Now if we want to get into dirty details, no bureaucrat is ever elected. You elect the representatives, and they nominate in turn whoever bureaucrats they feel comfy to work with. Or is this in the UK different?
> You elect the representatives, and they nominate in turn whoever bureaucrats they feel comfy to work with.
This is not always the case, although I guess it depends how you define bureaucrats. As an example, in France, most of the administration is not nominated. You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc.
It does make sense in a lot of cases. For example, in a city, only the mayor and its advisers are elected, and they do not have any control over the administration of the city. But the administration cannot refuse to work with a specific mayor. If they do, they would need to be moved elsewhere, or simply be fired for not doing their job.
On the other hand, they are also bound by the law, so they also act as a counter power to crazy mayor who wants to do illegal stuff. Meaning, if the mayor ask the administration to do something illegal, they can absolutely say no with no fear of repercussion for their job.
It also makes sense for other counter-power office, where having the currently elected representatives being able to choose who control the office would go against its whole purpose.
Meanwile, Macron chooses to ignore a left victory, then refuses to accept their prime minister and instead co-opts the election to instant the same center-right government that was broken up a few months prior. :+)
Now, to be fair that is partly the result of the left-wing coalition imploding (as usual… sigh) and being generally unwilling to compromise. It turns out that when you don’t have a majority, being the biggest party does not matter that much if you are unpleasant enough to make the other parties rally against you. Yes, I am bitter.
> 60 politicians of all colors stand for election in the 15 countries of the European Union: unimaginable benefits and positions of influence await their power brokers, for it is these Machiavellian lobbyists and self-appointed “leaders“ who hold the real power in the palms of their hands.
And from the rules:
> The player with the most total votes played in a given party is the party representative. If a player has two cards in the same party, their value is added. If two or more players have the same vote total in a party, the one with the highest single card is the party representative. Remember that a doubler card, if played, will always be considered the highest card. Also, note that it is possible for one player to control two parties.
> If Gaudino is played in a party in competition with another politician valued 7 in that party, he is considered to be the higher card.
> The green-leaf party is a special case. If two players tie for total value in green cards, it is possible that they will still tie for highest single card value. In that case, the two players are given thirty seconds to agree on who will be the green representative. If they do not agree in that time, each player with green cards may negotiate separately.
But.. they did not implode? They put forward a reasonable candidate that they all agreed on. Macron then refused that candidate and made clear he wouldn’t verify any PM that wasn’t center-right. He stole the election, plain and simple.
They did not “all agree on”. There was strong arming on one end because Méluche (and others, but he’s particularly hard to ignore and influential) cannot imagine compromising. Demanding submission was stupid because, again, having a couple of percents more than the others is not very useful if you don’t have a majority. And had they a majority, there would be nothing that Macron could do because they would just vote no confidence into any government coming before them. He is boisterous, vindictive, loud, and has been turning victories into defeats for more than a decade now. Macron is the opposite: not that showy, quieter, but ruthless and shrewd, and kept control despite setbacks. I don’t like neoliberals or conservatives (least of all that Barnier guy, I remember him from before he played as the EU’s saviour and he is not a nice person). But they were simply better at politics. They did not steal anything, they got a majority coalition, rickety as it is (and who knows how long it will last).
As long as we (and I mean the left side broadly) are talking about the government not being legitimate as we shoot ourselves in the foot, we won’t learn how to reverse this. Talking about stolen power is a weak argument when we’ve just been outmanoeuvred. And it makes us look like sulking children and in the end it just helps conservatives and fascists.
“If Gondor, Boromir, has been a stalwart tower, [those who work at public bureaus] have played another part. Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay. You know little of the lands beyond your bounds. Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us."
> You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc.
Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers? At this point would they not be a sovereign group distinct from France, untouchable by the french people?
I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy. May be lots of layers of indirection, like the need to pass or change a law, but still.
Who defines and administers the exam you mentioned? Other public representatives? Can they decide to pass their relatives?
> Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers?
Yes, that's how the civil service works in most countries, more or less. The US is an outlier in that the executive appoints about 4,000 civil servants; most places don't work like that (even in the US; _most_ civil servants (about 2.8 million of them, federal) are hired, promoted, disciplined etc by other civil servants; the president doesn't sit in on every interview or anything.)
> I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy.
The elected representatives pass laws. The civil service implements them.
