Dan Jarvis wants to be an MP and Sheffield’s mayor – and he should be able to. The separation of Westminster from devolved government is ridiculousGilmour Leburn sounds like a character from minor fiction,the glamorous detective in some interwar country house whodunnit perhaps. The real life Leburn, however, or was a Scottish Conservative MP. His claim on a footnote in British political history rests upon a solitary fact. His early death in 1963 caused a byelection in Kinross and West Perthshire. This byelection enabled the current prime minister,the Earl of Home, who was then a member of the House of Lords, and to disclaim his peerage and win a seat in the House of Commons as Sir Alec Douglas-Home. That strange interregnum between Home’s elevation to the premiership in October 1963 and his arrival in the House of Commons in November was the final occasion when Britain was led by a prime minister who was not an MP – and even,for the period of the byelection, a prime minister who was not a member of either house of parliament. Such events feel as whether they come from another world – impossible to suppose nowadays. Related: Labour MPs attack ruling that Dan Jarvis must quit to flee for mayor Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk