The Cabinet meets as a body in order to discuss issues relevant to the country. If something is supported in the House of Commons and has Cabinet support behind it then it becomes Government policy. This means that, as a body, Cabinet decisions have what is known as collective responsibility. All members are bound to support the Cabinet even if they were not present when a discussion or decision was made. They must also “support each other in public (even if privately disagreeing)”. (Kingdom 2003, 421) If a Cabinet member cannot support a decision they must resign from their post, or it would fall to the Prime Minister to require them to do so. The most high profile member of the Cabinet to resign would be Michael Heseltine who quit Margaret Thatchers’ Cabinet in 1986 over the Westland Helicopter affair. Many people see this as an example of when a Prime Minister has become more orientated towards a Prime Ministerial Government rather than a Cabinet Government. In order to make sure the Prime Minister makes the final decision on a matter he or she puts pressure on its Cabinet members to either agree or leave. Within the Cabinet the Prime Minister is known as ‘primus inter pares’ meaning first among equals. As the chair, or ‘first’, the Prime Minister has the power to chop and change Ministers as he sees fit. This mean, although all Ministers in the Cabinet can give their opinion in a meeting, that ultimately if a Prime Minister already has an outcome in mind and a minority are opposed to the idea, they may agree to the policy in order to protect themselves as members of the Cabinet.
A Prime Minister has the chance to shape the policies by appointing a Cabinet that they believe will agree with them. Current Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has been accused of putting these so called ‘yes’ people into responsible positions in order to have a Cabinet that fully supports his ideas. People have accused him of being a control freak with a desire to have real decision making in the hands of himself and his cronies. These ‘yes’ people that some Prime Minister’s surround themselves with simply accept the Prime Minister’s wishes when it comes to real decision making. They rarely get involved in robust discussions at Cabinet and this leads me to think that the Government is becoming more Prime Ministerial with decisions being made by the Prime Minister and his close aids. This was echoed in the thoughts of Mo Mowlam who believed that the Cabinet meetings that she attended were sessions purely to support Tony Blairs’ policies. The Cabinet simply ‘rubber stamped’ what Blair wanted to happen. He could plan the agenda for each meeting and therefore had the ability to leave out issues that would cause dispute. The Prime Minister can bypass Cabinet and make decisions in small groups. Margaret Thatcher was reported to have used many small specially chosen groups to help her make decisions and to help other members of the Cabinet agree to pass these new ideas. She took the decision making out of the hands of the Cabinet and made them herself with the advice of a small number of close acquaintances. Tony Blair is also reported to use small groups similar to the ways of Margaret Thatcher. This therefore means circumventing the ‘proper’ ways of doing things. It also means that by using a small group of closer members of Cabinet the Prime Minister can have a suggestion passed and then supported by the collectiveness of the Cabinet decision making. This then meant that all the members of the Cabinet would openly support the idea even if they disagreed with it, and even if they never fully discussed it in Cabinet meetings.
Some recent event where small groups of people made important Cabinet decisions are;
- In 1982 Margaret Thatcher suspended her Cabinet in favour of a ‘war Cabinet’ to discuss the Falklands.
- John Major brought in a ‘war Cabinet’ to discuss the Gulf War of 1991
- Tony Blair used a small Cabinet to pass the idea that tobacco advertising would be allowed at Formula One events.
I feel this explains how over the past few years Cabinet meetings have become shorter and fewer. A Prime Minister discusses their policies with a few people then in the Cabinet meeting on a Thursday the idea can be passed with little or no conflict. An alleged comment of a member of a Cabinet meeting was “if that’s what Tony wants, we should vote for it.” This backs up how the Prime Minister’s power has grown over the Cabinet as more people in the meetings have began agreeing with the Prime Minister rather than arguing and risk being ‘re-shuffled’. They have in a sense passed on power of decision making to the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister’s “position at the centre of the Cabinet committee system enhances his or her power.” (Coxall & Robins 1998, 266)
I feel this statement, from Contemporary British Politics, reflects what I have previously said about a Prime Ministerial Government. As the Prime Minister chairs the Cabinet, chooses the members and also writes the agenda he is at the heart of the Cabinet and can pull the strings to enable him to pass whichever policies he or she wishes. The Prime Minister can therefore choose to make the real decisions in the ‘proper’ way, thru the Cabinet, or choose to be the major decision maker within each policy. This is however not to say that this is a good thing.
