Differently, British government is parliamentary. This decides the British Prime Minister is not independent but constrained by parliament. As the PM is elected as the leader of the party who has an overall majority in the House of Commons he is held accountable by both of the House of Commons and the electorate. He also must keep loyal to his party, or he can be removed at any time. Although similar as the US president, the British Prime Minister has the executive power, he has limit on the power of patronage. He can only choose Labour MPs and Lords to appoint compared with the US president who can appoint anyone he likes. The PM even cannot appoint civil servants. Finally, in Britain, although the Prime Minister can speak for the nation internationally, not he but the Queen is the Head of the State.
Therefore, the role of Prime Minister and president is largely different. However, things have changed since 1945. The proliferation at media and communications, the impact of high speeds travel, and the demand for instantaneous responses to every event has meant Prime Minister have become less attached to Parliament. Let’s just have a look at John Major’s week: Monday in parliament, Tuesday travelled to Ireland, Wednesday joined in the meeting in Europe, then flied to Far East visiting China and Japan, at weekend went back to Britain. As we can see, the Prime Minister has to travel around the 24-hours world. There is no time for consultation. Hence, PM increasingly separates from Parliament and acts more and more independently like the US president who rarely visits Congress and whose connection with legislation is weak. Data shows that there were some 87 Cabinet meetings a year under Clement Attlee when Labour was in power in the 40s, 60 under Ted Heath in the 70s but only 40 under John Major in the 90s. Mr Blair calls even fewer. He only attended 5 votes on legislation last year.
As early as 1955 a number of academics and politicians have argued that the British government has stopped being led by the Cabinet and is more often led by the Prime Minister. For example, there was Byrum Carter in 1955, Richard Crossman in1963, Tony Benn in 1979, and more recently George Jones and Peter Hennessy. A leading academic, Michael Foley has written about the “ British President ” suggesting that Britain has had, since Margaret Thatcher particularly, a Presidential Prime Minister.
There are three main ways in which the PM has become more presidential. First is the widening of Prime Minister’s executive power. This can be particularly seen from Mrs Thatcher. Many commentators saw her as the ‘Iron Lady’ who subjecting the Cabinet to her will. She has also been accused of ‘politicizing’ the higher civil service by seeking to appoint and promote civil servants. The promotion of Peter Middleton who succeeded Douglas Wass as Permanent Secretary to the Treasury in 1983 is an example. Second, the status of the British Prime Minister is approaching to the presidential status. Economic power and military power give US president the western world leader status. He has the power to help other countries. In fact, the biggest lobby groups in the USA are countries who set up offices searching for help. The US president is also the focus of media. He gets the whole world’s attention. All of these form the president status. In recent years, the international influence of the British Prime Minister is increasing. He has strong power in the Common Wealth and the NATO. He travels around the world acting as the same way as president does. British Prime Minister is also attracting more and more attention from media. Finally, the PM is acting more presidential on appointing the Downing Street staff. In February last year, Tony Blair was forced to disclose his “presidential lifestyle” in Downing Street following the biggest expansion of jobs ever seen at No 10. According to The Guardian on March 2, 2000, Mr Blair had tripled the number of special advisers and doubled the size of his private office since he won the general election so that the Downing Street staff had risen to 149. For the first time a political appointee, Jonathan Powell, is in total charge of Downing Street and not a senior civil servant. Further more, three new Downing Street units have been created, including the one for Cherie Blair.
However, some academics argue that PM is still attached to parliamentary system and unable to act presidential. David Walker from The Guardian said in his article, “Tony Blair is less collegial than his recent predecessors in No 10 but -devolution apart – his way of governing hasn’t broken the mould”, “nothing of the usual way of doing prime ministerial business has been thrown away since May 1997”. Yes, the Queen is still the Head of State and the PM is always secondary, especially at the Common Wealth conferences. Constrains from the Cabinet, the Parliament, and the party still exist, although they are getting weaker. These decide that the British Prime Minister has not yet been completely presidential.
There is a clear case that the role of the British Prime Minister has changed considerably. However, the different system and the world position in economy and military have decide the role of the British Prime Minister will not change to be presidential in a short time. But it may happen in the future.
