Unless Her Majesty throws us all a curveball, Liz Truss will be the next prime minister. So let’s knock something on the head here and now: she is under no obligation to call an election before January 2025. The replacement of one prime minister with another in the middle of a parliamentary term is not a democratic deficiency. It is parliamentary democracy in action. The prime minister and their cabinet colleagues are the Queen’s ministers and when one ministry replaces another, power does not transfer directly but through the sovereign. It is the Queen who issues an invitation to form a government in her name and she does so on the basis of advice about who can command the confidence of the House of Commons. The Tories still hold a majority of seats on the green benches and, absent a revolt against Truss, she will enjoy the confidence of most MPs.

Still, we can expect some huffing and bombast over this. Labour will say that what is needed is not a new prime minister but a new government to tackle the cost-of-living crisis. Whether Labour actually wants an election at this moment, against a new prime minister who is still an unknown quantity, is another matter. The SNP will complain that Truss lacks a mandate in Scotland just as her predecessor did, and will generally be snippy about the idea of changing prime minister without calling an election. The political scientists, commentators and activist class will mutter about unwritten constitutions and antiquated political systems.

A few points in response. All parties rely on this convention and it is demagogic to pretend it is some sort of democratic outrage if Truss doesn’t swiftly call an election. Gordon Brown was installed as Labour leader and subsequently prime minister in June 2007, without a single vote being cast even by members of the Labour party. He spent 1,044 days in No. 10 before submitting his government to the people’s judgment in a general election. Similarly, Nicola Sturgeon inherited the SNP leadership from her political mentor Alex Salmond without party members being given a chance to vote. This guaranteed her victory in the ballot for First Minister, a vote restricted to members of the Scottish parliament, which the SNP controlled. It was another 532 days before the Scottish electorate was given an opportunity to vote on Sturgeon’s government.

Another problem with demanding a fresh election every time the prime minister changes is that it further embeds the creeping presidentialism everyone claims to abhor. Either you accept that the Westminster system is based on cabinet government, collective responsibility and parliamentary sovereignty or you don’t, in which case you should be up-front and make the arguments for your preferred alternative.

None of this is intended to reflect on the political wisdom of calling or not calling a snap election, the advantages and drawbacks of each option being fairly evident. Nor does it suggest that a Truss administration which broke radically with the 2019 Tory manifesto wouldn’t face problems in the House of Lords. My point is merely that it is neither constitutionally nor democratically imperative that the new prime minister call an election to secure a ‘personal mandate’.