First Among Equals?

 We have two types of questions on political structures that could come up:  The first is something to do with the ability of the Executive (government) to

control/dominate Parliament (Scottish and Westminster if you are doing Higher Politics)  The second is to do with the ability of the Prime Minister (and First Minister – if doing

Higher Politics) to dominate their own cabinets  The first question we have kind of covered with the Parliament stuff that we did – it is

almost the question that we have done but flipped around, that Parliament is controlled by the Executive through whipping, control of the timetable, etc  The second we will look at now

 The Westminster system of government is based on what is referred to as Cabinet

government.  We have quite an odd system of government, because our Prime Minister and

government ministers in all departments are all Members of Parliament and sit in the House of Commons (generally, though there are some in the House of Lords – I am choosing to ignore these for the purposes of getting through this sharpish)  The Prime Minister is not directly elected by the people (like the President of the USA

is) – he/she is the leader of the biggest party following the election. David Cameron is an MP. He is up for re-election in his constituency in May, same as every other MP. If he lost his constituency he would no longer be an MP and even if the Conservatives won enough other seats, he would no longer be PM.

 This is why he is referred to as PM, he is not the Head of State – that’s the Queen –

he is her First Minister – her Prime Minister, and historically that meant her Chief advisor.

 Is the traditional phrase associated with the powers of the Prime Minister – he is “First

Among Equals”. This denotes that he is first of all an MP, then a Minister. He is First among the Ministers in the Cabinet. This is to imply that the Cabinet have power over the Prime Minister too – he is not all powerful over them.

 However in recent decades the nature of the Prime Minister’s relationship with cabinet

has been questioned, and some have argued that there has been a “creeping presidentialism”, which would suggest that the Prime Minister is getting stronger, while the Cabinet are reduced in their ability to control him/her.

 Is the Prime Minister still First Among Equals?

 A complication in analysing the role of the PM is that there is so little written down

about what they have to do. This is in contrast for example with the role of the President of the USA which is very clearly defined in the US constitution. For the PM there is no such rule book. There is plenty that they probably should do, and lots that they can do, but very unclear on what has to happen.  This means that a large part of the role of the PM depends on the personality of the

person in the job, and therefore there have been many different types of PMs, who have used the powers in very different ways.

 The first and possibly most important power the PM has, which immediately sets

him/her above their cabinet is the power to hire and fire ministers. The PM is in charge of shaping his/her gov.  So most people who become MPs may be seen as people who might like to progress

to become government ministers – this means that they may be likely to show loyalty to the whip. This gives the PM the opportunity to award loyalty and shape his/her gov with people who follow his/her ideological viewpoint.

 Government salaries are higher than normal MPs salaries, and the role of a minister

has a higher profile and status attached to it. The Prime Minister has about 100 Ministerial roles to fill, including the top 22/23 cabinet roles, which are the highest profile heads of the big departments. Therefore the Prime Minister has a big opportunity to award the loyal

 Furthermore, the different status attached to different departments allows the PM even

more opportunity to shape the government.  Within Cabinet the table is oval shaped. The Prime Minister sits at the centre. He is

in charge of the seating plan in Cabinet, and will place his most important and trusted Ministers closest to him. This means they are given more say within cabinet meetings.  The highest status job is Chancellor of the Exchequer, then the high ranking

departments are the ones that spend most money – so there is Health, Home Office, Defence, Work and Pensions, Education, Foreign Office. These are all seen as big important and respected roles in Cabinet – though sometimes the roles of Home Secretary and Health Secretary are seen as “poisoned chalices” which are most often hated by the public – so these may be given to people the PM sees as rivals.

 Another reason why the PMs ability to hire and fire gives him/her power over the

cabinet, is the doctrine of collective responsibility.  This basically means that if anything is decided on in cabinet – then no matter what

the Minister’s personal view might be, whether they love or hate the idea, they must support it in public. They are held collectively responsible for all decisions of the government.

