Vizzer wrote:

With regard to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, then one would be hard-pressed to find one who was not a sitting MP or a former MP. The reason being that the business of raising taxes is a right which the Commons have jealously guarded for themselves over the centuries.

A very good point - I'd rather overlooked that.

Another complication arising from Lord Cameron's appointment is surely his accountability to Parliament. Any major announcements can of course be made by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, while more routine questions concerning the Foreign Office can be answered on behalf of Cameron by his appointed deputy, who, at least for now, is Andrew Mitchell MP, who already attends Cabinet as Minister of State for Development and Africa. However should any questions need to be answered by Cameron personally to the House (not entirely unlikely considering his history of personal involvement in foreign matters and particularly his previous business affairs with China amongst others) the Speaker could order him to be called to the Bar at the entrance to the Commons' Chamber and face questioning from there - rather like an errant schoolboy being summoned to the teacher's staff room to publically account for his bad behaviour, but from the door and forbidden from actually entering the sanctum.

Regarding the Hume/Home and Carington/Carrington confusion, I also got confused when I saw that there was a Lord Carington being present at King Charles' coronation in the exalted position of Lord Great Chamberlain of England. Other than noting the name and vaguely thinking that he must now be very elderly, I gave no more thought to it at the time and just carried on watching the ceremony. But of course it was actually Peter Carington's son, Rupert Carington, now 7th Baron Carrington (still with the second r). He inherited his father's title in July 2018, but in accordance with the House of Lords Act of 1999, the title did not give him the automatic right to sit in the House of Lords (his father had done so as he'd been given a life peerage, Baron Carington of Upton - with one r or two?). Rupert Carington however became a member of the House of Lords in 2018 after winning a crossbench hereditary peers' by-election following the retirement of Lord Northbourne. Then on the accession of Charles III he became Lord Great Chamberlain of England according to the hereditary rotation of the office among three noble families.

Regarding life peerages it is also worth noting that when Cameron loses his Foreign Office job - either when the Conservative Party lose power or if he's just 'reshuffled' - nevertheless David Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton, will still hold his seat in the House of Lords, and barring any misfortune is likely to still be there some decades into the future. As indeed will Charlotte Owen, Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge, the former Downing Street aide to Alexander Boris Johnson, who became the youngest person to get a peerage when she was included in Johnson’s controversial 2022 honours list. She is currently just 30 and so unless there is some Parliamentary reform she is likely to still be sitting in the Lords and influencing the government of the UK half a century from now. It seems a rather undemocratic and antiquated system that's open to corruption, with questions about 'selling' peerages for influence or handing them out in return for favours, and as a tactic to out-maneuver either the Commons or the Lords, having come up time and time again over the years.


A 'Punch' cartoon of 1911 showing Asquith and Lloyd George preparing coronets for 500 new peers, to take control of the House of Lords and so force through the Parliament Act.

Meles meles wrote:

when Cameron loses his Foreign Office job

David Cameron, Leader of the Opposition, 2006 - 'hug a hoodie'.

Lord Cameron, Foreign Secretary, 2024 - 'bomb a houthie'.

.... I'll fetch me hoody.

Hereditary rotation of office - fascinating MM are there any more? I once knew a Princess whose husband was a sort of rotating king - but I can't recall where!!!! So she was queen from time to time - but there were a lot in the circle so it didn't happen much; probably all done away with now.
I had a lot of time for THE Lord Carrington - not this spinning son - went to a small dinner where he was most interesting company too. No idea he had a son let alone one in a top spin off. 

Cameron is on a roundabout all on his own - the sort where the horses go up and down as well as round. All part of the circus and fun fair we call Government - which will ever be now as the people vote in... apart from the other higher  place where they keep the first reserves  warm in furred robes and (hired) fancy hats with knobs on for people such as Cameron.

Priscilla wrote:

Hereditary rotation of office - fascinating MM are there any more?

It's the only one that I'm aware of as it's almost unique in being a Parliamentary position that remains an appointment of the monarch alone but which is also based on hereditary right. The only other such position is that of Earl Marshal of England, but that one since the 16th century has always been held solely by the Dukes of Norfolk with no conflicting claims by any others largely because their Graces have always managed to produce at least one uncontested and legitmate male heir.

