Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 September 12

= September 12 =

concept of policy.
what is the difference between a public policy from a government policy. and, are these policies "laws" or are they merely a course of action agenda statements? Grotesquetruth (talk) 17:33, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * See policy. Alansplodge (talk) 18:25, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * See also Public policy. A policy is not by itself law but may sometimes be implemented or supported by appropriate legislation. --Lambiam 23:00, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Sir Humphrey Appleby said it best: Yes, I do think there is a real dilemma here, in that while it has been government policy to regard policy as the responsibility of Ministers, and administration as the responsibility of officials, questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the administration of policy and the policy of administration, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts or overlaps with responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:42, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * As with every single question you have asked, the answer is largely "it depends on which country you are talking about". Every country uses sometimes similar words, in sometimes different ways.  There is no universal definition here, only the meaning in context of a specific jurisdiction.  -- Jayron 32 12:19, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Queen Elizabeth
Had the queen passed away on the 5 September after the announcement of Liz Truss as the leader of the Conservative party but before her being invited by HM to form a government would this have provoked a constitutional crisis. Would it have meant Boris Johnson would have been compelled to stay on to implement Operation London Bridge. Or given that accession to the throne is automatic that Charles would have appointed Liz Truss to form a new government as his first act. It would seem this would create difficulties as the appointments to the cabinet of all the key positions in the transfer from one monarch to the next wouldn't have been appointed. Does the constitution have anything to say about this? --Andrew 21:41, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * The UK has no codified constitution, which makes it easier to bend the customary procedures to whatever circumstances may require. I suppose it would not have reached the level of a crisis if, due to circumstances, this traditional formality had had to be postponed for a day or so. --Lambiam 23:19, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Even if the UK had had a codified constitution, it's very unlikely that the leader of a political party would be mentioned in it. It's just that the UK election system is built in such a way that normally one party has a majority in parliament and can choose the PM and there's the custom to choose the party leader for that position. If there's a longer delay between electing a new party leader and appointing this person as PM, only the party would care. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:35, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The issue is not the delay between the election and the appointment, but a possible time gap between one PM stepping down and the next one being appointed. Can the United Kingdom survive a PM-less day? --Lambiam 10:55, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Of course they can. The day-to-day operation of government services is mostly handled by Civil Service.  Everything doesn't grind to a halt because one person isn't available to do a particular job.  -- Jayron 32 12:18, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * See Rhetorical question. --Lambiam 10:07, 14 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Had Queen Elizabeth died before the official PM hand-over, there might have been a short delay… but only by a day or two. Instead of being one of the last things that the old Queen did, it would have been one of the first things the new King did. Blueboar (talk) 11:03, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * And if too ill to do the deed, other royals could act as councillors of state and act on her behalf. Alansplodge (talk) 12:57, 15 September 2022 (UTC)