Who to replace Cameron?

When I pointed out that 150,000 will make the decision about the next PM, I wasn't claiming that it was any less democratic than the way the Labour Party chooses its leader or that PMs haven't been chosen before without a general election. Theoretically, the result could be 75,001/69,999.

I was just musing that a major constitutional change will be led by somebody who hasn't been democratically chosen by the whole electorate. It was just an observation, because 'democracy' and 'taking back control' have become battle cries.

I'm storing it away in my grey cells in case I ever have to write an essay titled 'How democracies fail'.

There are, of course, different sorts of democracy Bags. For instance this country has moved a very long way and now both you and I are enfranchised where once we would not be. Just because that was the system did not mean that those who saw it as undemocratic could not say so.

The EU manifesto decision is not legally binding but the vote in itself has created, in my life certainly, an unprecedented situation to which the manifesto voted on is not what is now being put forward and in some cases cannot now be acted on.

You seem to think I would say anything to be partisan - but partisan to what in your opinion? I am just very, very worried about our democracy.

Perhaps I should ask why won't they? Perhaps because they've lost the argument.

That – attacking an argument – is how discussion works. It is not personal until someone is called, say a carper or a twit. No-one was called anything. An argument was said to be a carping argument.

Why don't people get this?

She attacked what you said, not you. Your argument, not you.

Re elections of party leaders, a party can replace their leader any time it likes. That's the system here. Always has been. We vote for a party in a general election. The Tories won the last one.

As I always assume that people only get personal when they are loosing the argument keep it up please Elegran - it makes me feel my argument must have hit home.

By the way what point - other than to call me names - were you making? Happy to answer it if you would like to spend your energies putting it forward rather than attacking me.

Loved Peter Brookes' cartoon in the Times today

It's not 'entirely undemocratic', gg, just not ideal from the point of view you outlined. Same as what some people have argued with respect to the EU decision-making arrangements.

No Merlotgran . Since 1940 there have been seven unelected PM's.

Five Tory and two labour , this will be the eighth , six Tory and two labour

gg But the difference you refer to would be there whoever leads the party. If it isn't acceptable with a change of PM, then it would not have been acceptable with the one who is leaving, so carping about the party choosing a new one without consulting you is just that - carping.

PMs have changed mid-term between elections before now. A search revealed 14.

of the voters not of the country

"Did you vote for Cameron, gg?"

Well no bags, did you? As far as I am aware we do not have a presidential system so the only people who will have voted specifically for Cameron will have been his constituents voting for him as an MP.

However a government was voted in, whether you or I agreed with it, by a small majority of the country. It appears (although the some would dispute it after the "out" vote) that we can live with that overall minority vote because we know the manifesto of that party before anyone voted. Now, it appears, we are to have a new manifesto on which some 150,000 will vote and chose for the rest of us. This manifesto, if Andrea Leadsom wins and her past words are to be believed, is far, far from anything we were offered in the general election. Add to that the fact that we are now dealing with a very different prospect for the future and I, and it may just be me, find the whole thing entirely undemocratic.

As Catherine Haddon says: "It is far from unusual for us to have a change of Prime Minister without a general election"

merlot, he was chosen from already elected MPs as has usually been the case when a PM changes during a parliament. And there have been plenty of times that has happened.

Is that figure of 150,000 the number of Conservative Party members? I've been presuming it is.

If it is and they vote for the party leader, that's the same as what happened recently in the Labour Party.

So nobody has any right to complain.

Did anybody elect Gordon Brown?

Exactly, elegran. I'd only argue with the phrase "not quite the same". It's nothing bloody like what ab said

Not quite, ab. Cameron was chosen by the party to lead the party, to be exact, the same as the next leader will be, and with Cameron as their leader the Conservative party was voted into power in the last election. Not quite the same as him being voted in as PM the way US presidents are personally voted into power - though the result was the same.

Cameron was voted in as PM through a general election. One of these two women will be voted in by 150,000 people - big difference

Apparently the Conservative Party has approximately 150,000 members eligible to vote.

How democratic is it when the people voting for a party leader are only a small segment of the party, especially when the person will end up as Prime Minister?

Did you vote for Cameron, gg? If you're not a Conservative voter, surely he was thrust upon you too?

Um... isn't this just how democracy works? Even imperfect democracy.

As I think I said on another thread a bit back only twice in all my 42 years of voting has the candidate I've voted for won the election. I don't call that having people I don't want "thrust upon me", I call it losing an election. And one just sucks it up and gets on with opposition or whatever, doesn't one?

If you see it in a different way, could you explain please? I'm genuinely interested.

I really don't care who the Conservatives vote in as leader of their party. I do care about having an PM I have not voted for thrust upon me.

Who will choose the new leader?

"Anyone wanting to vote has to have been a member of the Conservative Party by 9 June.

Polling expert Professor John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said the electorate for the contest represented a "very distinctive slice of Britain".

They would be mostly over 50, disproportionately male, and "overwhelmingly middle class", he said."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36737426

Hmmm!

No matter which woman is PM , there will be much more suffering inflicted on the vulnerable in this country