 This is a great way for the PM to control potential rivals within his own party.  Remember all of these people are politicians, they all really want to be PM. The PMs

greatest rivals for the job may not be in the other party, they may be in his/her own party. They may be waiting in the wings for a weakness or failure on the part of the PM, so that they can jump in and take over.  Collective responsibility allows the PM to keep his friends close, but his enemies

closer.

 There are limits on the PMs ability to fully use these powers.  Firstly the ability to hire and fire can be seriously constrained. The PM has about 100

posts to fill, and if he/she is lucky they may have about 350 MPs to fill them. That means there is only a maximum of 3.5 MPs to choose from for each role. There will be some who have to be discounted because there are some who do not want to be Ministers, or who are not capable of the role. There is also the fact that many MPs are elected several times in a row and may spend many years in Parliament – this means that there is not a lot of “new blood” for the government, a lack of fresh ideas and perspectives, moving further away from the people.  This means that there aren’t that many choices the PM can make.  The same is true of Cabinet – quite often Ministers just get moved around

departments, there aren’t that many spaces to fill, but there aren’t that many ready to do them.

 The PM may have people in his/her party who are too important and popular to leave

out of cabinet. And sometimes these Ministers are so powerful that they can pretty much demand which role they want.  These people might be too powerful to leave on the backbenches, as they might

cause too much disruption in arguing against the government and be seen as troublemakers. They may even challenge for the leadership of the party at Party conference time, as they may have a lot of backbench support in the party– this can de-stabilise the PM, who will be seen as weak if he/she cannot control the members of the party. The PM might see it as being the best thing to do to include these people in cabinet and bind them by collective responsibility.  Gordon Brown had significant power within the Labour Party while Tony Blair was PM,

he had to be included in cabinet, and the only role he would accept would be the highest status and most powerful role of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

 Prime Ministers who have been in power for some time tend to find that they have this

problem of cabinet ministers becoming powerful and making a name for themselves in cabinet.  When a PM is new he/she tends to have much more control over their party, when

they have been in power for a while and people have become more established they tend to see different power bases being established as people in the cabinet line up to replace them.  So at the moment David Cameron could see George Osborne and Theresa May as

potential successors, but the most significant threat at the moment is from Boris Johnson. Boris is considered the most significant political celebrity in the UK, and so the PM will be obliged to give him a proper job in cabinet this summer. The Euro referendum is making this even more of an issue, as Boris seems to be taking the lead of the Leave EU campaign , deliberately setting himself up against Cameron. If the UK votes to leave, Cameron will probably have to resign, and this will leave Boris in the strongest position to replace him as Conservative leader and PM. So, because of recent events, the PM has lost some power to control who is in his cabinet.

 For Gordon Brown the powerful enemy was David Miliband  For John Major it was Michael Portillo  For Margaret Thatcher it was Michael Heseltine

 For each of these PMs the rival was forever there in the background, seen by the

media as a potential replacement, casting doubt on the ability of the PM.  The existence of these threats would be an argument that the PM is not always in

control of who is in their cabinet and what role they are in.

 Coalition government – always mention this  As part of the coalition government the Liberal Democrats were allowed to appoint 5

ministers to cabinet (including Nick Clegg who had to be Deputy Prime Minister). This meant that David Cameron has given up control over ¼ of his cabinet.  If a Lib Dem left cabinet they had to be replaced by another Lib Dem – and Nick Clegg

got to choose who. Like when Chris Huhne had to step down from cabinet as Energy and Climate Change Sec, he was replaced by Ed Davey.  David Cameron had lost an important power to discipline – when Business Secretary

Vince Cable made some ill-advised comments about media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, if he had been a conservative he would definitely have been sacked, but because he was too powerful within the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg had to keep him.

