“Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper” now brings up an interesting page on Google’s “I feel lucky” option.

The thing is that mainstream political parties in Britain are (very sensibly) resistant to suggestions of running approved party candidates in NI elections. The result is that all the political parties with candidates there are specific to Ireland, in most cases specific to just NI but with Sinn Fein running candidates both north and south of the border.

Understandably, followers of Dr Paisley are apt to interpret this as indicating a closet sentiment on the part of Britain’s mainstream parties to cut NI adrift, which is why Dr Paisley is content that the Good Friday agreement should fail and NI should be governed by direct rule.

Many of us learned long ago, the politics of Ireland provide exceptions to almost any rule. FWIW I suspect that the predominant sentiment among British voters now is that they would have no objection to either independence for NI or for the consensual unification of Ireland.

So, in the UK, is that Northern Ireland?

All apart from the Scots who seem to have made an entirely disproportionate contribution to civilization.

On the contrary—all you need is a country with a region that tends to vote as a bloc, with enough votes to swing the election to one party or another. Political parties will inevitably cater disproportionately to such a region, in the hope of winning and maintaining its loyalty.

In Canada, where Quebec fits this description perfectly, the cabinet routinely overrepresents Quebeckers. In fact, between 1968 and 2003, the total amount of time a non-Quebecker was prime minister adds up to about a year and a half.

Elron Hubbard—Scottish?

Among the many values of the series are the sharp insights into constitutional developments. With the periodic bouts of insanity of George III (r 1760-1820) and the marital problems of his son, George IV (r 1820-30), we can understand how Britain’s constitution evolved by steps into the constitutional monarchy of Victoria (r 1837-1901). Bagehot on the English Constitution (2nd ed 1873) chp.3 is the classic statement on the functions of a constitutional monarch:

“To state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights — the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.”
http://www.ecn.bris.ac.uk/het/bagehot/constitution.pdf

Contrast the transition in Britain with what happened in France on the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the aftermath in the period of terror and then the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. While France endured the trauma of a political revolution and almost permanent wars through to Waterloo in 1815, Britain pioneered the transition to an industrialised economy. Strangely, they are still complaining about anglo-saxon ways.

A tradition which one has tried to maintain to this day.

But George I, the first of the Hanoverians, couldn’t speak English, which was most convenient as that created scope for the development of cabinet government the proceedings of which he couldn’t follow. Historically, the Hanoverians, inadvertently or otherwise, came to fulfil a crucial role in moving the monarchy by increments into becoming what came to be called “constitutional monarchs” instead of absolute rulers. Compare the powers and political influence of George I with that of his contemporary Louis XIV, king of France.

“Under the British system, the PM gets to choose his Cabinet, himself, alone.” Oh, Peter, I think we’ve all seen what happens if talented MPs are left on the backbenches. Remember Geoffrey Howe in 1990, or even Enoch Powell’s “Vote Labour” in 1974? Sure Phoney Tony has a “choice” of whom to appoint; it’s just a much less free choice than you seem to believe.

As for your point #50; I was thinking the same thing before I read your comment. Well, sort of. How many Republicans in the cabinet are from Coastal States? and when the Democrats are in power, how many of those in powerful positions come from the mid-West?