[OSM-talk] Voting

[Dave Stubbs]

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Robin Paulson <robin.paulson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/4/9 Dave Stubbs <osm.list at randomjunk.co.uk>:
>
> > > > maybe someone should tell the government? apparently we're all wasting
>  > > > our time voting for them, and 'rough consensus' should be used to
>  > > > decide who's in power.
>
> > On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 12:31 AM, Bruce Cowan
>  >  <lists at bcowan.fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>  >  > On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 14:57 +0300, SteveC wrote:
>  >  >  > Like, er, electing President Bush, or Prime Minister Gordon Brown (no
>  >  >  > election) ?
>  >  >
>  >  >  I'm a pedant, but you never vote for a Prime Minister. You vote for your
>  >  >  local MP and the leader of the party with the most MPs gets to be Prime
>  >  >  Minister.
>  >
>  >  Well, if we're being pedantic then the Queen appoints the PM, and by
>  >  convention she chooses the person most likely to have the confidence
>  >  of parliament. There's nothing other than "constitutional convention"
>  >  to stop her picking anyone she likes, whether they're an MP or not,
>  >  and whether parliament likes it or not -- luckily the convention seems
>  >  quite strong. So all in all, there's not much voting going on, or
>  >  where there is it isn't necessarily treated in the way you'd expect,
>  >  which was kind of Steve's point.
>
>  well, if we're being really, really pedantic, then i wasn't talking
>  about that government, but the one here (nz), where there are no damn
>  monarchs choosing leaders, [...]

really? wikipedia isn't so convinced: 'The post of Prime Minister is,
like other ministerial positions, an appointment by the
Governor-General "during the Queen's pleasure"' [1]
Convention means this isn't really true, as it does in the UK. Quite
what happens if you break convention I don't know. Probably a
Constitutional Crisis.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_New_Zealand