Do people not understand how the British political system works?

A) You vote for who you want to be your local MP

B) Those local MPs form Parliament

C) The Party with the most local MPs becomes the party in Government

d) Whoever is the leader of that party will be the Prime Minister.

You do not vote for who you want to be Prime Minister and the party in government is entitled to choose who they want to lead them and be Prime Minister up until the next election, when you can elect a new party into power instead if you like.

Therefore the people moaning about Gordon Brown not having a mandate are talking absolute nonsense - he has a clear mandate within the current political system.

If people don't like that system that's absolutely fine but I wish they'd aay "I don't feel the system's fair" rather than the factually inaccurate "Gordon Brown does not have a mandate".