Why did Brown have to 'ask' the Queen's permission to call an election ?

[Chris_Sleeps]

Branson for King!

Better than Alan Sugar.

[llamatron]

The squabbling of the commons is a weakness of democracy, not a benefit to Monarchy. Should we live under a Dictator? Then we wouldn't have a squabbling government either.

 

nobody mentioned a dictator I said a third party to vote for.

 

And squabbling is never neccessary. They could debate without resorting to insults that belong on a primary school playground followed by giggling by large numbers of adults-its pathetic and it definitely doesn't have to be part of a democracy

[truman]

France don't have a monachy nor does Germany, Italy and dozens of other modern republics. I don't see any of them currently being run by a dictator. So Mr Gault your argument is slightly flawed !

 

You didn't see Italy and Spain in the 30's then? Had the Germans won WW2 things may have been different..

[Hairyloon]

In theory yes but no monarch will ever test that theory because 24 hours later the country would be in anarchy with mass protests. It'd be the end of the monarchy.

Rubbish.

 

The British people don't care enough. If they were going to kick off, they'd have done it in response to the fraudulent expenses claims.

Frankly I think a lot of people would welcome a return to a monarchy, she certainly can't do worse than what we've got at the moment.

[truman]

26 yrs, supporting Monarchy. Down with Democracy. Every error made in the current government can be blamed on two things = lack of accountability and petty one-up-man-ship.

 

 

 

Is it possible that the answer to the OP is because Gordon Brown is calling it before his term is up? i haven't been keeping track but I don't think it has quite been 4 years yet.

 

You need to set your alarm clock..it's been 5 years...he had to call it by June this year I think..

[truman]

Can do, we will be after the election anyway, along with the 1% added NI

 

Which is really a 10% rise...

[Dick]

Plenty of arguments against the Monarchy, but the alternatives are all worse.

[Weazel2006]

You either have a full monarchy or you don't. I sense a new slanging match coming on that will take us far from the OP question so i will bow out here, i have my opinion which is that the monarchy serve no purpose other than a tourist attraction.

 

Half the supporters of the monarcy would not know the true meaning of "for queen and country" and just use it as a slogan.

[PC Brigade]

I wonder if he asked her permission before he self elected himself?

 

He didn't.

 

We don't vote for Prime Ministers, or even party leaders.

 

The queen will ask the person who has the greatest ability to form a government - in most cases this is the leader of the largest party.

[danot]

He didn't.

 

We don't vote for Prime Ministers, or even party leaders.

 

The queen will ask the person who has the greatest ability to form a government - in most cases this is the leader of the largest party.

Not sure about the queen, but the public certainly had no knowledge of the gentlemens agreement that Blair and Brown had made prior to new labour gaining power. Surely, "we"; the voting public should have been made aware of all the facts regarding the new labour leadership, why all the cloak and dagger?.