2004: PM Tony Blair killed by a bomb

What if an Islamic terrorist cell was able to blow a school while PM Tony Blair and cabinet was visiting the school.

What PoD could this have done for the UK?
 
I very much doubt that Blair and the cabinet would all be at the same school for that very reason.

I'm also pretty sure that there never all together in case that happens, someone is left to reform Government.
 
What about a group of terrorists dressed as an Al Jazeera cameracrew with a bomb inside their camera? At the 2004 Labour conference in Blackpool?
 
What about a group of terrorists dressed as an Al Jazeera cameracrew with a bomb inside their camera? At the 2004 Labour conference in Blackpool?

Would be a pretty small bomb and wouldn't do that much damage. Besides which, for them to have successfully infiltrated security would be humiliating for the security services.
 
Highly likely the most senior member of the cabinet still alive becomes caretaker PM. Since its the Labour Party, the National Executive Committee will call a leadership ballot once things calm down. Depending on the damage done/actions taken during the crisis, a full general election may be called.

The entire cabinet would not be in the one place. Members of the outer cabinet would most likely not be there or indeed members of the Lords or whatever. So it would temporarily pass to him, or her.
 
The Queen would have consulted with her advisors and others and invited someone to form a Government. That individual would try and then try for a vote of Confidence. If that failed there would be a General Election
 
The Queen would have consulted with her advisors and others and invited someone to form a Government.

No, the Queen would do what she always does, to whit, wait until there was someone who could clearly command a majority in the Commons and then summon them.

Labour Party rules are that if this happens when the party is in government the Cabinet will liase with the NEC and appoint an interim leader until either the next party conference or a leadership contest can be arranged. In an emergency situation this wouldn't take more than a day or two, maybe less depending on how severe things are. The appointed leader would then be summoned by the Queen.

There's nothing, incidentally, that neccesitates that this person be the deputy leader, (Unlike when the party is in opposition, when the deputy leader automatically becomes acting leader on the death of the incumbent, as Margaret Beckett did in 1994 when John Smith died) so Prescott doesn't neccessarily have to get it.
 
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Who else would be 'her advisors and other people' then ? Bound to include leading people from the party in power. I should have expanded that more.
 
Considering this is the result of a terror attack I would think a national unity government could be likely till Labour sorts itself out.

An election wouldn't be neccessary, I hate the daft idea in recent years that one is required if you change PM's, this is a parliamentary democracy, the PM is just the leader if the largest party. End of.

Of course Labour could choose to call an election and make use of public sympathy...
 
You are technically correct that the PM is only the leader of the largest party. However, in practical terms the parties are so wound up in the personality of their leaders and their policies that the concept of merely 'primus inter pares' had become just 'primus'.

More especially if a new leader then departs radically from what people voted for under the old leader​
 
You are technically correct that the PM is only the leader of the largest party. However, in practical terms the parties are so wound up in the personality of their leaders and their policies that the concept of merely 'primus inter pares' had become just 'primus'.

More especially if a new leader then departs radically from what people voted for under the old leader​

To an extent, but really your only voting for your own MP, and often they can have differing views to their own parties.

I also don't recall this suggestion when Major succeeded Thatcher, and since the argument usually involves nationality it leads me to think it's thinly veiled anti Scottishness from the media.

They didn't vote for Brown anymore than they voted for Blair in the first place, technically.
 
I very much doubt that Blair and the cabinet would all be at the same school for that very reason.

I'm also pretty sure that there never all together in case that happens, someone is left to reform Government.

Its the same reason that during Presidential Inaugerations and State of the Union speeches, at least one member of the Cabinet is somewhere else. The practice of keeping at least one cabinet member absent at major events started during the cold war so that if most of the government was in the capital when the nukes flew there would be at least one member in the line of succession who would hopefully survive.
 
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