Buttressing Support

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss took office September 6th of this year, and to say it's been a bumpy ride would be an understatement. With the death of Queen Elizabeth II just two days after Truss took the reins, the new PM had a bit of breathing space to put things together for her new premiership, with most of the country (and the world) paying attention to the pomp and circumstance of what happens upon the death of a monarch who'd reigned for seventy years. Alas, that extra time didn't seem to matter much.

Truss unveiled an... interesting economic policy, one that she'd apparently crafted with then-finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng. It relied heavily on tax cuts, while also not seeing much in the way of spending cuts. At least, not yet. Some compared the plan to Reaganomics. Regardless, it spooked the British economy, and a course reversal was soon apparent -- Truss sacked Kwarteng as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and replaced him with Jeremy Hunt. The economic plan she'd presented with Kwarteng has been scrapped, and now there's already talk of who will replace her as prime minister.

To be clear: Liz Truss has only been PM for a little over a month.

All of this got me thinking (and re-thinking) about a few things, relating to forms of government, rules, upheaval, stability, and what is in the best interests of both constituents, and the politicians who serve them. First, of course, is to note that the UK works under a parliamentary system. Unlike the U.S., where the president is elected at-large, directly by the people Electoral College, the British head of government is selected by members of the party in power. For the past twelve years, that has been the Conservative Party (the Tories), and they've had four prime ministers during that time - David Cameron for six years, Theresa May for three, Boris Johnson for three, and now, well, Liz Truss for a couple of months?

Back in high school, I took a US Government class for a semester. I loved it. We learned about cloture, holds, filibuster, joint resolutions, quorums, and much, much more. At home, I'd watch C-SPAN, and catch-up on the goings-on of the US Senate, presidential press conferences, etc. Then, I'd watch Prime Minister's Question Time, wherein the UK PM would take direct questions from Parliament. What struck me was the seeming dichotomy between US and UK politics. The US proceedings seemed dry as dust, whereas the UK parliament was, to put it mildly, quite lively. "Why can't we be more like that here?" I asked our US Government teacher one day. Something between half-a-smile and a look of unease crossed his face. "I don't think we'd want that here," he said.

Fast forward some thirty years, and I agree with my teacher (Mr. Meade, for anyone who cares). Different strokes for different folks and all that, however, after the last few years of watching our own government descend into dysfunctionality - with elected officials verbally attacking one another, and an attempted coup - I'd much prefer the aforementioned dry as dust senate proceedings of the early 1990s to what we have today. And, as for the deteriorating situation in the UK... what used to seem like a no-holds-barred, lively and entertaining discourse now comes across more like chaos.

I used to think of the way the UK dispatched its prime ministers as being kind of refreshing. Instead of the standard four year terms we elect our presidents to, across the pond they can have snap elections, or the ruling party can dispatch a PM if they're generally unhappy enough with them that they fear that a continued premiership would result in said party losing power in the next general election. That flexibility always seemed like a feature, not a bug, to me... until we come to Liz Truss (and, to be clear, I've no particular fondness for Truss, or any of her predecessors).

No matter how bad a proposed economic plan may have been, it seems somewhat hyperbolic to look to oust a prime minister before their feet are barely wet in the job. Granted, Truss has been a member of parliament since 2010, so this isn't her first rodeo, but she's only been in her new role for over a month. A country going through leaders like they're a kid demolishing the contents of a candy bucket after trick-or-treating seems like it lends itself to so much instability. That, and I've already made my disdain known for our own increasing infatuation with recall mechanisms here in the states. A balance has to be struck between keeping our politicians on their toes, and ensuring that our democratic governments aren't teetering on the edge of an unstable abyss.