Last weekend BBC Radio 4 broadcast Air-Force One a play about the events immediately after John F Kennedy’s assassination on 22nd November, 1963. If you are my age you will remember where you were when you heard the news.
I was in a Dublin hospital on a drip. The play recounts the haste in which Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President on Air-Force One on the tarmac at Dallas airport. In the US there is a presidential line of succession enshrined in the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Under its terms Gerald Ford became Vice President, when Spiro Agnew resigned, and then President when Richard Nixon resigned. Here in the UK there is nothing similar if a Prime Minister dies or is temporarily or permanently incapacitated. Peter Bone, in 2013, introduced the Prime Minister (Replacement) Bill but it failed to complete its passage through Parliament. As in the US, the Bill proposed a pecking order of Cabinet Ministers to succeed. I think we are wise not to go down this road as it gives our government some flexibility. The closest we have come to needing this recently would have been if the Brighton bomb had killed Margaret Thatcher. I think Peter Bone’s concern was that in a coalition government the deputy Prime Minister might not be the optimal successor.
In France they do things differently, naturellement. There is an order of precedence listing the 61 successors to the President. The importance attached to the Arts in France is clear when you see that the head of the Académie Française is 24th in line to succeed; the head of the Banque de France trails at number 34. My French correspondent comments that though his nation murdered their king they have kept their hierarchy of privileges.
And Zimbabwe? Suffice to say that if we adopted their method we might have Samantha Cameron as Prime Minister; not a bad idea actually.
I was on the North Circular in a traffic jam. They even had them in those days.
Good start to your blogging, very readable. You should have been a journalist and committed yourself to a life of poverty. Perhaps you should call it Bellewogging.
Thank you, Stephen.
I was writing a history essay for school homework on Edmund Burke and Robert Emmet when I heard about the shooting in Dallas. I managed to finish it before the news (no rolling news in those days!) came through that Kennedy had died. Loving the Blog and admiring your gift for pulling threads together!
Margaret, you are an academic version of the swashbuckling bowls-playing Drake on Plymouth Hoe, finishing your essay. Glad that you like the blog and hope Alan might be tempted by some posts that have an Irish flavour.
Christopher,
I too have greatly enjoyed your blogs and agree they deserve a wider readership. Even if the new proprietors of the FT don’t give you your own column, what about joining Taki, Chancellor and Clarke in the Spectator (“Mid-Life”?)?
Johnny
Dear Johnny,
“Mid-Life” is a most flattering byeline; “Old Life” is nearer the mark. I’m glad it is giving you some amusement. I am having fun writing it.