It's the people who give us the minister, and the people should have the choice, says Jacob Rees-Mogg

It's very interesting that opinion polls are showing that voters want a general election if there's a change in leader.

If Mr. Burnham becomes prime minister, 48 per cent say there should be a general election against 35 per cent who think there shouldn't be. 17 per cent don't know.

When you look at the next question, should there be a contest for the Labour leadership? Only 23 per cent want Burnham unopposed, double that number want a contest, with a third not knowing.

Now, what's interesting about that second poll is the argument against a contest is that it causes delay, that there's indecision and so on and so forth.

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But I think voters want to know more about whoever it is who is going to lead them, and voters want to make that decision.

I know that technicalities of the Constitution, I know that we're a parliamentary democracy, and that the Prime Minister is the person who leads the biggest party in parliament and can maintain the confidence of that party.

So we had all that period with the Prime Minister being an informal post.

It wasn't recognised as an official government position until it was brought into the order of precedence at the beginning of the 20th century.

So the best part of 200 years, it didn't formally exist.

Now, it does formally exist and formally exists on the basis of a vote for a leader of a party at an election.

Not the constitutional theory, but the constitutional fact.

Voters are swayed not by the charisma and the genius of the local candidate, about whom they may well know remarkably little, particularly if that candidate is not an incumbent.

They vote for the leader who impresses them most, and I think that when people look back at those who got it unopposed, be it Theresa May or Gordon Brown, they think that didn't really work.

They weren't tested, we didn't know anything about them. And then they turned out not to be successful Prime Ministers.

And I think the electorate is right to be jealous of its prerogative to decide who the Prime Minister is.

There's a great line from Doctor Johnson about how the King gave us a minister in Walpole, and the people gave us a minister in Pitt the Elder.

Nowadays it's the people who give us the minister, and the people should have the choice.

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