 Can also be argued that not all MPs are in it to become government Ministers.  David Cameron’s Conservative Party since 2010 has been more ideological, many

MPs have shown themselves to be unwilling to give up their principles in order to join government, and would rather stay on the backbenches and cause trouble, particularly over the issue of European Union – people like David Davis would be an example of this  The Parliament between 2010 and 2015 was the most rebellious since the war.

 The Prime Minister is the Chair of Cabinet this means that at the weekly Cabinet

meetings, cabinet ministers will meet together and discuss the items that are put on the agenda.  If an item is not on the agenda, then it won’t be discussed, this is an important power.

Tony Blair used this power to keep the issue of the Iraq War out of cabinet discussions, so Ministers like Clare Short and Robin Cook found it difficult to express their opinions against the war and eventually had to resign from Cabinet

 Another important ability is the power to actually call meetings. Under Clement Attlee

PM in the 1940’s, there would be about 80 meetings of the cabinet per year, and each meeting would last 2 hours. Under Tony Blair this reduced to about 40, and each only lasted 45 mins. He always had the same 4 open items on the agenda, and limited discussion as far as possible – there was no real time for questioning of policy.

 In that time there was nowhere near enough time to talk about all the important

aspects of the work of all departments.  David Cameron has called for a return to Cabinet government – he has increased the

number of cabinet meetings to one a week (still not the same number as Attlee), but each one lasts for 2 hours.

 The Prime Minister as Chair of the cabinet is under no obligation to take votes in

Cabinet on decisions. If the majority of people in cabinet are against a decision, the PM may still decide to go the other way – all he/she does is “take the feel of the meeting”, and this means that there are some people whose opinions he values more than others.

 In the past Cabinet meetings were an opportunity for the heads of all the departments

to come together, talk about what was happening in their departments – ask questions, and also to make suggestions about what other departments should be doing. They were an opportunity for full and frank debate before the collective responsibility outside cabinet would kick in.

 But cabinet changed over time. In reality under Thatcher’s time most decisions were

taken by “cabinet committees” (talk about what they are in a min). It was argued that there is too much going on in gov for every dept head to know everything about what is going on in other depts.

 Tony Blair was accused by the Butler review of operating “Sofa government”. This

meant that when a decision had to be made in government, he didn’t have a cabinet meeting where everyone would discuss and official minutes (notes) of what was said would be taken – as should be the case with cabinet government. What he did instead was invite the minister round to have a coffee. They would sit on a sofa and have an informal chat, and no minutes would be taken, but they would agree the policy, no-one else in government would know what was going on.

 This was a massive criticism of Blair, and a big blow to the power of cabinet. David

Cameron has moved away from this system, because of coalition government he now has to spend much more time consulting in cabinet meetings, and more people have to be involved.

Ability of the PM to direct law-making in the UK

In the past the cabinet would be the place where ministers would come along and discuss the work of the whole government – it would not just be a place to keep others informed of what you were doing, other ministers would have an opportunity to ask questions and make suggestions about the work of departments. Under Margaret Thatcher this changed significantly, it was felt that government did too much for ministers to be so aware of the work of other departments so she set up “cabinet committees”, this was smaller groups of ministers who would be consulted on particular issues. So when she went to war in the Falklands, she had a cabinet committee which included the Minister for Defence, the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to have more in-depth discussions and make decisions, and then report back to full cabinet. Cabinet Committees are where most government policy is decided before full cabinet.

 The tradition of cabinet committees has continued and increased over the years.

There are some permanent cabinet committees and some that are just set up in times of a particular crisis  At any one time there are about 50 different cabinet committees going. When there

was flooding in Jan 2014 there was a cabinet committee set up to help deal with it. There is a permanent Cabinet committee called COBRA which deals with any threats to National Security. COBRA met recently in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Belgium, to coordinate the UK’s response to these attacks.  COBRA was chaired by Nick Clegg –That such an important cabinet committee was

chaired by a Lib Dem, is a sign of the power that the PM had to give up in order to maintain a coalition government. This is evidence of the PM having less power over cabinet now than in the past.

