewise.
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I've never said the power to go to war lies with the Monarchy in practice but in legal principle and constitutionally it does as no legislation exists that gives Parliament the right to go to War, the only legitimacy to go to war comes from ancient royal rights over which Parliament has no authority so the PM and Cabinet can totally circumvent them. The Second World War was a great example of that, Neville Chamberlain went on the radio on 3rd September 1939 and told the country because Germany hadn't responded to an ultimatum sent by the Britsh Embassy in Berlin, he had declared a state of war fifteen minutes earlier without the knowledge of the public or Parliament, with that right granted to him by King George VI.
I don't know why you keep referring to the state opening of parliament as it is this very example of a specific royal prerogative I am referring to, that Parliament does not now nor has it ever had the authority to go to war.
Regarding the whip system I understand the necessity of it, but it all points to my original point of the British Prime Minister being one of the most powerful heads of government within their own country in the democratic world. If a government firmly controls the agenda of the Commons, firmly controls a majority of members of the Commons, in a Country whose constitution is based on convention you as a consequence have a very, very powerful executive.
And I believe you're referring to the Tory MEP Daniel Hannan - he is 'somewhat' out there in the vagaries of opinion.
Your comment about three-line whips and party expulsions is untrue. Whilst hypothetically the front bench of any party could withdraw the whip, i.e. expel, any MP, rebellions occur frequently, and unless a party is willing to brave the political consequences (in terms of loss of support in the House and in the country), it is highly unlikely that it would take such a drastic step. My friend David Nuttall MP, for instance, is currently ranked as the most rebellious MP in the current Parliament, and yet he retains the Conservative whip. Generally removal of the whip occurs only in cases of severe misconduct.
There is, on the other hand, the expectation that what's called the 'payroll vote' - members of the government plus those occupying various other positions, such as Parliamentary Private Secretaries - will vote with the whips because of the principle of collective responsibility, and any failure to do so will normally result in the loss of that job and a return to the backbenches. Furthermore, it may be possible for the government to arrange for the de-selection of a sitting MP, rendering them ineligible to stand as a representative of their party at the following general election. In practice this is a far more potent weapon than removal of the party whip, particularly in constituencies with large majorities, and it's the reason why many of us favour the universal adoption of US-style open primaries, in order to render MPs beholden for their political careers to their constituents rather than the party whips.
Wouldn't it be heaven if U.S. political campaigns lasted only 30 days!
shareQuite, politicians would actually have time to run the country once in a while.
shareYou're thinking of the short campaign, i.e. the period between the prorogation of Parliament and the election. The long campaign lasts for many months beforehand - as long as there are people who care to campaign.
shareWhilst all of this is technically true, the Prime Minister nevertheless must retain the ability to command a majority in the House, in order to retain confidence and supply. A Prime Minister who behaves contrary to the will of the majority of MPs will find himself in severe danger of losing a confidence motion, at which point there is (now, under the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act - the situation was even more tenuous at the time of your post) a limited window of opportunity for him to retain it, failing which the monarch will have no option but either to appoint a new Prime Minister who is capable of commanding a majority, or proroging Parliament and triggering a general election.
shareOP, how on Earth could you have gone through most of the film thinking Simon Foster was the Prime Minister? Would they have made the Prime Minister stand at the back during that meeting early on? It's a wonder you understood any of it if you failed to grasp that Foster was only a minor cabinet minister. In the film he was "Minister for International Development" which is a fictional title. And like every government minister including the PM (although there are some people with a role in government who are Lords rather than elected MPs, like Lord Mandelson), he's an a MP - Member of Parliament who has a seat in the House of Commons. An MP is basically the British equivalent of a Congressman (there is no British equivalent of Senators), that what those scenes where he goes back to his constituency where about.
The Prime Minister is like the President in that he's the leader of this country, but he probably doesn't have the all same powers as the President (apart from the fact the USA is a superpower and Britain isn't) and the President doesn't have a King or Queen above them (but the Queen is just a figurehead, she has very little to do with how the country is run). On the other hand, because the US government is split into an executive branch (The White House and all that) and a legislative branch (the Senate and House of Representatives) you could argue that the Prime Minister has an influence in his government that the President doesn't quite have, because in Britain you vote for a party, not a Prime Minister.
Britain and American have two different systems, the Constitution was created because they wanted something different from the British system (Britain doesn't have a written constitution).
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'Minister for International Development' (wasn't Foster actually the Secretary of State?) is not a fictitious title, not now, nor at the time of your post, nor when the film was released. The current Secretary of State is Andrew Mitchell, and his ministers are Alan Duncan and Stephen O'Brien. At the time of the preparations for the Iraq War the Secretary of State was Claire Short, who eventually resigned over the issue.
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No, Simon is Minister for International Devlopement -- you know, helping impoverished nations and so forth.
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I'm quite familiar with the department (even to he point of having been for drinks in its bar), but my question was whether he was Secretary or Minister of State. I haven't checked the film, but certainly the Wikipedia page indicates I was correct, he was indeed the Secretary of State.
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Same thing, the official title has simply changed over the years. But in the film they actually call him Minister for International Development. Here's the transcript:
[On the Eddie Mair
PM programme on the BBC.]
MAIR:
Well, I'm joined by Simon Foster, the Minister for International Development.
Judy says (triggering one of my favorite Tucker rants) "It was a scheduled media appearance by this department's secretary of state, therefore it falls well within my purview."
He was the Secretary of State for International Development, The SoSs are often referred to as Minister for short as its a long title. DFID is a real department that started under Blair, in the past it has been part of the Foriegn Office but Labor made it a separate cabinet level department.
Lastly for those who are American like myself, but don't follow British politics, Secretary of State is a title of the head of a cabinet department, there are multiple secretaries of state unlike the US where our Secretary of State would be equivalent to the UKs Foreign Secretary.
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Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.
So who played the part of the Prime Minister in this film, or was the PM not in the cast?