We may not be the best direct sources of information.

Oh, NOW ya tell me,

Another thing I wondered about: one of you said that in the Westminster model (particularly in actual Westminster) the vast majority of bills that go through the House of Commons come from the government. If I was, say, Secretary of State for Administrative Affairs (as was Jim Hacker himself) and I wanted to introduce a bill, would I have to run it through cabinet first?

Well, there are certain things that can be Googled, and those which cannot.

And the "leader" of the House of Lords is obviously not the same thing as the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords...right? Is the PM the Leader of the House of Commons? (or is there a distinction between party leader and leader of the House?)

I've got 17 pages to look through now, I only started within the last couple pages to take notes. If I didn't have ADHD and I was back in college, and my major was still poli sci I'd have a crapload of stuff I could use for a paper. Dynamite, guys....

Yes, you would - Cabinet pretty much IS the government, and you want full support before it can be a Government Bill.

The Leader in each house is more of a manager of government business, and the Leader of the Commons is not the PM. It is a Cabinet post without a portfolio other than to put Bills through the House

The Speaker of the House of Commons is pretty "neutral" right? No partisan affiliation, and not a member of the House, as is Boehner, here.

The Speaker of the House of Commons is also kind of a "disinterested person", right? Pretty opposite of what happens in this country. Our Speaker of the House is the de facto Majority Leader (even though there is someone else with that actual title). Probably a bad idea. Then again our "founding fathers" can't expected to have been prophets...

If you feel like knowing...the senate rules make for a pretty "neutral" chair. Whoever is President of the Senate at any given moment (whoever is in the chair, I mean) typically doesn't have a fraction of the power over its members that the Speaker of the House has. This probably originates from the fact that the actual President of the Senate is a disinterested "outsider" (e.g., someone who is not a senator at all, specifically, the Vice-President). Until the mid to late 20th century, Vice-Presidents would actually be seen presiding over the Senate like they are supposed to.

From what you have told me so far, to an American this would almost seem unfair to have total control over all legislation in the hands of 20 or so people out of 650. Maybe that is necessary for the Westminster model to work, on the other hand. And of course not all Westminster model countries follow 100% the Westminster Model (not all presidential democracies follow ours to the letter, hopefully, because different countries need different political systems). Even though certain things were intended, the American Government, which still follows the model of what's written on those 4 sheets of stiff parchment (plus amendments), has "evolved" over the years. There is actually a caste of people who don't exactly control legislation, but they are sort of "middle-men" in the process. The book Advise and Consent (written 1959, however) insists there are 5 of these largest legislative "middle-men" in the federal government: the President, the Speaker, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority Leader and the Senate Minority Leader. (This is what I meant about the Minority needing to get its word in---Ricky and Sassenach see that as more than somewhat dangerous when it teeters on "obstruction").

Be that as it may, about how many bills does one "session" of Parliament pass? And how long is a session? In Congress it's one year: Session I, Session II, since a Congress lasts two years. I'm not sure how many days/months/whatever of the year our legislative bodies are in session, but I know it is most of the year.

Not quite. The Speaker and their 3 deputies are all MPs. So were all elected as a party candidate at first. (at least in living memory). After that, at the General Election the Speaker stands as Speaker (bit the deputies stand in their party colours) and the convention is yhat the main parties do not contest the seat.

They are supposed to be impartial chairs of the meeting, and to set aside their alleigance.

So let me see if I hav this straight. These 3 deputies: is that because there are three (or 2 1/2 at any rate) major parties in the Westminster Parliament? One deputy speaker from Liberal Democrats, one deputy speaker from the Labour Party and a third from the Conservative Party? And the Speaker (I was told (s)he is elected for a 5-year term) will be from the Majority Party, whichever party is the Majority (government party) at the time of his/her election as Speaker of the Commons? Is there an order of First Deputy, Second Deputy, Third Deputy or something?

I wish I could say that our Speaker puts aside partisan feelings to preside fairly. But of course in the past I understand it was even worse (congressmen speak of the "Revolution of 1910" vs a dictatorial speaker of the House at the time and managed to clip the Speaker's wings a bit during said revolt).

Whatever Ricky and Sassenach were saying about Congress, it is really only the House of Representatives which is the more strongly polarized and less likely for its members (particularly new members) to give the Speaker and their party the finger. Looking through the senators and representatives on the "MyCongress" app on iPad, it seems that there are a boatload of maverick senators. This is probably because they have such a bigger constituency than the congressmen (except in Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming; states which only have a single representative due to their low populations) and therefore have to appeal to a broader view (or if you insist, a broader range of corporate donors). I am getting this from stastical data, not from an editor's assertion in the newspaper or just a guess.

It is also like I said, that the Senate rules manual is probably written diffferently than the House manual where the chair is concerned since the nominal chair of the Senate, the President of the Senate, is the President's "cheerful sidekick", who cannot vote unless to break a tie vote. Even when one of the senators is presiding--the president pro tempore or his temporary appointee--the Senate chair is far more "neutral" (hopefully at least somewhat impartial) than his counterpart in the House.

So that's our Speaker, at any rate. If you were to say Boehner's or previously, Pelosi's partisan control of the House is a conflict of interest of the worst kind, you'd be right. Something has really got to be done about this...have a Speaker who is, somehow, a disinterested person, like the President of the U.S. Senate, or at least non-partisan, who can only cast a vote to break a tie vote amongst the congressmen.

