London Banter - View Single Post - Semi-OT - Liberal Democrat mayoral nomination & transport pledges

[email protected] · September 5th 11, 02:12 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:

David Cantrell wrote:

The other problem is that elected Mayors are not seen as a stepping
stone to higher things because it's hard to know if one can return to
the Commons, so the ambitious are not drawn to the post

Johnson isn't ambitious?

He has ambitions but he was also somewhat drafted rather than
initially seeking it - and there were signs his Commons career was
stalling back in 2007. Furthermore many Conservatives seriously
doubted Livingstone could be defeated in 2008. Runing Boris for the
Mayoralty was a gamble that paid off for the party at the tiny cost
of subsequently losing him from the Commons but for Boris it's
removed him from the main centre political attention without a clear
route for returning.

People talk of Boris as a potential future Conservative leader but
they forget that it's difficult to make a successful return to the
Commons and obtain the top prizes, and especially so in the short
run. The last major party leader to have had an interrupted
parliamentary career was Michael Foot (who was out between 1955 and
1960) and he obtain the Labour leadership 20 years after he returned.
The last Conservative leader was Sir Alec Douglas-Home - leaving
aside his transfer from the Lords to the Commons he had lost his seat
in the 1945 election before regaining it in 1950, but again that was
over 13 years before he obtained the leadership (and at several
stages he had astounding luck in his career). The last Liberal leader
was Sir Herbert Samuel who lost his seat in the 1918 election then
had a career outside party politics before returning to the Liberal
battle and the Commons in 1929 and becoming the leader of the main
party in the 1931 splits. The most recent other case is Roy Jenkins
coming back from Europe and forming the SDP but their failure is a
deterrant to anyone else trying the route of a new party.

And of course there are the failures - both Michael Portillo and
Malcolm Rifkind fell in the 1997 general election and so were absent
from the subsequent leadership election. Each eventually got back to
the Commons but by the time the leadership came up they found their
original political bases had moved on. Conservative MPs still retain
a lot of power in the leadership election and it's questionable
whether a returned Johnson would have sufficient support to make it
to the final two and thus go to the full membership.

If Boris is re-elected in 2012 then his term won't expire until 2016
and to get back into the Commons he would either have to wait until a
general election in 2020 (thanks to the fixed terms legislation) or
win a by-election. But if the Conservatives are still in power after
2015, which many seem to expect, then being the government candidate
in a by-election is a risky strategy, especially if it seems the
candidate wants to go straight to the top. However if he waits until
2020 then it's likely that by then Cameron will have already stepped
down and a new leader will have been elected so Boris would have
missed his chance. The only other possibility is if he could contest
the leadership as a non-MP - I forget if the rules are explicit on
this point, but it's a very risky strategy.

The main Westminster style country where this happens a lot is
Canada, where party leaderships at both federal and
provincial/territorial level are often contested by non-MPs, with
former MPs, MPs from the other level, Mayors of big cities, private
businessmen, union leaders and others often standing. There is also a
partially observed covention in Canada that if a leader doesn't have
a seat then another MP will resign and the leader will stand in the
by-election without opposition from the other parties. (It's not
always observed and can sometimes go wrong - John Tory in Ontario is
the most prominent recent case.) Some leaders don't have a
by-election and instead fight a seat in the main election, even if
they've already been appointed Prime Minister/Premier - John Turner
in 1984 is the most prominent federal case.

Over in Australia this practice may take off if a current experiment
works - in the state of Queensland the Liberal National Party is
going into next year's election led by Campbell Newman, who has just
finished as Mayor of Brisbane and is leading from outside the state
legislature. Brisbane is Australia's largest local authority (most of
what we think of as the big Australian cities are collections of
multiple local authorities - Brisbane is the only case of a super
city authority taking effect) and the Mayor is directly elected, so
this could be one to watch for Boris's chances.

You've forgotten the main example of interrupted career followed by
ministerial success, Winston Churchill. But he broke so many "rules" that he
is probably the exception that proves most of them.

--
Colin Rosenstiel