The most senior government ministers, such as the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign and Home Secretaries, sit permanently in every Cabinet meeting. However, some ministers such as those with responsibility for Transport or the Cabinet Office come and go depending on the importance attached to their particular portfolio by the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister controls various committees, including Standing committees, which during Margaret Thatcher’s rule were concerned with matters such as economic strategy and overseas defence policy. (Peter Madgwick, British Government: The Central Executive Territory, Oxford Polytechnic, 1991, p72). With more matters of policy being decided upon through committees, Cabinet meetings have become less important.
The Prime Minister has access to the best advice and the most secret intelligence information within government, thus often giving him/her a superior knowledge of a situation.
The Prime Minister of course holds considerable power within Parliament. This is due to the unique position of appointment and dismissal that the Prime Minister has over government ministers and colleagues. While Margaret Thatcher’s removal from power showed that it was possible for a Prime Minister to be dismissed by government ministers and colleagues, in general all peacetime Prime Ministers have generally exercised dominance within their own parliamentary party for as long as they have been able to occupy high office and maintain the support and loyalty of their own backbench Members of Parliament.
The Prime Minister has significant power and patronage, this comes from his/her unique position of advising the reigning Monarch. The Prime Minister can advise the King/Queen on a whole range of public appointments that are made in the name of the Crown. This means that many public appointments are within the gift of the Prime Minister. For example, senior posts within the Church of England the Civil Service and government departments and many other key posts within the public sector.
Technically speaking, the British Prime Minister is not the head of the Civil Service, however he/she is the boss of the head of the Civil Service and as Margaret Thatcher demonstrated, has within his/her authority to control and change the Civil Service. Margaret Thatcher was deeply hostile to the Civil Service, on becoming Secretary of State for Education in the 1970’s, she quickly found that the job of the Civil Service to offer advice on “What the department has done or what the department should do”, (H. Young, One Of Us, Macmillan, 1989, p.72) did not exactly work with her own rather despotic nature. On becoming Prime Minister in 1979, such clashes became more regular and would lead to the head of the Civil Service taking early retirement and the Civil Service Department being abolished.
In terms of political power within one’s own party, the Prime Minister has within his/her power to decide the future fortunes of their party and the political futures of many of their backbench Members of Parliament. The best example of this is demonstrated in the power of the Prime Minister to recommend to the Monarch the timing of the dissolution of Parliament. The exercise of this aspect of Prime Ministerial power can have a significant impact one way or the other on the political fortunes and destiny of the party or individual Members of Parliament concerned.
Both domestically and internationally the Prime Minister exercises considerable power due to the national and international status, standing and prestige that is attached to the office of Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is able to command vast diplomatic and military assets overseas and is ultimately in charge of the use of British nuclear weapons, which with them carry awesome responsibility and power. In the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States of America, Tony Blair (1997 -), the present British Prime Minister, has achieved a level of international prestige and power that a British Prime Minister probably hasn’t enjoyed since Winston Churchill during the Second World War.
The Prime Minister is by far the most prominent member of the government and will receive mass media coverage, which can at times lead to high levels of respect and popularity, for example the present British Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997 -) fared extremely well in the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and again following his reactions to the September 11th 2001 attacks on the United States of America, resulting in his approval ratings skyrocketing.
The Prime Minister has an office of about 100 staff to assist him, but in addition to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Prime Minister has the Cabinet Office at his disposal to provide him/her with an alternative arena or opinion. While the Cabinet Office is not solely devoted to the Prime Minister, it does tend to provide essential support for more Prime Ministerial governments.
The Prime Minister also has his/her own Press Office, the significance of which is greatly increased when noted that there is no Cabinet Press Office. The Prime Minister’s Press Office is often manned by very skilled media manipulators such as Bernard Ingham (under Margaret Thatcher) and more recently Alistair Campbell (serving Tony Blair), whose job it is to promote the Prime Minister and his/her views.
However, not everyone accepts that we now live in an era of Prime Ministerial government. While we have seen that the Prime Minister has a wide range of powers, he/she is by no means free to do entirely what they want as his/her power rests upon being the leader of a group, without whose support he/she is ineffective.
It can be argued that while the Prime Minister may have control over the Cabinet, he/she can only be as powerful as his Cabinet colleagues and party allow him to be. When a Prime Minister has to choose a Cabinet, he is often forced to include those for whom he/she may have little personal liking of, which can immediately create awkward situations and potential rivals, all of whom are likely to have their own power bases. Also while a Prime Minister is able to decide on the agenda of the Cabinet, it is unrealistic to think that in the long run, the Prime Minister could prevent a senior member of the Cabinet from forcing a subject through which they felt was significant.
The policy making powers of the Prime Minister are limited because it is impossible for a Prime Minister to have either the time or expertise to run or be involved in all aspects of government. Therefore a Prime Minister has to hand over certain aspects of his/her power to others and trust that they will be used properly and wisely.
The party organization does not always follow the will of the Prime Minister. As leader of the party, he/she must guide and influence, a Prime Minister must woo their party into agreement, not batter them into submission as Margaret Thatcher attempted to do and failed. Similarly MP’s are not bound to support their party leader but the party itself. Their loyalty is to the party and its ideology and not to a particular leader.
As the most prominent member of the government, the Prime Minister
is likely to receive high media coverage, which can be a double-edged sword and can lead to mistakes made by a government being blamed on the Prime Minister.
In conclusion, while it is evident that there are some constraints on the powers of the British Prime Minister, it is also clear that he/she remains by far the most powerful member of the government and has such a great degree of power and influence over the Cabinet, aspects of law making, media etc as to enable him/her to do as he/she sees fit, therefore it is possible to conclude that we do currently live in an era of Prime Ministerial government.
Bibliography
M. Burch, The United Kingdom in J. Blondel & F. Muller-Rommel, (eds) Cabinets in Western Europe, Macmillan, 1988
Peter Madgwick, British Government: The Central Executive Territory, Oxford Polytechnic, 1991
H. Young, One of Us, Macmillan, 1989
Michael Foley, The Rise of The British Presidency, Manchester University Press, 1993
P.J. Madgwick, Introduction to British Politics, Third Edition, Stanley Thornes (Publishers) Ltd, 1984
