Andrew Rawnsley (London Observer): Who votes for the executioners?

[Jack Rabbit]

From the London Observer (Sunday supplement of the Guardian Unlimited)
Dated Sunday October 19

Who votes for the executioners?
Both Tony Blair and Iain Duncan Smith could be out by the New Year - and neither MPs nor the people would have had anything to do with it
By Andrew Rawnsley

It is now conceivable - perhaps not likely, but not absolutely impossible either - that by the New Year both Tony Blair and Iain Duncan Smith will be out of their jobs. And if such a sensational double-whammy of decapitations did happen to both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, their careers would have been terminated by none of the normal instruments of democracy. Neither the voters nor Parliament will have done it. Nor will their party colleagues, nor their party members. The fates of the leaders of both main parties currently lie in the hands of adjudicators whom no one has ever elected.
The judge with the power to finish Tony Blair over the death of Dr David Kelly is Lord Hutton. The magistrate with the capacity to send down Iain Duncan Smith is Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who will rule on whether the Tory leader's wife did the secretarial work for which she was paid from public funds.
Whatever the verdicts, neither the Prime Minister nor the Leader of the Opposition will be in a position to appeal. It was Mr Blair who elevated a Law Lord over the elected to become the judge of him and his Government. To Lord Hutton, if his lordship is so minded, the Prime Minister has handed the authority to condemn him so comprehensively that he would find it hard to remain at Number 10. Mr Duncan Smith has said he will give the fullest co-operation to Sir Philip. A civil servant possesses the potential ability, if he is so minded, to force redundancy upon the Leader of the Opposition.
Of course, come the New Year, either or both Mr Blair and Mr Duncan Smith may still be in their present positions. I do not offer you the prediction that either or both will definitely lose their jobs. What I do observe is that something extraordinary is happening to our democracy when it is conceivable, even slightly conceivable, that both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition could be ejected on the say-so of a mandarin and a judge.

Read more.

Those of us on this side of the Pond who are old enough to remember Watergate might be able to give Mr. Rawlnsley some help. Mr. Blair has assented to an independent investigation, as did Mr. Nixon, because no one believed an investigation through normal channels could be credible. Once it appeared that investigation would find the truth, Nixon tried to put a stop to it, but the outrage simply led to his removal from office.

If the investigation finds against Mr. Blair, he may remember Nixon's trials and tribulations and just go quietly.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

1. That is a misleading article...

they make it sound like the people have no say in the matter, when the opposite is actually true. Neither Lord Hutton nor Sir Phillip Mawer have the power to fire Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition, as the article actually says in a rather veiled way:

To Lord Hutton, if his lordship is so minded, the Prime Minister has handed the authority to condemn him so comprehensively that he would find it hard to remain at Number 10.

What the author is actually saying is that a negative verdict would be so embarrasing for Blair that he would resign. Why would he resign? Because it would be likely that the voters would vote him out at the next election, or other elected representatives would remove him as PM before then.

In neither of those cases is Democracy being thwarted, in fact that is the most basic part of Democracy - that unpopular leaders can be removed from office.

The fact is, that only the fear of the embarrasment of being removed would force Blair to resign, or in other words the fear of the popular disapproval of the people - Democracy, to be succinct.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. That is my understanding of the matter, sir

Neither did the special prosecutor, Mr. Cox, have the right to dimiss President Nixon. However, he had the power to find matters that would have undermined Nixon's public standing. This is the same power that Lord Hutton has over Prime Minister Blair.

Rawnsely would seem to side with the rule of the majority over the rule of law. It is one of the problems of democratic government. Tocqueville, in his observations of American society and culture in the Jacksonian era, referred to the problems arising from conflicts of the rule of law with what he called the tyranny of the majority. Is Rawnsley saying that just because a leader is popular that he is above the law?

Nevertheless, even this does not describe the present circumstance in Britain. Few believe that Tony Blair would win a nationwide, open contest featuring an instant runoff. He has no popular mandate behind which to hide. He squandered that when he sold his soul to the American dictator.

[Vitruvius]

3. And all three -- Nixon, Blair, Ian Duncan Smith, HAD to appoint a

special prosecutor (or the British equivalent) due to public pressure, anger, and distrust.

Now about pResident Bu$h*...