Idiot's Guide to British Politics (Again)

OK, let's go through this one more time: we don't directly elect Prime Ministers in this country.  In fact, we don't elect any national government office holders directly.  So please, please stop going on about Sunak being an 'unelected' Prime Minister, as if this somehow undermines his legitimacy and disqualifies him from introducing any kind of contentious legislation or commenting on world events in his official capacity.  All you are doing is revealing your own ignorance.  I mean, really, how can you expect to be taken seriously as any kind of political commentator, analyst or activist if you don't even understand the political system you are supposedly critiquing?  You do know, don't you, that we have a parliamentary democracy in the UK?  That all any Prime Minister needs is to be able to command a majority - whether by outright having the most seats for their party or via a coalition - in the House of Commons?  That's all it requires to give them legitimacy.  In fact, constitutionally speaking, a Prime Minister doesn't actually have to be an elected member of the Commons - they could sit in the Lords, (for which there is plenty of precedence), or, technically, they don't even have to sit in parliament at all, just so long as they have sufficient support there to pass legislation and win votes of confidence.  It is only convention that dictates that nowadays the Prime Minister is expected to be a sitting MP - there is still no requirement, even by convention, that any of the cabinet he or she appoints has to be an MP.  (So it is no good keep banging on about Lord David Cameron being an 'unelected' Foreign Secretary, either).

Look, I'm not defending Sunak and his crowd in any way here, but the fact is that, like it or not, they are the legitimate government of the UK by virtue of he fact that they have a majority in the parliament that we elected.  Because that's all that we elect in the UK - a parliament.  That's why it is called a parliamentary democracy.  The fact that so many people out there who seem to think that are politically savvy don't seem to grasp these basic facts is something that I find deeply depressing.  Clearly, they've never studied politics, (or history, which, when taught properly, covers the evolution of the UK's political system).  In truth, they've probably never had an opportunity to study politics which, in our education system, isn't taught as a separate subject in its own right until A-level - and many never reach this level.  Even if they do, nowadays they are discouraged from studying anything other than maths or sciences - God forbid that people be given an understanding of our political system.  They might not vote the 'right' way if they did.  Now, I don't want to be one of those bores who drones on about 'how it was all better when I was a lad', but, as already mentioned, when I was at school, even at O-level, (that's GCSE for you young people), we had a history curriculum that taught us the basics of our parliamentary democracy and how it evolved. I'm not sure that students nowadays get even that - it's too 'traditional' an approach to history, apparently - judging by the gaps in the knowledge of first year A-level politics students the last time I taught any.  But to bring us back around to my original point, if you are going to go into the pub or, more likely these days, onto social media and start shooting your mouth off about politics, at least have the decency to make sure that you know what you are talking about, otherwise you are just going to come off as an ignorant pillock.