Discuss the view that the power of the Prime Minister is in decline
At the current time, their is a wide held belief that the power of the Prime Minister is falling. This is mainly due to the coalition government, and the power than the minority Liberal Democrat party now has over the Conservatives and the Prime Minister. The power of the Prime Minister is in question as it seems that due to the coalition, the Prime Minister is unable to get things done because he is being forced into compromise so that the bill can be passed in a form that both coalition parties can put their backing to. the coalition has meant that there has to have a higher sense of “collective responsibility” decisions have to be made with more of the cabinet involved so that that there is a sense of bipartisanship and so that a Bill is not being shouted down on the floor of the Commons by a member of the government that is presenting it to the House as a whole.
There is copious evidence of the Prime Minister’s dominance over the political system. For example, there has most certainly been a decline in ‘Collective Ministerial Responsibility’ in recent years. The premiership of Tony Blair was marked by criticism over decision-making without adequate debate. This lack of debate gives the Prime Minister greater power of the government, as it is easier for them to get their own ideas across at the expensive of others. The Blairite style government saw the length of cabinet meetings, which had been over an hour and a half under Thatcher, fall to 40 minutes, or in many cases, less. Instead, a “sofa style government” filled the place of the cabinet. This meant that decisions were made in bi or tri lateral meetings with Blair and an advisor and or minister for the relevant department that the decision would impact upon. This was done by Blair to cut down on the red tape affair that stopped so much legislation getting passed. It was also something that happened in a similar way under Thatcher. While this is different from what happened. It many ways, the removal of the discussion and then agreeing was a way of giving more power to the Ministers as it meant that, in a bilateral meeting, they could say what they want as they would not have to worry so much about what their peers thought, but rather could give their honest opinion to the Prime Minister on the issue. An example of this would be that Blair only consulted Gordon Brown when putting the Bank of England in charge of interest rates. The Cabinet had not even discussed it, showing that the prime minister does have an increased amount of power than in previous years.
