To come to your question, no, I don't think he has a point. Chavez and Mugabe are elected on the USA system, albeit through fraud and cheating. At the risk of repeating myself, Brown, on the other hand, was elected as MP in the "free and fair" elections of 2005 and the rest was done "by the book" as any other PM would have done.

Guido, typically, is using a common misunderstanding to serve his own agenda. I'd ignore him.

Thanks, just found this on Guido Fawke's blog (a libertarian one…):

"Today’s conference speakers include Gordon Brown, the Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez; and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. None of whom were elected head of government in open, free and fair elections."

Though I wouldn't put Brown in the same deranged personality bucket as Mugabe and Chavez, don't you think he has a point here?

Such are the rules of parliamentary democracy. On the other hand, a presidential system like in the USA (and Latin America, if you want to go into it) does elect the head of state directly (USA has an electoral college so there is a bit of admin in between), who then appoints the rest of the government. France is an interesting example of a semi-presidential system, where they have a President AND a Prime Minister. I could go on…

As for Britain, yes, in day-to-day practice the PM is more important than the Queen. I can't really understand why people want a monarchy, but opinion is currently in favour of it.

If you have anything you want answered specifically, do email me, and I'll write a full post about it.

Mmm. Doesn't the PM have more political clout than old Queeny? Both unelected! Please enlighten me, I do like the politics lessons.

I don't see how Ashton being "unelected" disqualifies her for an "unelected" position. In fact she's used to it! What you have to remember is that the posts are diplomatic rather than political; you don't vote for the Ambassador to the UN or the Consulate General to New Zealand. To this extent we can see the decision making process; Ashton (and van Rompuy) are to listen to elected Heads of State/Government, then interpret and relay those sentiments to the rest of the world.

I don't know where the idea of Sarkozy, Merkel or anyone like that has come from. All of whom are in the middle of their mandates having fought very hard to get where they are now. Merkel has just won a legislative election, Sarkozy has a very easy ride politically (friends everywhere) and Berlusconi controls all the media anyway.

The problem with Britain moaning about democracy is that it views "British Democracy" as more democratic than any European system. People complain about Lord Mandelson being an unelected minister, but just look across to France; half the government has never been elected and that's normal. Dominique de Villepin, the (former) Prime Minister was a career diplomat.

Thus we have to make the distinction that something can be democratic, just in a different way to our own system.

Coming to our own system, Hannah, you haven't quite understood it, I think. At the risk of repeating myself, Brown IS elected. He was elected in 1983, and RE-elected every four-or-so-years since then, the latest being 2005, with all the rest. We don't vote for the Prime Minister and never have done because the Executive is drawn from the Legislative, which is where the confusion comes from.

If you want to talk about elected/unelected leaders of the country, go and talk to the Queen about it!

The main reason for me not being in favour of the Ashton choice is that she has never held an elected post and that we did not elect her this time. The CND links were actually more recent and she would definitely have not been a student at the time, ie. someone fully aware of what she was doing….albeit it is in the past. While I would have love to seen Jack Straw at uni dropping some pills, some might say (not myself precisely) that he seems pretty 'liberal' with immigration policy (…cue free publicity for the BNP).

The role of EU Chairman seems a bit arbitrary and from reading an article about it some weeks ago (when they were talking about Blair´s credibility for the role) in The Guardian, the job description seemed a bit too vague. Granted, maybe they do need someone to bring it all together and I'm starting to see that in some ways Rompuy was a good choice (haha, you got me!) although he may not have much clout at the moment in global politics. Sarkozy or Berlusconi would have been very entertaining indeed but a complete disaster.

Maybe Joe Public feels a bit stung that these people have been given roles with huge salaries, given that 1) he fails to see how Ashton and Rompuy are legitimate candidates and 2)especially at a time when people are still losing jobs and that another few hundred grand per annum being thrown around in the face of debt into the billions seems rather….illogical. I'm all for Europe as a common market and for the cultural links but don't expect people to be happy when such a controversial treaty is ratified without the say of the people it 'serves,' and that unelected 'representatives' are given the top jobs. Having said that, maybe Rompuy will turn out to be a puppet after all…

I guess only time will tell. However, I would have liked to have had a choice in that matter. But in this sense Gordon Brown is not an elected politician either – therefore, quite rightly, how can Brits such as myself complain about a democratic deficit when it is rife in their own country?!

And the Milliband comment was a slight rant, though it shows the bias of our government when it comes to minorites. Moussawi was admitted even after the law prohibiting incitement to religious or racial hatred was passed. In short, I would not want a complete hypocrite filling Ashton´s post either.

I don't think Tony Blair would've been right, too divisive but he's the only one with enough charism to have pulled people together and laid out a direction.

The reason van Rompuy got the job though is that everyone else wanted someone who will chair meetings and find agreement. And Sarkozy and Merkel didn't want someone who will challenge them.

I still think the creation of the posts is a good thing though, adding more continuity to the EU and the added power that the EU Parliament gets from the Lisbon Treaty is pushing it in the right direction to address the democratic deficit (although much more can be done).

Mmm..just who are Herman van Rumpy Pumpy (sorry, couldn't resist) and Lady Ashton? Even ol' Gord referred to her as Lady Ashdown (then again he's not really good with names, is he?).The Lisbon Treaty, aka The EU Constitution in disguise, has been passed under the table and there is nothing we can do about it. It took them years of schmoozing and now the EU has finally got what they wanted all along. Yes, blame the Me-di-uhh for not covering EU properly or fairly, but the fact remains that we never had a say in this farce.

The despicable Lady Ashton (and if they HAD to have a woman there, they could have least got a more attractive one, right?!) has never held an elected post in her life and also happened to marry well. Furthermore, don't you think the supposed CND and Marxist links are something we should be concerned about in her important role of foreign secretary?

Tony Blair would've been a better choice, yes, but I think the EU president/chairman post is a waste of money (and with a salary higher than Obama's, quite a vast waste at that)..but at least people know who he is.

As for David Millipede, and this may be old news, but do we really want a dhimwhit foreign secretary that was complicent, with the rest of the Labour Party, in giving a voice to raging anti-Semites such as Ibrahim Mousawi but banned 'Islamophobe' Geert Wilders, and then went to pass fierce, hysterical judgement on his film 'Fitna' without actually having seen it? Other than that, seems an alright bloke, I think someone just put words in his mouth, bless him. Not strong enough for an EU post. Then again, who cares? We can't elect who gets the most important EU posts anyway!