Separately, at least in many countries, not sure about France, you have the concept of power devolved to the minister, where the legislature passes a law allowing the minister to make orders in certain restricted areas, a bit like a scope-limited version of US presidential executive orders.
This occasionally has amusing repercussions if the original devolution legislation was insufficient or unconstitutional; for instance in Ireland nearly all drugs (morphine, heroin, cannabis and possibly cocaine remained illegal) were accidentally legalised for a day, when the supreme count found that the legislation used to enable the Minister for Justice to ban drugs was insufficient, thus legalising everything which had been banned since it was passed.
> The US is an outlier in that the executive appoints about 4,000 civil servants; most places don't work like that (even in the US; _most_ civil servants (about 2.8 million of them, federal) are hired, promoted, disciplined etc by other civil servants; the president doesn't sit in on every interview or anything.)
This is one of the concerning parts with the incoming administration.
> Project 2025, which is backed by the rightwing Heritage Foundation thinktank, has proposed to “dismantle the administrative state”, while Trump’s official “Agenda 47” calls for “cleaning out the Deep State” and “on Day One” issuing an “executive order restoring the president’s authority to fire rogue bureaucrats”.
> That executive order would set up a system, known as Schedule F, that would revamp the federal bureaucracy so that far more jobs could be filled with political appointees rather than through traditional merit rules. Trump’s supporters say Schedule F would cover about 50,000 federal employees, but unions representing federal workers say it would cover many times that. Currently, approximately 4,000 federal positions are subject to presidential appointment. Trump’s allies are said to have compiled a list of 20,000 loyalists who could quickly move into federal jobs in a new Trump administration.
---
That 4,000 is looking to become 20,000 and potentially increase up to 50,000 (and beyond depending how far reaching the reclassification is).
I suspect the coming administration would find a way to do the same thing even if it was in Germany or France. I suspect if the extreme right parties there ever win, they will find a way to achieve this too.
Best to be aware of this, not deceive ourselves that public servants are untouchable. Some people might get the idea that voting for a very bad politician would just send a message and not have much real effect, as the civil servants are the same and will do the same job and cannot be removed. They can. Even in Germany.
> I suspect the coming administration would find a way to do the same thing even if it was in Germany or France. I suspect if the extreme right parties there ever win, they will find a way to achieve this too.
Possibly. They’d need majority control of the legislature (not merely the sort of plurality control that seems within the bounds of possibility on some countries) and control of the courts. They’d also potentially need to be able to change the constitution; in most countries the Lisbon treaty is either implicitly or explicitly above local law. They’d need to be ready to face sanctions from the EU. I think Germany in particular also has some regulation of the civil service actually in the constitution. But ultimately, yeah, if the far right successfully took over the government (rather than just leading a coalition or something) they could probably do this; the Nazis did, after all.
Majority control of the legislature is what I'm talking about. In Germany and France that's how a party comes to power, not through presidential elections. There is no such thing in Germany, though in France it is naturally more complicated :) Even there, Macron still has power only because parties are somewhat tied. If there was a clear winner, he would have no choice but to give them control.
The courts? If you have majority in the legislature, you can pass any law you want, and the courts are obligated to follow the law. You think they would just rebel and disregard laws that they consider not-ok?
In any case. The courts need to get paid, and need offices and electricity and computers and support from police and other branches. And judges need to be appointed, and sometimes leave. One way or another the courts would get converted to the cause. All the courts in a country are a lot of people. There are always some who would betray. Just adjust the laws and the salaries and everything you can (which is a lot if you own the legislative) to advantage those on your side and disadvantage those who oppose you. Prosecutors are typically under the executive, so start some made-up investigations against the most prominent judges that oppose you. No need to do it for all, set a few examples and the others will see the error of their ways. No need for the investigations to get convictions in court. Just place doubt on inconvenient judges, and use the media to amplify it. Your side of the media, while the other side also gets converted. Converting the media is much easier, again, using executive and legislative power.
The constitution as a document is irrelevant. The court(s) that interpret it would just get converted to the cause in the same way. This has already been done in Poland and the US, and I presume in Hungary, since there's no news about them creating trouble.
> in most countries the Lisbon treaty is either implicitly or explicitly above local law
The government and the converted courts will just start acting as if the Lisbon treaty does not exist. Who or what can enforce it? Look at Hungary. Look at Poland before the recent change. Look at Slovakia. A treaty has no power over a country that does not whish to follow it. Look at the Budapest memorandum and soon enough we will see Trump ignore the NATO treaty.
