Last week I watched The Deal, about Tony Blair and Gordon Browns respective rises in the Labour party and the supposed deal made between the two of them which saw Brown back Blair for the party leadership.
There was a scene where Brown and Blair were talking about the resignation of Margaret Thatcher. Brown made the comment that she stayed as Prime Minister too long and that the ideal length is a term and a half.
But this led me to wonder. What if Britain had a limit on how long someone could be Prime Minister? What if they were restricted to two terms?
The 22nd Amendment of the US Constitution states that
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
So should Britain have something similar? (One major stumbling block is the fact that Britain does not have a written constitution.) Or, for discussions sake, what if Britain already had its own version on the 22nd?
Think about this for a minute. Assuming that Thatcher could not run for a third term, who would have taken her place? Major, Lamont, Portillo? Would the Conservative party have one their third term in power? Or their fourth? Would Labour have recorded the landslide they did in 1997?
And who would be lining up to replace Blair at the next election? Gordon Brown is pretty much a given. But who else? Cook and/or Short would be possibilities.
The purpose of this is not to provide answers. Besides, the questions are purely hypothetical. But I think it is an interesting thought. How different would Britain now be? Socially? Economically? And would the changes be for the better or worse?
Will
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