AIBU to think changing Prime Ministers without elections is now normal?

[MyCyanBear]

Andy Burnham becomes Labour leader tomorrow and Prime Minister on Monday. There's no members' ballot because he got 349 of Labour's 403 MP nominations — a challenger needs 81 and only 54 MPs are left, so the contest ended by arithmetic before it started.
Here's the stat that got me: that makes him our seventh PM in ten years — and five of the seven (May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, now Burnham) got the job without winning a general election.
Found a decent plain-English timetable of how it all works and what happens Friday-to-Monday:
https://trendingsheet.com/article/burnham-prime-minister-monday-timetable
And the strangest overlap: his first electoral test as PM will be the Clacton by-election — a contest he neither called nor is standing in.
AIBU to think "we keep changing PM without an election" is now just... the system?

John Major in 1990??

We dont vote for a prime minister, that's not how our elections work. So we dont need a general election since it doesnt matter if they change because we vote for our local mp to represent us, not for the pm.

We elect governments not Prime Ministers, so changing Prime Ministers without an election isn’t anything new.

The party not having a ballot is unusual certainly.

Last prime minister to come in on an election and go out on one was Ted Heath

It has always been normal. Our system doesn't work like that. This isn't the US (thank goodness). Do you want to be stuck with a lemon (or a maniac) for four years like they are?

I think those saying “it’s the system, get over it” are a bit too trite. Yes it’s what our system permits, but the fact it’s become the norm is bad for democracy.

Our system also permits the PM and almost all the cabinet to sit in the Lords. Does not mean it would be good or unremarkable.

We don’t vote for a prime minister, though, in a general election. We vote for a constituency MP, who is usually the member of a political party.

Hey, its a great System we have here in the USA.
I like it bigly.
I might even make that term more longer than 4 years when I can. (I'm concentrating on my pond at the mo.)

The problem is twofold. Firstly, most people don’t actually vote on the record of their own MP or candidates. They vote for a party, largely based on its leader and their manifesto.

Secondly if we are going to routinely change PMs midstream then to have a chance of affecting the outcome via my MP vote, I need to have a range of (say) Labour MP candidates to choose from. So I can choose the Labour candidate who most represents my politics. But that’s not how constituency elections work.

That power rests with the party selectorate, who are usually less moderate than the country. So we get structurally more extreme and less tested MPs, and a country that feels a weakened connection with its leaders as they don’t choose them.

I think a lot of people are confused by this, which always surprises me. The general election is not to vote for a prime minister, the general election is to vote for a party and its manifesto, so burnham is held accountable to the manifesto promised.

whomever the prime minister is is down to the party and its members, it is not the public. As at no stage do we ever have the vote for a prime minister.

when people voted in the general election they were not voting for Starmer as pm, they were voting for Labour.

There is nothing new about it. This is centuries old.

The bots are on overdrive today.

I’m wondering if it is happening more because we have a first past the post electoral system which works best with 2 main parties. Now the smaller disruptor parties, such as Reform and the Greens have much more of a voice. We might actually have more stability with some form of proportional representation???? Even though the supposed advantage of first past the post is a strong and stable government, which is clearly no longer the case for the UK.

adding more from the last 100 years

Arthur Balfour
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
H. H. Asquith
David Lloyd George
Bonar Law
Stanley Baldwin
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Harold Macmillan
Alec Douglas-Home
James Callaghan
John Major
Gordon Brown

all took office without a preceding election

we have a parliamentary democracy and not a presidential one.

this is how it works

And Gordon Brown 2007

We have PR in Scotland and regularly changed first minister without elections and we also have a one party state so don’t change governments even when we have elections and even when they lose the election

Given the experience of how proportional representation works in electing MSPs I would absolutely not recommend it.