In my country the constitutional court routinely says our constitution (and therefore their decisions, which always favor a certain party, and corruption in general) are above the Lisbon treaty. The EU pretends nothing happened (presumably due to the war).
The concerning thing is, if he's actually just there to bust the joint out and crash everything, it's a moot point whether it's 4000 or 20000 people, whether they're competent or useless, or anything.
In some circumstances, the plan would be to fire everybody and then just sit there and do nothing (except fire more people). The idea that all this is towards any kind of functional system, is an assumption. They could be looking to dismantle the entire administrative state and just collapse immediately to feudalism.
> Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives?
In many countries that is done based on laws describing career progression process.
In Germany most administration workers are "career" folks, who study at the university of administration and then have a career paths, where levels at are relatively clearly described. Only heads of different authorities are "political" positions, which are nominated by ministers and can be fired/retired relatively easily but even those in most cases stay across administrations. Only ministers and their direct staff change.
In some ministries there sometimes is the saying "we don't care who is minoster below us" but if a some minister with an agenda is appointed they still can be very effective.
But since the law is written by elected representatives, to say that the representatives have no power in this case seems wrong, to me. That's all.
If the voters will vote for the "fire Joe" party 20 years in a row, I guarantee Joe the civil servant will eventually be fired, even in Germany, France, anywhere. Well, maybe not in China, but that's different. Anywhere where votes still matter. Solutions would be found, laws changed, exceptions provided, and so on.
But now we’re in reducto ad absurdum territory because elected officials can pass laws to force private companies to fire specific employees, too. And before you say “constitution,” that can also be amended.
I have no clue what your point is. Reductio ad absurdum is a useful argument, not a logical fallacy.
> And before you say “constitution,”
I have zero idea why I would say "constitution" or anything really. My entire point is that nobody is beyond the reach of elected representatives, and that is by design and a good thing too.
> My entire point is that nobody is beyond the reach of elected representatives
That’s just stating the obvious.
> that is by design
No, it’s not. It’s just a fact of life that governments can control every aspect of a person’s life if it chooses. It’s always been this way and always will be.
This is why your statements are absurd.
When people refer to a civil service as being “apolitical” or “not politically appointed,” it’s obvious that they’re not referring to absurd cases like “a government can outlaw them from having a job.”
That’s why I said you’re reducing the argument to absurdity.
Civil servants are a-political so why would you need to fire them? A civil servant carries out whatever law is enacted by the government.
The bureaucracy is a tool and tools don't have a will.
> The bureaucracy is a tool and tools don't have a will.
As if it's not made of humans. This view is in grave error. Nobody is perfectly rational, nobody is beyond bias or subjectivty, nobody is beyond human emotions.
One reason is scapegoating. If a politician fucks up they can shift the blame to civil servants. Another reason is conflicts. Politician proposes a law and the head of the affected department says that the law will lead to major loss of tax revenue.
I don’t think this is strictly true. There are documented cases where, for better or worse, apolitical civil servants undermined politicians. Rory Stewart’s book has some great examples.
This ignores the self-interest of civil servants, which they most definitely have and is the basis for public choice theory.
Building upon economic theory, public choice has a few core tenets. One is that no decision is made by an aggregate whole. Rather, decisions are made by combined individual choices. A second is the use of markets in the political system. A third is the self-interested nature of everyone in a political system.
There are two factors: One is that the Constitution disallows laws for a special case. Thus a "fire joe law" may not exist (without Change to constitution)
However: Yes, who you vote for impacts government. If you vote for a party which sets priority in building bike sheds, the authorities will move staff to the required departments, while Joe remains in the department nobody cares about anymore and thus can't meet the promotion goals. (While he will still receive the regular raise for the job level he is in) And if one truly wants to get rid of Joe there certainly is a way to find a reason for demoting him ..
But it's way different from the American system which sweeps thousand of jobs, according to [1] about 4,000 jobs directly, where then many of those bring in their assistant, advisor etc.
Yeah, I get it's different. Not saying it's the same. Just don't give me the absolute "civil servants are untouchable by politicians". It would be bad if they really were untouchable.
I never stated that. But there is a notable cultural difference between Europe and US.