Just in case you care...chances are you've heard this on TV or in school before.

The Speaker and his deputies are usually old-school MPs of long standing who long since gave up on having a ministerial career and can be relied upon to behave pretty impartially. The system predates the existence of all of the current political parties (in their modern form at least, the Tories have been around in one form or another from the start).

JimHackerMP wrote:So let me see if I hav this straight. These 3 deputies: is that because there are three (or 2 1/2 at any rate) major parties in the Westminster Parliament? One deputy speaker from Liberal Democrats, one deputy speaker from the Labour Party and a third from the Conservative Party? And the Speaker (I was told (s)he is elected for a 5-year term) will be from the Majority Party, whichever party is the Majority (government party) at the time of his/her election as Speaker of the Commons? Is there an order of First Deputy, Second Deputy, Third Deputy or something?

No, there are three simply because. One is the main deputy, by dint of being elected as Chair of "Ways and Means" (the Ways and Means committee no longer exists, and the post is elected by the whole House). The other two are the first and second deputy Chairs of that defunct committee, and in that order they deputise for the Speaker. Two are Labour, one is a Tory (none are Lib Dem).

The Speaker is not always from the current majority party - the current Speaker was a Tory MP, but rose to the office when Labour was in the majority. The general principle is that it should switch between both main parties, but it is a post elected by the whole House, so that doesn't always happen. The Deputies are elected to balance out the quartet - so one will be on the opposite side of the House from the Speaker, and the other will be on the opposite side from the Chair of Ways and Means. Which party from each side they represent is not prescribed, but it is usually from the main Government and Opposition party respectively.

The Speaker is not always from the current majority party - the current Speaker was a Tory MP, but rose to the office when Labour was in the majority.

He was wholly reliant on Labour votes to get the gig as well. His own party dislike him and would happily vote to have him replaced if they ever get a full majority.

Well, Betty Boothroyd (Labour) won through a large number of Tory MP votes in 1992.

The comvention is that a sitting Speaker is not opposed if they express a will to continue. While many Tory MPs dislike Bercow, will they defy such convention?

Not that there is much chance of a Tory majority at the moment.

Why isn't there much hope in a Conservative government at this point?

And I remember Betty Boothroid. I watched PM's Questions quite a bit back in the day...she was amusing the way she "warned" members of this or that.

One wonders though. It seems that the Cabinet (and by extension, the prime minister) has rather extensive powers, from what you have told me. 95% bills are introduced by the government, you tell me, and things have to be run through Cabinet before promulgating (putting the bill on the floor, whatever).

JimHackerMP wrote:Why isn't there much hope in a Conservative government at this point?

Well...

• 1) They did not manage a majority in 2010, and are in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. So they have not had a majority in an election since 1992.
  
• 2) The general trend is that after a first full term, a government does not improve its position in the next election (the exceptions to this are 1955 and 1983)
  
• 3) The current electoral boundaries and differential turnout combined mean that to form a majority the Conservatives would have to be several points ahead of Labour. Even to be the largest party they need to be about 3-4 points ahead. They are currently 3 points behind in polls
  
• 4) There is a growing insurgency with the growth of UKIP, who have largely gained support from the right, ie: conservative voters. This may well become more pronounced as we have just seen a Tory MP defect and resign his seat to trigger a by-election, which is predicted he will win as a UKIP candidate. Where UKIP have been looking closest to winning seats tends to be the southern and eastern coastal areas - more likely to be Conservative than any other party at the moment.
  
• 5) On the other hand, the Liberal Democrats have lost a lot of support (due to the coalition and their reneging on key pledges), mainly to Labour. So while Labour are also losing support to UKIP as well, at a lower rate than the Tories are, they have consolidated the position as main centre-left party (which they were in danger of losing in 2010)
  
• 6) Even with the supposed 'unwind' back towards the governing part over the last few months before an election, there is a long way for the Tories to go, and the calculus is going against them. They may be able to recover to remain the largest single party, but even that I think is asking a lot.
  
  

And I remember Betty Boothroid. I watched PM's Questions quite a bit back in the day...she was amusing the way she "warned" members of this or that.

At 84 and a member of the Lords she's still got quite a bit to say - and no longer has to be impartial.

The Tories can still win, but right now it is looking unlikely. What we don't know of course is how the unravelling of the Lib Dems will play out in practice. In theory it ought to help Labour since most of those who abandon the LDs are likely to switch across to voting Labour instead, but it may not necessarily work that way. For starters, there are quite a few seats which are Con/Lib marginals, so it's quite possible that the Tories will win a lot of seats from the LDs, possibly more than Labour do. There's also the effect it may have on tactical voting. Traditionally the Labour and Lib Dem vote has been pretty much interchangeable in marginal seats, they'd vote for whichever had the best chance of keeping the Tories out. Will that still happen ? It seems doubtful at this point. In fact weirdly, we may even see Labour or Lib Dem supporters voting tactically for the Tories in certain seats where there's the risk of UKIP getting elected. This has already happened in the recent Newark byelection.

But yeah, as it stands Labour look set to win the election by default, despite having done nothing to deserve it.

...win the election by default, despite having done nothing to deserve it....

I can't possibly imagine what that's like.