Gordon Brown

But if she chose anyone but Gordon Brown, who has been elected by the democratically elected members of the parliamentary labour party, she would cause a constitutional crisis and possibly bring about the end of the monarchy. And she's not going to do that ,is she.

Well, Harry's not got a lot to do for a bit -- Free Nazi uniforms for all gingers?

The point is, going to meet Her Majesty The Queen is more of a formal tradition these days than anything else. Yes, its possible The Queen could decide to put, for argument's sake, Jack Straw down as Prime Minister instead of Gordon Brown but in reality Her Majesty's role in the entire affair has diminished over the years and its now a formality rather than a necessity.

Unless something awful happens in the next 5 and a bit weeks.... he will be

That is a very good point. 'Prime Minister Designate' would be more accurate

"Recorded earlier" perhaps?

It doesn't matter whether she will or won't do it, she has the OPTION to choose not to. And whilst I am on this point, the Labour Party leader is not elected by the Parliamentary Labour party, it is elected by the Trade Unions and every Labour member, in an Electoral College.

Calling GB Prime Minister designate or PM elect is incorrect, he holds no such office - and is not guaranteed to become PM, crisis or no crisis (I hesitate to call it a constitutional crisis as we don't have a constitution). Imagine if she had a desire to end the monarchy, she could go ahead and choose Nick Harvey to form the next government (and I for one pray that she will). She is unlikely to do this, but she DOES have the right to.

The Queen selected Alec Douglas-Home as Prime Minister herself when Harold Mac resigned (he was neither leader of the Conservative Party or a member of the House of Commons), when Tony Blair tenders his resignation, she could easily phone up Jack Straw or Charlie Falconer and ask them to form the Government. This might not even form a problem, as the country would still have a Labour cabinet. Who knows, she might even call a General Election so we all have a say in who the PM should be.

The titles 'Senator elect' or 'President elect' are for when an individual has been elected and is waiting to assume office, assuming they hold no other office.

Prime Minister Designate would assume that Gordon Brown had the RIGHT to form the next government. He does, however, have the RIGHT to lead the Labour party, having been elected unopposed.

Further to this, it is not correct to refer to somebody who has not yet been elected to a particular post. Gordon Brown has not been elected to the leadership of the Labour party yet. Despite the fact that he is unopposed, he does not officially 'win' the election until the day when the polls would close, just as somebody who is elected unopposed in a Council Election or in a Parliamentary Election does not 'win' their election until the date of the election when polls close (which would currently be 10:00PM on the day of the election). They are not referred to as 'Councillor Elect' or 'MP elect'.

Therefore the correct aston would be:-
Gordon Brown
Chancellor of the Exchequer

By precedent the Queen MUST ask the leader or representative of the largest party in the Commons. If she chose David Cameron, he would simply be defeated by a vote of no confidence within days and a General Election would follow 28 days later.

Since GB has "in effect" been elected Labour Leader, she must call for him on 27 June. Anything else would be improper and set an new precedent. Even if GB stood down (or was run over by a bus) whoever was elected as Deputy Leader (assuming they weren't all crossing the road at the same time) would be called upon to be PM (as they would be Acting Labour Leader - as Margaret Beckett was when John Smith died)

There is no scope for a Constitutional Crisis, despite the absence of a written one. It is set by precedent, as is English Common Law.

[long argument - some bits of which I agree with, some not, snipped]



I think the key point is that unless something very odd has happened I haven't heard about, being Chancellor is STILL his current job, so he should be captioned as such.

Otherwise you'd end up with captions like "Tony Blair, Prime Minister for another 40 days" (although I wouldn't put it past some broadcaster when the number of days reaches single figures).

EDIT:
Of course GB should not be referred to as PM-elect, because he won't be Labour Leader-elect until 24 June 2007.

If everyone, including GB, all the Deputy Leader Candidates were run over by the same bus, there is an order of seniority within the Labour Party for who takes over, I think it goes next to the Labour Party Chairman (Hazel Blears). This is assuming the RTA happened after both Tony & TwoJags has resigned. Otherwise we would end up (or keep) one of those.

A sticky-bun to anyone who can guess who might be driving the fateful bus

That's almost as bad as those awful references to Cherie Blair as "First Lady."

The problem with that, from a television presentation point of view, is it means the report then has to introduce him incase the viewer is unfamiliar with who he is and the fact he is expected to be PM. The fact he is Chancellor is not of much use to the viewer, particularly in context of the speeches he has been giving of late.

Surely the point of an aston is to provide some information that may benefit the viewer and make the everyone's life easier, giving GB's current job title is not as useful to the viewer as knowing that he SHOULD be the next Prime Minister.