This goes also further: Many offices which are elected in the US are appointed in Europe (I'm not aware of a European country where population elects state/district attorneys, sheriffs, judges, school boards, etc)
You are not wrong. Exam, raises, lateral and vertical move are decided (in most case) by:
1. The law. For example, public worker salary's are explicitly defined on a public grid, which depends on several factor (exact position, how long you have been in the job, the national public worker salary index, ...).
2. Their boss / future boss. Promotion it partly a matter of law, but also partly at the discretion of your boss. Same for a lateral move. If a position open, and you are qualified to fill it, you have to have interview just like a normal job offer.
There is a bunch a caveat and details, but that's the gist of it. So, technically, representative do have power over this. Some representatives can change the law, and some are technically more or less the boss of the top officer at some administration.
But it still make a lot of things difficult if not impossible. A mayor cannot change national law, only Deputé of the national assembly can, so he has no power over the salary of his administration. He also has no power to fire someone from the local administration unless he can prove that they did something that the law consider a fireable offense. The same would go for a minister.
Of course, in effect, they do yield a lot of influence. While public worker are very, very rarely fired, they can be moved to another position, which is easier to do and what usually happen when someone powerful want them gone without having the actual power to do so directly.
> I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy. May be lots of layers of indirection, like the need to pass or change a law, but still.
Yes, in the end of course. But these layers of indirection are extremely important. In my country right-wing politicians are currently rallying against prosecutors they think are "too lenient" with criminals. If it weren't for the indirection those prosecutors would have been replaced with the politicians' yes-friends long ago.
> For example, in a city, only the mayor and its advisers are elected, and they do not have any control over the administration of the city. But the administration cannot refuse to work with a specific mayor.
The mayor can still dictate policy and the administration have to implement it if it is not illegal, right?
You almost managed to show or administration as a competent, hard working group that has the interests of the population in mind.
The above is of course satire. We have idiotic regulations that require a good understanding of culture to get through. People are like the rest of the population: average. There are good ones send bad ones.
For the exam - it completely depends on the administration and your level.
We hate our administration because it is either complicated, or contacting them is a nightmare (or simply impossible)
Yes, but that is not the point. The point is it was a favorite attack point used by Brexit supporters. A whole lot of the accusations against the EU applied just as much - sometimes much more - to the UK itself.
We have people who frothed at the mouth over the role played by unelected bureaucrats now frothing at the mouth at proposals to remove the last hereditary Lords from our legislature...
(in fairness, those people tend to hate the Civil Service in the UK too. And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords)
> We have people who frothed at the mouth over the role played by unelected bureaucrats now frothing at the mouth at proposals to remove the last hereditary Lords from our legislature...
I do not think they are the same people. The majority of votes were to leave the EU, the majority of people want to get rid of hereditary peerages.
> And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords
The appointment is formally made by the monarch, in practice by the Prime Minister, with some recommendations coming from a commission that is not part of the house of lords.
You obviously haven't read the Telegraph or listened to many Conservative MPs recently. I don't blame you tbf!
> The appointment is formally made by the monarch, in practice by the Prime Minister, with some recommendations coming from a commission that is not part of the house of lords.
Those are life peers. Hereditary peers are, as the name suggests, people who get their access to the House of Lords by accident of birth rather than Prime Minister. But since Blair cut a deal to get rid of all but 92 of them, they have elected the 92, from a franchise consisting exclusively of people who had hereditary titles that had previously entitled them to a seat.
How few people need to vote to appoint someone before they're considered "unelected'"? The 805 Lords? The 538 of the US electoral college? The 121 Cardinals of the Conclave? The 101 of the American Senate? The 27 EU Commissioners?
An indirect democracy is you voting for a representative who votes for policies.
The EU is a doubly-indirect democracy: you vote for local politicians who appoint commissioners who vote for policies. Each layer of indirection adds a new way for popular policies to be subverted. Hell, even in the US, the single layer of indirection is already sufficient to kill things like right to repair.
> The EU is a doubly-indirect democracy: you vote for local politicians who appoint commissioners who vote for policies.
The EU Commission is the executive, not legislative branch. Though it does hold the initiative to create proposals, they have to be approved by the Council, which is where the real power lies. The Council consists of members of national governments.
Also there is a directly elected, but much less powerful, European Parliament, that has to approve the legislative too.
Indeed. That pattern was obvious even before the referendum. The UK is know for its strong civil servant body that can keep the ship afloat when the old chaps in the government have no clue which way is up. And its first past the post system. It is admirable on a lot of levels but certainly not any more democratic than the EU.