 Because the PM gets to decide who is in each cabinet committee this is a sign of

strength for the PM, it means that he/she can shape government decisions by placing the people he wants in the most important committees.  He/She can marginalise the people he is not so impressed with.  However, under coalition government, the PM must agree membership of cabinet

committees with Nick Clegg – an important check on the PM’s power.

 Traditionally, upon election of a majority government, we would expect that

government to be able to put into action all of the policies that were included in the party’s manifesto.  We expect a PM to be able to govern and make decisions, this is the way that British

Politics has worked over the past century.  However during coalition government, compromises had to be made between the two

parties in government – and it is not clear whether either party has a mandate to do what was in their manifesto – as neither of these parties got a majority.

 Now every controversial policy has to go through the “quad” this consists of David

Cameron and George Osborne for the Conservatives and Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander for the Lib Dems - this is called “coalitionising” policies

 Following the 2015 election, it was clear that it was the leadership of David Cameron

which caused the Conservatives to win, and so as the party won with a majority, it seemed they had a mandate to carry out the policies in their manifesto.  However, this time David Cameron got a very short “honeymoon period” as one of his

policies was to hold a referendum on continued membership of the EU. This has caused a deep divide within his party and means that people are now questioning his leadership.

 Because the PM is the person most associated with government, this gives them a

sense of power and authority in the country.  The PM is most likely to be featured on the news regularly, many people cannot name

that many members of the cabinet, but most people know who the PM is, and what he looks like.  Although this might be seen as a source of power over the rest of cabinet, it could also

be an area in which the PM is weak, as if the government are being seen as making poor decisions and getting stuff wrong, then it is the PM who will soak up the blame in the eyes of the public.

 It has been suggested that the power of a PM over cabinet is directly related to how likely     



they are to win the next election. A PM that is popular in the country is a lot less likely to face rebellion in cabinet. However if the party get the sense that the PM is unpopular amongst voters, they are more likely to be more difficult to control. For example Margaret Thatcher was forced out by her own cabinet, when it was clear she had lost popularity. Tony Blair was basically forced to step down by Gordon Brown, because he had become so unpopular due to the Iraq war. Gordon Brown was plagued with constant calls to resign by members of his own cabinet – like Caroline Flint David Cameron is known to be more popular than his party are in the opinion polls, so has faced very little rebellion in cabinet, until now, with the Euro referendum approaching. Ian Duncan Smith has resigned from cabinet, and ministers had to be allowed to campaign against Cameron’s position – which is a sign of weakness.

 The PM has no dept of their own. 100 years ago they used to be the Chancellor of

the Exchequer too, but these roles have been divided.  This could be seen to make the PM more powerful as they are in a position to watch

over all departments, and are seen as the overseer of government.  They make decisions about macro areas.  They have a staff of over 70 advisers who help them in this role.  However, some could say this is a position of weakness as they are expected to know

so much about the work of government, and so they are unlikely to really know the detail in each department.  Some said that the real power in Cabinet is in the position of Chancellor of the

Exchequer. It is now known that Gordon Brown prevented Tony Blair form doing much of what he wanted to do – like greater reform of the Health Service and joining the Euro.

 The way they carry out the job, their personal style and personal attributes are central

to how effective they are and how powerful they are in cabinet.  There are, broadly speaking, two different types of PM.  Authoritarian Centralisers – this is the type of PM who wants ultimate control over the

cabinet. They want control over what every member of the cabinet does, and control cabinet with an iron rod. Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair fell into this category.  The problem is these PMs can often be seen to be too controlling.  Consultative Delegators – this is the type of PM who want to let cabinet ministers have

more control over their own departments. They want to build consensus and have the whole cabinet agreeing with decisions. John Major was more of this kind of a PM  The problem is these PMs can often be seen to be too weak.