Margaret Thatcher was a very distinctive Prime Minister. It is said that the decline of the Cabinet gathered momentum under her premiership. There was a reduction in the number of Cabinet meetings and the papers distributed to the Cabinet. These were that basis of collective decision making, yet Margaret Thatcher seemed to rely heavily on ad hoc groups and her policy unit to help her make decisions. She shaped her Cabinet offices to enable her to exploit them to the full and have her policies backed up. She was a dominant Prime Minister who was very much a Prime Ministerial Government idealist. She shunned the Cabinet Government and therefore lost a lot of support from important Ministers. During her time in Government Margaret Thatcher moved real decision making within the Cabinet to real decision making from the Prime Minister. She, being in charge of the agenda, was able to discuss topics she felt would make good policies, and then pass them collectively through the whole Cabinet.
John Major however was described as the antithesis of Margaret Thatcher. He lacked an agenda of his own where as Margaret Thatcher dominated the meetings she had with her own policies. He was also seen as a team player and not an individualist. The Cabinet under John Major became more collegial. They made important decisions for example council tax, and he also had great concerns with the Northern Ireland peace process that he wished to discuss. Whereas Margaret Thatcher would have discussed these issues entirely with smaller groups, John Major favoured a Cabinet Government and therefore let real decision measure lie with the Cabinet.
After Margaret Thatcher, John Major seemed to be ‘colourless’. He was always portrayed as grey in the television programme ‘Spitting Image’. It seemed that the public preferred a Prime Minister like Margaret Thatcher, and they got another after John Major. This brings us to Tony Blair; the present day Prime Minister. Tony Blairs’ leadership within the Cabinet was much like the leadership of Margaret Thatcher. His Cabinet meetings last less than an hour, and their importance seems to have declined much more under Tony Blair even in comparison to Margaret Thatcher. His meetings seem too short to be useful for any discussions, or indeed to make any real decisions. He, like Margaret Thatcher, likes to meet in small groups, and pulls away from a Cabinet Government. This shows how, at present, our Government seems to be a far more Prime Ministerial Government than a Cabinet run Government, thus enabling the Prime Minister to make most real decisions.
In conclusion I find it hard to believe that the Government would be fully presidential but I do believe that it is moving away from a Cabinet Government to a Prime Ministerial Government. The Prime Minister has begun making more decisions with small group and can therefore influence them to agree with his ideas. He still meets with the twenty-two strong Cabinet in order to pass the policies as a collective decision, yet it is the Prime Minister who has put the ideas on the agenda and chosen people from his ‘yes’ Cabinet to support them to the rest of the members. I think that the Government may switch between Prime Ministerial and Cabinet run depending on the Prime Minister. As we saw with John Major there was a more Cabinet based Government, yet Tony Blair has created a Government where he can make real decisions.
The Prime Minister’s office continues to grow in size and it is becoming clear that the members of the Cabinet seem to feature less and less in major discussions. The Prime Minister can remove and ‘re-shuffle’ any member of the Cabinet that he does not feel is one of his ‘yes’ members. He therefore can manipulate the Cabinet to pass the policies he agrees with, and bypass those he does not want to discuss. It is also clear that the Cabinet members can do nothing if the Prime Minister chooses to discuss policies in small groups rather than the whole Cabinet. The Prime Minister therefore makes the major decisions within the Cabinet. I feel it is Tony Blair that has the real power within the current Cabinet and the real decision making lies with him.
Bibliography
Kingdom J (2003) Government and Politics in Britain, an Introduction, Polity Press
Coxall B and Robins L (1998) Contemporary British Politics, Macmillan Press
N (1999) Prime Minister and Cabinet Government,
Catterall P (Ed.) (2003) The Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years 1950-1957, Macmillan Press
I (2000) Power and Politics, Hodder & Stoughton
(2003) ‘10 Downing Street’ Accessed 12/11/2003
(2003) ‘In Depth: The Cabinet’
Accessed 12/11/03
