I was listening to a really interesting podcast today
concerning the state of the union. Now this was not about the politics of the
state of union, but about the strange case of the designated survivor. As you
might expect the US constitution has a very prescriptive line of succession,
the Vice President, Speaker of the House etc… Now the problem with the State of
Union address is that all the potential successors to the President are in one
place. Should anything happen during the State of Union there would be a
constitutional crisis.
But during the Cold War the US government though
about this and instituted the position of the designated survivor. This would be
the person who took over as President of the US. The designated survivor did
not attend the State of the Union. It is now interesting how the designated
survivor was provided for. At the height of the cold war they were flown away
from Washington and given in depth briefings as to how to launch the nuclear
deterrent etc… More recently the designated survivor simply went about their
normal lives, one for instance went to dinner with his daughter. After
everybody has watched Homeland things are now becoming more regulated.
The designated survivor was typically the Agriculture
or Transport Secretary. Apparently one of the perks of the job was that the
person did not have to attend the State of Union. Here all were agreed that the
State of Union address was fairly boring but as a politician you had to look
alert and interested in case the TV cameras alighted on you.
This has got me thinking about the Queens Speech to
the UK parliament. There the monarchy and both Houses of Parliament are all
present in the same place. So if the worst was to happen what would be the
constitutional position. Well the royals would not be a problem as there would
is always somebody obscure in the line of succession. But should there be a
political designated survivor, some obscure member of the government who would
become Prime Minister. I demand that we should be told!!!
Well, now we're talking. It isn't actually in the US Constitution, the line of succession was formalised in an Act of Congress.
ReplyDeleteThe UK example is more interesting. As you say, no reason to expect the Royals to be affected, but there is no process for the PM. The deputy role is pretty new, and I am sure that while it is held by a member of a minority party, a lead ship election would be held in the majority party swiftish.
If both PM and Deputy went, I would guess it would go to a provisional PM, named by the Queen on advice of the cabinet. In those circumstances, my bet would be on a senior parliamentarian who is also in the cabinet and a member of the largest party - Hague for example.
Should all of the commons be wiped out, there's no reason the PM couldn't be a peer.
Should all the peers be also wiped out, the Queen could create new peers to run stuff while elections were held. That being the case, you could be next!