A bit; mostly as you say, but also it's a kingdom and has the House of Lords whose seats are partially heritable, partially religious appointments from the state religion with the monarch at the top, in addition to those appointed by the elected government.
> partially religious appointments from the state religion
There are also, in practice, a number of other religious appointments made to provide other religious groups with representation.
> in addition to those appointed by the elected government.
Those are the most problematic IMO. Businesspeople (because the rich do not have enough influence on politics and cannot get their voice heard?), and former politicians.
I think how it works is nicely summarised by the fact that at least one of the founders of an ecommerce website (lastminute.com) is a peer but no-one like (for example) Tim Berners-Lee is.
Alexandra Freeman [0] or Lionel Tarassenko [1] might fit your criteria as technocratic appointments to the peerage - just how "like" TBL do they have to be? Sir Timothy seems like the kind of character who could reasonably be appointed, too, if that's what he really wanted.
I agree with your point that it's dominated by businessmen and aristocrats, but maybe not quite as badly as you think.
Freeman, has spent most of her career as a science in science communication (director and producer of BBC documentaries, then a "communications" role at Cambridge).
I like TBL as an example partly because of his interest in the broader consequences of technology, and the contrast with people who have made money from the technology her inventented being peers.
In the UK (and other places like NZ/AU), public servants are permanent. They're not elected in any way.
So they are employees of their departments and don't change when a minister changes. Ministers are almost always a member of Parliament and appointed by the Prime Minister, so they can change at any time.
Usually a government will have some changes at the top of departments (the "Permanent Secretary") and high level executives, but that's also a "change of government to another party" event.
In the US we colloquially call that "career staff". The people at the top are usually political employees, but rank and file will typically stay from one administration to the next.
A big part of the "project 2025" idea was to reduce career employees and make everybody effectively a political appointee.
If you can, watch the (very) old TV series called "Yes Minister" from UK television (it's from the 70s/80s).
Sir Humphrey Appelby often explains to the Minister Jim Hacker how the Minister sets "policy" and it is the "humble public servants" that carry out that policy, having attended to the details that are required when dealing with the heavy business of government across departments, while leaving the Minister to concentrate on the "big picture", and doing his job, which is:
1. Defend the Ministry in Parliament
2. Make sure that the Ministry's budget is defended in Cabinet
The EU is governed by the European Commission, which is not elected. Say what you will about reactionary British conservatives, the fact remains that the EU is not a particularly democratic organisation.
The Bundesrat in Switzerland is also not elected directly by the people, it's elected by Congress. The Bundeskanzler in Germany are not also not elected directly by the people, they are elected by Congress.
It only shows that you have no clue how EU and it's institutions works, how they are chosen (and elected) and why it was done this way :D yes, it's a huge compromise to satisfy both direct democracy via PE and member state governments. What's more, the actual composition of the government in most of the countries is not elected either (you as a populace don't vote who would be your prime minister, nor it's cabinet... or who will new president nominate)
How is that true, if the body that nominates the European Commission _is_ elected??
By the same argument you could say UK or US or any other solidly democratic is not democratic, because some commission or organisation is not directly, by the people, elected.
(If you go for the direct election argument, the UK fares pretty badly BTW.)
> By the same argument you could say UK or US or any other solidly democratic is not democratic, because some commission or organisation is not directly, by the people, elected.
It's a matter of degree rather than a binary. Representative democracy is a little less democratic than direct democracy. Elections every 20 years are a bit less democratic than elections every 5 years. Having the elected representatives appoint a head of state is a bit less democratic than electing one directly. The more layers of indirection you add, the more it becomes a bureaucratic oligarchy.
I agree. But my point is: Neither are UK or the US really clean democracies. In the US there is an entire system of courts that operate in a completely opaque way (eg FISA court). See my other post below for further examples.
It seems here that because the EU likes to regulate more, people somehow perceive it as less democratic.
It's not so much that the EU regulates more as that it has very little accountability to the public. I think people perceive it as less democratic because it is less democratic. (Which in no way excuses the FISA court etc.).
The body that nominates the Commission isn't elected.
