Election objections

Amid the defenestration of yet another Australian prime minister in 2018, the comedian Tom Ballard gave a typically Antipodean response to the churn at the top. Rather than indulging the vanity of politicians grasping for the crown, the sketch offered a simple alternative: “Do your f**king job.”

A decade ago we Poms could chuckle at Australian premierships that had the lifespan of a minor rodent. But the world has since turned upside down. Anthony Albanese has just marked four years as prime minister, one for each of our dear leaders in that period. Failing a great upset, Andy Burnham will become the fifth.

The chaos has pundits asking whether Britain is ungovernable, if Keir Starmer is a wrong’un in nice guy clothing, and how much Burnham looks like a Thunderbird. But as the King in the North takes up the real throne in the South, another menacing inquiry looms: does he have the right to become prime minister without winning a general election?

As King Arthur might put it: we vote for neither kings nor prime ministers

For protocol monkeys like the one currently booking a removals van from Downing Street, the answer is straightforwardly yes. The role of prime minister began as a jibe against the King’s favoured politician, and even now it’s selected based on who the monarch recognises can command a majority in the House of Commons. As King Arthur might put it: we vote for neither kings nor prime ministers.

Not that the general public agrees. YouGov reckons half of us want a general election, with only a third opposing. Blame the Americans, television, or our decaying attention spans, but most voters understand politics by following personalities. Indeed, it’s arguable that Keir Starmer’s most fatal flaw was that he doesn’t appear to have one. Our system is de facto presidential.

With party leaders increasingly prominent in election campaigns, politicians can hardly claim to have resisted the trend. And as many a quote tweet has revealed, the Labour ranks were happy to call for general elections during the quickfire round of Tory prime ministers. Following Liz Truss’s work experience stint in 2022, Angela Rayner posted a classic of the genre, arguing that “nobody voted” for Rishi Sunak or knew what he stood for, so a general election was due.

Sunak had in fact picked up 60,000 votes from Conservative members in the leadership election that summer — 20,000 less than Truss, but rather more than the 25,000 voters who sent Burnham back to Westminster, accounting for a mere third of electors in Makerfield.

As for what Burnham stands for, his chief attraction to Labour MPs seems to be that he might enable them to keep their seats and £100,000 salaries when the next election happens. For all the chin-scratching over Manchesterism, those who have followed Burnham’s mayoralty most closely have said the distinctive thing about Burnham’s political programme is that he doesn’t have one.

Consistency is next to godliness in Westminster, so no doubt Rayner will be calling for a fresh electoral mandate, joining the likes of Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, with some qualifications. But the request should be ignored, for several reasons.

On the underrated grounds of political expediency, Burnham would be mad to potentially squander the stonking majority that is Starmer’s only real achievement. While Britain’s elective dictatorship is much criticised, properly wielded it gives the prime minister unlimited authority to fix things. With enough gladhanding, Burnham could scuttle the triple lock, rearm the country, and nationalise Greggs before the year is out.

The likes of Mike Tapp, who called for mandatory elections after a prime minister resigns, also appear to have given little thought to the inevitable zombification that would occur under such a proposal. Labour MPs might dislike Starmer, but three years of a hobbled prime minister will usually be more attractive than punting for a new leader and risking it all in the polling booth.

Not least with the polls as they are. Holding an election now would both blow Labour’s majority, and create a Parliament more hung than a seventies porn star. No Burnham bounce will change the fact that we are now a multiparty democracy with a two-party voting system. This will have to be resolved, either by the country’s final majoritarian government or in the electoral orgy of the next Parliament.

Perhaps it’s my advancing years, but I increasingly take the view of Brenda from Bristol. Elections are exciting when you’re young or have column inches to fill, but having given Westminster its marching orders two years ago I’d prefer not to be consulted for a while. 

Labour won the right to five years in office on a platform sufficiently vague that Burnham has room to manoeuvre. Another general election would see yet more bloviating about the state of the country, likely followed by a coalition who has to make up their mandate from spare parts anyway. 

Instead, Burnham should consider the wisdom of a predecessor some two centuries ago. Writing after his first cabinet meeting in 1828, the Duke of Wellington described it as: “An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.” Labour have their orders; it’s time they did the f**king job.