Saturday, September 17, 2016

I, Prime Minister


How many people have died as a result of ACL Blair's falling-in with GW Bush's mysterious assault on Iraq? How many others in the Middle East, from DWD Cameron's overt and covert actions in the Middle East?

Thinking of Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics* (and the many related potential conundrums he explored in his stories), I wonder how we might frame general principles for Prime Ministers.

Here is my first and likely heavily flawed attempt:
  1. A Prime Minister may not [on aggregate] injure a human being or, through inaction, [on aggregate] allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A Prime Minister must obey the law, Parliamentary conventions, the British Constitution and the outcome of British plebiscites except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A Prime Minister must protect the sovereignty, security and prosperity of the nation as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Any suggestions? And what Asimov-like plot twists could arise?
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*Or four, as they later came to be: 

2 comments:

  1. A K Haart17 September 2016 at 19:00

    Sound good, although harm would have to be defined carefully for the First Law to work.

    The only other weakness I can see relates to Parliamentary conventions in the Second Law. What about the convention of lying your socks off when in a tight corner?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sackerson17 September 2016 at 21:08

    Wearing socks is not obligatory- see Erskine May and Robert's Rules of Order.

    ReplyDelete

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