Blair's Ministers Face Extinction (Current Count: 3)

[KrazyHorse]

Ramo: to do so immediately, yes. But here, at least, there are periodic internal reviews of the party leadership.

How do you think parties change their leadership?

[Ramo]

I was under the impression that that only happens when enough MP's that support the gov't are voted out or change positions.

I don't think the Brits have party conventions... Of course, I didn't know y'all had them. Sounds like that would complicate party coalition building a bit.

[KrazyHorse]

Ramo: Leadership of a party does not automatically change when that party loses a government.

The party leadership is decided completely independently of how it fares in general elections or in commons.

Although, if a leader's government falls the leader will often resign shortly after the next election.

[KrazyHorse]

Party leadership is not a position in which you're elected once and then hold it for life...

And how do you think opposition parties change their leadership?

[Ramo]

I thought there weren't any "party" leaderships, just government and opposition leaderships.

[KrazyHorse]

Of course there are party leaderships. The leader of the party with the greatest number of seats is the one who's asked to form a government, and the leader of the party with the largest number of seats which does not form part of the government is the leader of the opposition.

I visited the labour party website but they don't give an accounting of their leadership review procedure.

In Canada parties are allowed to decide their own method of selecting leaders and candidates. Some depend on delegate-style votes, some on a direct one member, one vote system, etc.

I wish EiF would explain his statement. How are party leaders in Britain chosen and changed?

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Frogger
Ramo: Leadership of a party does not automatically change when that party loses a government.

The party leadership is decided completely independently of how it fares in general elections or in commons.

Although, if a leader's government falls the leader will often resign shortly after the next election.

When's the last time Cretin's party had a government fall?

[KrazyHorse]

1984 (1985?)

John Turner was a Liberal PM for a few months.

[Paul Hanson]

Originally posted by Frogger
I wish EiF would explain his statement. How are party leaders in Britain chosen and changed?

It varies from party to party. The Tories, for instance, have a system whereby the candidates take part in a series of ballots amongst party members, with the one who receives the lowest number of votes being eliminated at the end of each round of voting (sort of like Big Brother, or some other reality pap), until there are only two left. At that point, every member of the Conservative party in the UK casts their vote to determine who will become party leader.

I don't know how the other parties do it, but it's vaguely similar, with one or two minor differences.

[KrazyHorse]

How do the parties decide when to hold a leadership convention? What triggers a leader having to defend his position?

[Paul Hanson]

This is one of those things that varies from party to party, and I can't for the love of God remember what each party requires, unfortunately. Usually it requires some sort of a petition with the signatures of x number of MP's, I think.

[KrazyHorse]

Ahh.

IIRC there are regularly scheduled leadership "reviews" here for most parties. If a certain number of delegates want it, this could lead to a full fledged leadership convention...

[*End Is Forever*]

The two main parties choose their leader in similar but slightly different ways. Both require a percentage of their parliamentary party (around 25% off the top of my head) to sign a petition calling for a leadership contest.

In the Labour Party the leader is chosen by electoral college; 1/3 ordinary party membership, 1/3 parliamentary party, 1/3 trade unions and affiliated groups (on a one-member, one-vote basis).

In the Conservative Party the leadership contenders are whittled down to two by votes of the Parliamentary Party only (over a series of rounds if necessary), and then the two remaining contenders are put to the full party membership, on a one-member one-vote ballot.

The Liberal Democrats are an irritating irrelevence, but I believe they choose their leader by a OMOV ballot of the membership, probably using STV.

[KrazyHorse]

The Liberal Democrats are an irritating irrelevence

Why all the vitriol? They increase the chance that the Tories might at some point in the distant future form another government...

[*End Is Forever*]

Not in the short-term. Almost all of their target seats are Conservative-held. You might think they're a left-wing party but most of the people voting for them are disillusioned upper-middle class former Tories. Now the red-flag LibDems have shown their true colours hopefully the support will come flooding back. For them to make progress they need to be centre-right true liberals and, er, they are running in the opposite direction.