In theory the Commission is mostly made up of civil servants who answer to commissioners, who are themselves nominated by each country's own government or civil service. Each commissioner has one area of responsibility only, and they answer to the head of the Commission who is their boss. So someone in the UK votes for a politician, who votes for a party leader, who appoints some ministers, and those ministers may or may not have much of a say in whoever gets nominated to be a commissioner - one of many. But there is at least a path there, even if long and indirect and the person your vote ends up influencing doesn't do anything important to your country or needs.
In practice it doesn't actually work that way. In practice, the head of the Commission has veto power over the nominations. They aren't supposed to according to the treaties but the treaties are ignored. This means that in reality it's the head of the Commission who picks the Commissioners, because they can just reject anyone who isn't sufficiently aligned with their own agenda.
So that leaves the question of how the head of the Commission is picked. Once again there is theory and practice. In theory, it's a decision of the heads of each state that they take together to select some candidates, and the Parliament then gets to vote for their preferred candidate. In practice ... nobody knows how the head is picked. Ursula von der Leyen was recently re-appointed despite being plagued by scandals and having a long career of failing upwards. Parliament was sidelined by giving them a voting list with only one candidate on it (her). Seek out an explanation of how she got this job and you won't find one because:
1. The heads of state don't talk about how they decide as a group. Is it a vote? Some sort of horse trading? Do they take it in turns? Are they even all able to take part? Nobody knows.
2. There's no record of which country voted for who, or why.
3. The process by which someone even becomes a candidate is unclear.
4. Because no head of state has any control over who gets onto the candidate list, they never talk on the campaign trail about how they will "vote" (assuming that's how it works) for who runs the EU.
In other words, the process is entirely secret. The potential for corruption is unlimited.
So when critics say the EU Commission is a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, they are right and those who argue otherwise here on HN are wrong. People who got their jobs via a process so opaque and indirect that how it functions can't be explained, not even in principle, cannot claim to be democratically selected.
She was elected with a majority - albeit not a huge one. Still: elected.
This is an example of "there is at least a path there, even if long and indirect".
How about another counterexample: In the US the members of the Federal Reserve are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate (so an indirect path, but fairly short), for 14 years! The Supreme Justices are appointed for life.
To take this to a hypothetical extreme, image now calling a country "democratic" where you just hold elections once per lifetime.
That doesn't really strike me as democratic, as the "demos", the people, change their minds more often than once in 14 years, or once per lifetime.
Of course, the EU I'm sure also has appointments that go beyond the standard 4-5-ish years. But my point is: the EU isn't as undemocratic as you make it to be and the US/UK isn't as democratic as you may think. Both are muddling along, and probably neither reach Swiss levels.
> The process by which someone even becomes a candidate is unclear
Your points 1.-4. apply to many appointments in the US and UK that are similarly undemocratic: To take an example from the UK: The Governor of the Bank of England is appointed by the Chancellor+PM. Again, no one knows who or why they made the decision the way they made it. Were they friends with the future Governor? Did their party engage in some horse trading with the opposition to secure other benefits in turn for nominating a particular person? No one knows.
The governor of the Bank of England is indeed not democratically elected, and people do criticize that fact. I'm one of them!
But people certainly do know how that position is selected, by whom and for what reason. The current governor of the BoE has a long history of running government financial institutions, including in the central bank itself. He is a civil servant and is thus picked by the Chancellor, who is himself picked by the Prime Minister. No mysteries there. He is eminently qualified for the role.
On 3 June 2019, it was reported in The Times that Bailey was the favourite to replace Mark Carney as the new governor of the Bank of England.[9] Sajid Javid had also intervened in support of Bailey.[10][11] According to The Economist: "He is widely seen within the bank as a safe pair of hands, an experienced technocrat who knows how to manage an organisation."[12]
Previously he served as the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England under Mervyn King from January 2004 until April 2011, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England for Prudential Regulation under Mark Carney from April 2013 to July 2016 and Chief Executive of the Financial Conduct Authority from 2016 to 2020.
You can also even just observe the following litmus test of democratic legitimacy: what percentage of people have even heard of Ursula von der Leyen (or most of her predecessors) before her appointment to the most powerful position in the EU? Contrast that with their country's president or prime minister and you will see why one is democratically legitimate and the other is not.
The current prime minister of the uk was not elected for the position, they were given it by virtue of leading the party that won the most seats, the leadership of which was not voted for by the general public.
The monarch does not propose or pass legislation, only nominally approves it (and it would cause a huge constitutional crisis if the monarch ever failed to do so).
