Steve in Pudsey posted:
mansoor posted:
But it is up to the Queen who she apoint to be PM.
In this day and age, only in so far as rubber stamping what the party with a majority wish to do, surely?
Alec Douglas-Home was the last PM directly appointed by the monarch.
This was in 1963, when Harold Macmillan resigned suddenly due to ill-health with the backdrop of the Conservative Party Conference. Back then the Tories no formal procedure for selecting a leader, just some series of confused precedents. QEII was expected to choose on the basis of advice given by the party's elder statesmen.
Alec Douglas Home was selected from the House of Lords (the last time such an appointment happened), thus he renounced his peerage so he could enter the Commons AIUI.
His tenure as PM only lasted a year, he was beaten by Harold Wilson in 1964's GE. He stayed on as party leader for a while longer, before a leadership contest was announced, with Douglas-Home revising the rules himself. Ted Heath won the leadership contest thence 1970 general election.