 Because by the time a PM is kicked out of power, they are generally pretty unpopular,

the next PM tends to go against the style of the previous PM.  So John Major reacted to the negative view that the public had of Thatcher, by trying

to be very different, trying to give more power to members of the cabinet. The problem here was that other members of the cabinet sensed his weakness and seemed to be trying to undermine him at every opportunity.  Other members of the cabinet seemed to be trying to build up their own power bases

and trying to replace him.  When Blair won the next election, he was a sharp contrast to the leadership of the

Major government. He wanted to know what everyone was doing, and wanted to make sure all cabinet ministers stayed “on message”

 So he would make every cabinet minister clear anything they were about to say to the

press with his office first. He employed some very tough special advisers to keep cabinet ministers in line. The most famous of these were Alasdair Campbell and Jonathan Powell.  When Gordon Brown came to power, he was aware of the accusations of “sofa

government” that had plagued Blair, so he tried to be more consultative. Unfortunately this was very against the type of personality that Gordon Brown had. Therefore he always came across as pretty fake when trying to seem like he was building consensus in his cabinet. He was deeply unpopular and members of his cabinet were again building power bases and trying to replace him

 David Cameron has referred to himself as a Chairman rather than a Chief Executive.  He works 9-5. Sharp contrast to Brown who wanted to be consulted on everything

even if it meant being woken during the night  He has been very unusual in the way that he has brought in a period of total change in

government, major policies have been brought in by his government – but he has let ministers have control over this themselves.

 He has not had a totally hands-on control of his cabinet. Ian Duncan Smith – control over Universal Credit George Osborne – austerity Michael Gove – Free Schools

 The ability to hold the coalition government together has a lot to do with the

personalities of David Cameron and Nick Clegg.  They both get on well and have formed a good partnership.  They are similar ages and have similar social and educational backgrounds.  A more authoritarian PM may have found it more difficult to hold the partnership

together.

 So the power of the PM to control cabinet can be dependent on their own personal

style.

 At the end of all things – I suppose you could say that the PM has ultimate control –

because it is he/she who has the say over whether the UKs nuclear weapons are used.  Contemporary Historian Peter Hennessy has pointed out that one of the first jobs of a

new PM is to be taken to the nuclear bunker and write down instructions for the commander of our nuclear subs to follow, should the UK be hit in a nuclear war.  If the Commander fears that London is destroyed and the PM is dead, he/she must

follow the instructions written for him/her – either use the nukes or not.

 As a means of keeping the coalition together all policies have to pass through the

quad –

 This severely limits the ability of the PM to carry through all of their policies.  So coalition has been a significant limit on the power of the PM

 The Lib Dems have managed to soak up most of the hate for any unpopular

Conservative policies.  People expect to hate the Conservatives – the nasty party.  However, people expect the Lib Dems to be much “nicer”. So when the Cons put in

place policies like austerity and tuition fees – it is the Lib Dems that everyone blames, for putting them into power.

 This has meant that the Lib Dems may be able to threaten to pull out of the coalition,

but in actual fact this is a pretty empty threat as the Lib Dems could not afford to have another election, they are the most poorly funded of the three main parties, and elections are pretty expensive.

 The PM used to have the ability to set the date for the general election – as long as it

was within five years of the last one.  This was a huge advantage for the PM as they could call an election, with only 40

days notice, at a time when they were popular in the country, and therefore more likely to win.  The PM has given up that power now, as we have known since the coalition was set

up when the date of the next election would be. There is a “fixed term” act in Parliament, calling for Parliaments to last five years. However it is not clear whether this will hold, a future Parliament may decide to go back to a system of choosing a date, as some have felt this Parliament has gone on too long.

 Go through each power of the PM and show how cabinet or coalition can limit that

power  How effective are the limits on PM power?  Make a judgement over whether the PM really is First Among Equals (i.e. a member of

a cabinet government), or whether we have Prime Ministerial government – where the PM dominates.