The link between UK Politics and last nights announcement is pretty tenuous. We now know that Peter Capaldi (Left) is to play the Doctor in the next instalment of the long running serial taking over from Matt Smith (on the Right) who is now sporting a new hairstyle.

We won’t see Peter Capaldi play the Doctor and Matt in his swan song performance until December for the Christmas Special. This gives the producers plenty of time to do the filming without the risk that the news escapes from amongst the crew and actors, and the PR agency to sell toys and organise magazine shoots. The decision was not one that any of us could contribute to, although that didn’t diminish the interest from a significant number of people. It would be fascinating if there was a chance to decide on the subsequent Doctor, and if so who would participate in the process. A sort of X-Doctor perhaps?

The next General Election in the UK will take place, all being well in May 2015 and at that point a new Government will be formed and a New Prime Minister identified. My own expectation is that there will be a protracted discussion between the three main parties to decide which one of them will form the Government. That process in 2010 took a long weekend and so the question regarding who was in charge of the country from the Thursday election until David Cameron gained the Queens ‘approval’ on the Tuesday tested all of us. Technically it was Gordon Brown and thank goodness there were no major incidents for him to address during that time. The same may be true with the Doctor. If unexpectedly the Cyber Men or Daleks decide to invade Earth during the interregnum, will it be the unproven Peter Capaldi or the shaven headed Matt Smith that will take the controls of the Tardis?

Once the coalition was established and probably even as David Cameron was on his way to Buckingham Palace decisions were being confirmed regarding which MP from which party was to serve as a Minister. It appears that the horse trading on who would fill which portfolio was one of the factors that delayed the announcement. The beginning of any new Government is always a bit of a challenge for the country as new Ministers work very hard to master their brief. Sadly some of the horsetrading and subsequent reshuffle means that even today the Department for Education lacks a single Minister with any previous experience in teaching or training as I wrote previously. As we know from last night Peter Capaldi has only had limited exposure to time travel so thank goodness he has from now till the point when the filming is complete to master the technique. Running the Government is of course a bit more serious than Doctor Who, although I appreciate that is a personal point of view.

If future elections were followed immediately by an extension to the recess called when the election process begins, the new Ministers would have an opportunity to learn the ropes of their new brief, and perhaps do some fact finding before they make any significant decisions. Would the loss of pace in terms of a new Parliament be justified if we ultimately gained a great deal more in terms of less mistakes once these new Ministers do actually have their red boxes? I have already written about the need for Ministers to be adequately prepared for their new roles, and the Government is currently operating on a night staff basis. Last week only one Home Office Minister took part in any discussions during the media frenzy over the ‘Go Home’ vans which I wrote about yesterday. Whilst yesterday Peter Capaldi was feted as the new Doctor, it is probable that the next time we see Doctor Who, it will be Matt Smith who in the first instance plays the TimeLord. However the transition during the programme will mean that Peter takes over seamlessly. It would be great for a seamless transition in Government, but I think a delay in timing would be a big improvement on the incompetence that we saw in 2010 as Ministers took decisions that they were unprepared for.