Steve Elton calls for a system to hold prime ministers to account for misconduct, while David Walker says the state of the economy will play a role come election time. Plus letters from Keith Flett, David Nowell and Richard Walker
Your editorial (11 November) calling for safeguards against sleaze to be strengthened heightens the case for parliament to establish an effective, non-partisan means of systematically holding to account any prime minister for personal breaches of the ministerial code, as well as in instances of gross personal misconduct or incompetence.
The recent report by Lord Evans’s committee on standards in public life avoids this pivotal question, and so have the some 500 backbenchers and more than 700 sitting peers forming our parliament. Yet this matter is becoming ever more crucial for adequately safeguarding the public interest as UK politics becomes ever more populist and presidential. Should it not be examined urgently by parliament’s constitution committee under its remit to keep the operation of our constitution under review? Notwithstanding the political sensitivities involved, the growing chargesheet against Boris Johnson surely provides more than enough grounds for such an inquiry.
Steve Elton
Mary Tavy, Devon
