Nowadays, the accession of a new Prime Minister following a general election is regularly accompanied by cheering crowds, media appearances and a speech in front of 10 Downing St. However, this is not so much a formal piece of ceremonial, but more a channel in the age of mass media to bring the event to the public. On the other hand, when a leader is ousted by losing the confidence of his or her own party in Parliament, which is what happened to Chamberlain in 1940 and Thatcher in 1990, the same degree of publicity does not follow (after all, there was no election, the people were not consulted) though I seem to recall John Major giving an accession speech when he took over from Mrs T.

This type of leadership change shows the power of party in the British system, and in other parliamentary democracies. Such power is ruled out by the US constitution, designed as it was deliberately to limit government. In the UK a party with a secure parliamentary majority has effective control of executive and legislature and can in theory change anything and everything, including constitutional matters, just on the agreement of the cabinet, comprising 20 or so key ministers.

This system has been called an “elective dictatorship”, and Churchill declared in his memoirs that he did not believe any of the other war leaders, even the dictators, had a more close, effective control of his country’s war effort than Churchill had in the UK.