prime ministerial government

   R. H. S. Crossman, a former Oxford don and then a Labour Member of Parliament, was the first main exponent of the idea that Britain had acquired a system in which the Prime Minister had supreme power: ‘The post-war epoch has seen the final transformation of Cabinet Government into Prime Ministerial Government’, with the effect that ‘the Cabinet now joins the dignified elements in the Constitution’. His observations were matched by those of another writer and politician, Professor John Mackintosh, who similarly discerned the passing of Cabinet government: ‘The country is governed by a Prime Minister, his colleagues, junior ministers and civil servants, with the Cabinet acting as a clearing house and court of appeal’.

   Similar claims have been oft-repeated since the early 1960s, observers suggesting that a Prime Minister presiding over a single-party government and equipped with the traditional prerogatives of the Crown is immensely powerful. But it was the premiership of Margaret Thatcher which provided the debate about whether Britain has ‘government by prime minister’ with a new impetus. She appeared to stretch the power of the office to its limits. So too Tony Blair was accused of operating via a system of personal rule or ‘too presidentially’. Prime ministers are now much more visible than ever before, because of the growing trend towards international summitry and a high degree of television exposure. No occupant of Ten Downing Street since the last World War has been anything less than very powerful. Any Prime Minister today has a formidable display of powers at their disposal. Yet the thesis of prime ministerial government can be over-stated and suffers from the tendency to over-generalisation. Power can be seriously circumscribed and dependent on the circumstances of the time. It is not merely that some Prime Ministers are more powerful than others, but that any single incumbent will be more powerful at certain times than at others in the course of the premiership. Even the strongest among them are not always able to sustain the same degree of performance throughout their term.

   Prime Ministers do not have unlimited power. Individuals have made a greater or lesser impact upon the office. All have been subject to some constraints, among them: the need to maintain Cabinet support; consent on the backbenches and of Parliament as a whole; hostility in the media; and the activities of pressure groups. There has certainly been a remarkable growth in the power of the executive branch of government in the last 100 years, but the distribution of power within the Executive is liable to change at any time. If there has been a gradual trend to prime ministerial dominance, it has been characterised by an ebb and flow of power, rather than a continuous increase. A much-quoted observation by Lord Oxford (formerly Liberal PM Asquith) reflects the varying nature of political power. He judged that: ‘The office of Prime Minister is what its holder chooses and is able to make of it’. His emphasis on the ability, character and preferences of the incumbent is generally accepted, as is the role of particular circumstances.

   Further reading: R. H. S Crossman, Introduction to W. Bagehot, The English Constitution, Fontana, 1963; J. Mackintosh, The British Cabinet, Stevens, 1977