You rambling now, incoherent. What has Churchill got to do with the discussion between me and you? You thought you derail your own discussion, by quoting a completely separate point I raised with a Swiss contributor making a weak joke, in order to deflect. The fact you used the term "Defense Bonds" tells me you are not British (using US style spelling, doesn't necessarily make you American, but could be you are one of those people who was taught American English). You might be pretending to be one, but everyone have has created a fake persona, so now you are pretending you know how Brits think in the ballot booth. As for those assumption......The fact that the ballot says “MP” rather than “Prime Minister” tells you what is being legally elected, not what is motivating the voter. Millions don't even know the name of their local candidate, but they know exactly which party—and often which leader—they want running the country. If people are voting primarily for the party and its leader, pretending otherwise because the ballot paper doesn't contain a box saying “Who do you want as PM?” is confusing the mechanics of an election with the reality of how people actually vote. You and that Swiss bloke's attempt to elevate Burnham to the level of Churchill; its evident that both of you are displaying a basic ignorance of the facts. Comparing Burnham’s accession to Churchill’s in 1940 is ridiculous on almost every conceivable level. Churchill wasn’t elected Prime Minister: he was summoned to form a government when Chamberlain’s administration collapsed in the middle of a world war, and he formed a cross-party War Cabinet. Burnham inherited the premiership when his party’s existing leader resigned and Labour chose Burnham as its replacement. One was the formation of a national wartime coalition at a moment of existential crisis; the other was a change of leader within a governing party. About the only thing they have in common is that both eventually ended up living at No.10. History really does deserve better than that comparison. My comments on your Soviet view of democracy was a comment based on your acceptance of the whole process of Burnham moving from Mayor of Manchester to Prime Minister. He wasn't elected as PM, wasn't an MP when the process began, and hadn't been given a national mandate to replace Starmer. Instead, the sitting Labour MP, Josh Simons, for Makerfield resigned after having only recently been elected, explicitly to create a parliamentary vacancy for Burnham. This is a fact; Simons mislead his constituents, when they thought he was standing for them, when in fact he was more concerned about his Party. When Simons was elected, were people voting for him supporting Starmer, or Simons? If they were supporting Simons, then surely they should feel utterly betrayed, that they weren't going to get, after all that, the parochial interests of Makerfield front and centre in Westminster, and how actually they weren't going to get an MP attending local surgeries. Burnham then won that by-election. In fact, the parachuted in candidate increased his vote over the previous incumbent. Labour changed leader, Starmer resigned and Burnham inherited the premiership using the parliamentary majority Labour had won under someone else. All perfectly legal—but if you're going to lecture people about “how UK democracy actually works”, let's not pretend this was the electorate choosing Burnham to run the country. He's paid lip service to the process, that's all. So yes, you have a twisted view of democracy. You don't like the Soviet epitaph. Fine. Then Falangist. Franco also held ballots with just one name on the ticket and called that democracy. You fall into the same camp on this score at least.
