4) His Majesty’s Starship, by Ben Jeapes
Gosh, you can get through a lot of sf while lying flat on your back. And oddly enough this one ties in to the grand political themes of my previous two reads as well. However it’s closer to The Ethos Effect than Heartfire, various factions of humans dealing with aliens, though in a less distant future than Modesitt was using. All good fun, if the hero is a little too admirable to be true.
It was much less prescribed under the original 1998 structure – the First Minister and Deputy First Minister had to be of different designations and approved by cross-community vote in the Assembly, but theoretically the Assembly could pick any of its members.