I had supposed that the job-sharing over who gets to be Lord Great Chamberlain was a fudge probably introduced by the 1911 Parliamentary Reform Act (the subject of the Punch cartoon above) and indeed the current setup was formally agreed at that time. However the basic problem goes way back: the office was created by William the Conqueror but in the reign of Henry I was given as a hereditary right to the Earl of Oxford and his heirs. The earls duly fulfilled this role until 1626, when the eighteenth Earl unfortunately died leaving a female relative as the only close heir, but with his closest male relative as a rather more distant heir. The Lord Great Chamberlain obviously couldn't be a woman, so the House of Lords eventually ruled that the office belonged to the heir general, Robert Bertie, 14th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, who later became Earl of Lindsey. The office remained vested in the Earls of Lindsey, who later became Dukes of Ancaster and Kesteven. However in 1779 the fourth Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven died (it happens) leaving two sisters as female heirs and an uncle as an heir male, and accordingly the right to the office of Lord Great Chamberlain became even further split amongst the duke's heirs, thus requiring repeated intervetion and rulings by the House of Lords over the following century.

By 1911 the then joint hereditary office holders were the 1st Earl of Ancaster, the 4th Marquess of Cholmondeley, and the Earl Carrington, later Marquess of Lincolnshire. Under pressure from the Lords to definitively resolve the issue an agreement between these three was finally reached. Thereafter the office, or right to appoint the person to exercise the office, would rotate among the three joint office holders and their heirs after them, changing at the start of each successive reign. Cholmondeley and his heirs would serve in every other reign; Ancaster and Carrington would each serve once in four reigns - the different shares reflecting the relative strengths of the split hereditary right.

The current situation is that, as the Cholmondeley share and the Ancaster share (held since 1983 by the Baroness Willoughby de Eresby) are not further split, each of these holders decides in his or her turn to act as Lord Great Chamberlain or to name a person who will act as Lord Great Chamberlain. The Carrington share however was divided at his death in 2018 among his five daughters and their heirs, and has since been further divided, with 11 people holding shares as of September 2022. At the accession of Charles III the turn fell to the Carrington heirs who all duly chose their cousin Rupert Carington, 7th Baron Carrington, to act as Lord Great Chamberlain. Accordingly with everyone seemingly in agreement, King Charles duly appointed Rupert Carington to the role.

Ultimately the reason why the position of Lord Great Chamberlain is rotated is probably just to stop any bickering amongst the eligible peers over who has the greater claim. While the position is basically to be responsible for running of Parliament, it is others that actually do the day to day work and I very much doubt if the position still carries any real political power. It does however have enormous kudos, being classed as one of the Great Offices of State, and as such is involved in much ceremonial (including the once-in-a-lifetime presentation of the "Spurs of Knightly Chivalry" as part of the Coronation). And the peers as a group do love all the pomp and ceremonial associated with their ancient titles: remember all the grumbling from various dukes, barons and marquises about not being invited to the Kings' coronation at all; for having their ancestral roles cut back just a bit; and not being permitted to wear their ceremonial coronets. I also imagine the company of Ede and Ravenscroft (Chantry Lane) - suppliers of academic, ecclesiastical, judicial, military and court dress since 1689 - must also have been a bit miffed: they might hire out thousands of university graduate robes every year but the thwarted chance of dusting off all their "only used once" coronets must have been a bitter disappointment.

All this strictly-inherited power of course has under-pinned English (British) monarchy and government since the Norman conquest. The Saxon and Celtic monarchies did things a bit differently. Throughout Britain early monarchs generally did not inherit the Crown directly but instead followed the custom of tanistry in which there was an elective element. The position of heir-apparent, the taniste, had to come from a member of a patrilineal branch of the royal family but ultimately their claim had to be accepted by a combined council, itself typically comprised of the prominent noble families. Originally intended so the best man got the job rather than the one with the best inherited claim unfortunately the taniste was often deliberately alternated between different branches of the royal family in part just to satisfy completing claims and keep everyone happy. For example the Scottish monarch alternated between different branches of the House of Alpin until the 11th century when Malcolm II ended the practice to try to eliminate the strife caused by the elective law, which encouraged rival claimants to fight for the throne. Tanisty lasted even longer in medieval Ireland and even today the title of Tánaiste for the duly elected heir, is preserved in the Republic of Ireland's government where the prime minister is the Taoiseach and the deputy prime minister is officially called the Tánaiste.

Priscilla wrote:

Hereditary rotation of office - fascinating MM are there any more? I once knew a Princess whose husband was a sort of rotating king - but I can't recall where.

I suspect it was probably Malaya - or Malaysia as it is now known. Just this week there's been the enthronement of Malaysia's new king, Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar, who has become head of state under its unique rotating monarchy system, which sees the rulers of the nine Malaysian states within the federation each take turns as monarch for five-year terms. The current system was set up in 1957 when Malaya became independent of Britain.