Which is precisely my point. No matter how bad he is, he’s unsackable. And he knows it. He can do what the fuck he likes. Politically, the Tory party can have one shot a year at getting a PM out. But conduct wise, we are relying on their integrity and decency to a) not be a twat and b) resign if they get found out. And yet the people who are the least principled and thus most likely to behave immorally are also the ones least likely to resign, so it’s not at all fit for purpose. It really pisses me off that the people who make the rules are so often exempt from the rules. That’s not healthy. Mostly for smaller things that every day people would suffer life changing consequences for. What would happen if you dozed in meetings? Or fiddled your expenses? Or in fact failed to turn up at work at all? Why is there is no body with any power who can effectively discipline MPs conduct? (And ish, actually. No one should set their own pay!). We know this, because they are still routinely behaving in ways long deemed unacceptable (with actual consequences) in wider society. I know there have been fines. But thousands in fines to people will millions is no deterrent. Quite the opposite actually. They just think it’s a sort of post-offence fee. So why not chance it? It’s not bloody on!
Let’s charitably suppose a PM lost capacity. Maybe they develop dementia or a brain tumour. But the refuse to leave office. They start by surrounding themselves with people who owe them large favours (which they implement by improperly spending public money and using their influence for personal gain for their new sidekicks). The new sidekicks do favours back (by improperly making new enforcing or ignoring existing legislation). Some of these are exposed, and the PM is investigated and found guilty of them. He pays the fines, but remains in office. This happen again, to our fictional PM and his aides. He is found to have appointed people who are not fit to govern. But he refuses to resign. Other ministers become uncomfortable. A vote of no confidence is called, but they have so many people bought by improper means they scrape through. More ministers become uncomfortable. They begin to resign. Calls for the PM to resign increase. His position is ‘precarious’ people say ‘how can he survive this?’ But it’s the wrong question. He doesn’t have to survive it. There is no reason he should resign because others have. He makes more dubious appointments for immoral reasons to fill the gaps. More ministers resign. He fills the gap with more people with few principles than ever for even more spurious reasons. He doesn’t resign - why ever would he? He can’t be sacked. By the time the next VOC comes around he has done so many dodgy favours and given so many bribes funded by the tax payer he scrapes through again. And again. Until eventually a GE is forced at the last possible moment and the PM, and his party are voted out by a distrusted public. If there are any left. If they have not brought in media controls, eroded rights to protest and strike, or just killed off or subjugated entire swathes of the population through poor management of resources. Or some really, really stupid ideas. The PM could decide to invade Russia, abolish the welfare state, sell off the NHS to his new ministers’s new healthcare companies, abolish tax for anyone earning over 50k and try to tax Australia to pay for it while legalising prostitution and drug use avid privatising the police.
Ands there’s nothing anyone could do about. Nothing. Until a GE is due anyway.
THAYS a threat to democracy. That’s a coup. That’s a real danger. There’s no way to get rid of a rogue.