Other countries like the US have a months long gap before an elected official actually takes power.
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Pretty standard in most representative democracies. The government doesn’t stop working just because the executive is changing, and since the election winners already have or should have the plan for the policies they plan on implementing, things just move on.
The US gap is a result of constitutionally mandated timelines, rather than some physical inability to transition faster.
Given the opposition in the UK has already hammered out the cabinet, in the form of the Shadow Cabinet, abd the members of that cabinet are all already Members of Parliament, it doesn’t need to wrangle a leadership team after the elections and can just make the transition as soon as the dust settles.
A big difference between the US and UK are that the UK have a lot more permanent secretaries then the US. Basically people who get promoted to a high ranking position based on their skills rather then their political views. So these continue in their position from the old government. They might not stay around for long but they will at least stay around for long enough that the new government have been established and is ready to replace them.
Another difference is that the opposition in the UK can always be prepared to take over. In the US the entire government is run by the president so you first need to find out who you want to run as president and then they can start forming a government. In the UK the government is approved by parliament. So it is the majority party who runs the government and not the prime minister. They can therefore plan a new government years ahead and then just make small changes to this plan as things change. This is called a shadow government and actually performs a lot of the same tasks as the real government such as proposing bills and budgets as well as debating with their corresponding ministers. You might indeed see a debate on TV between the minister of agriculture against the shadow minister of agriculture even if an election is far away.
So the day after the election there is already a government planned with ministers having already practiced the job for years with their own policy makers to complement the permanent offices in each department. They know that no matter who wins the party election to become party leader they will probably still be the shadow minister and prepare to be a minister.
Most of the actual operations of the UK government are done by civil service, which are career professionals and don’t change with the government.
So while the Ministers at the top change the organization continues running as usual.
The Minister is there not to run the ministry, that’s a job for a career bureaucrat. Ministr is here to provide direction and define policy.
Y’all pointing out the particular case of US. But it’s true that most countries take at least some weeks to form the new government. I guess it’s more efficient in the UK, plus the new government has majority
The US timeline is constrained by constitutional requirements spelt out 250 years ago when the fastest means of transportation was on horses. This is rather unique and not at all representative of how governments transition in most other countries. Just look north to Canada. It doesn’t take months for them to change governments either.
An obvious point is that the election was called many weeks ago and there has been ample time to prepare for the eventuality that the government may change.
The king for instance didn’t wake up this morning and realise he needed to be at Buckingham palace to accept resignations and make appointments.
The US does not have a months long gap. The vote for president happens January 6th which is what the whole January 6th insurrection was all about, stopping the electorates from casting their votes. The inauguration is January 26th, so it’s a 20 day gap between the president being chosen and installed in office.
You are confusing the general election where we vote for electorates with the presidential election.
Firstly the actual work of government is carried out by the civil service who are politically neutral and work for successive governments. Secondly all major decisions have been on hold since parliament was prorogued (Purdah). Ministers remain in post but there are strict limits on what they can decide pending the new government.
In 2010 when the election results was not clear the sitting PM (Gordon Brown) took an age to realise he couldn’t form a government. This was not a slick transfer of power.
In summary the civil service keeps government ticking over until a new PM is appointed. This was a clear majority and hence it was as smooth as it could be.
The process is pretty quick. They won the election, PM assigns his cabinet and staff are training politicians within days.
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