Debate regarding Prime Ministerial and Presidential government

Question 1

Why is the idea that the PM is effectively (although not legally) the head of state and leader of the nation imply that the PM has become more of a President?

Answer 1

In times of difficulty, emergency or crisis - war or terrorist threats - the country can unite behind its head of government. It’s argued that there’s nothing new in this, but it can also be argued that there has been a long-term drift towards seeing the PM rather than the monarch as the national leader.

Question 2

Why does the PMs extensive network of personal advisers, think tanks, policy units and working groups imply that the PM has become more of a President?

Answer 2

They serve him alone and aren’t available to the rest of the government unless he wants them to be. So just as the US President has his own White House staff and large executive office, the PM has his own ‘government department’, mostly in Downing Street. It used to be the case that the PM was at a disadvantage when negotiating with ministers as they had huge departments of civil servants to assist them, while he, the PM had very little.

Question 3

How does the growing importance of the media in politics imply that the PM has become more of a President?

Answer 3

There’s a greater concentration on the individual holder of the PM office rather than government as a whole. PM’s now have large groups of advisers to enhance their media image and control the flow of information coming out of Downing Street. Perhaps, either as a result of this, or coincidentally, the public have come to see government in terms of its leader rather than as a collection of ministers and MPs. This is a double edged sword for the PM, as he can claim credit for the successes of the government in general, but he also takes personal blame for their failures regardless of his own role.

Question 4

Why has the undoubted growth of foreign and military affairs contributed to a presidential ‘feel’ for the office of PM?

Answer 4

When the head of government has to negotiate with foreign powers, attend international conferences, negotiate treaties, conduct wars and meet visiting dignitaries, he’s bound to appear presidential. Indeed at large conferences he will be seen rubbing shoulders with the presidents of France and the USA, who represent their countries on these occasions. Thatcher (with Reagan), Major (with Clinton) and Blair (with Clinton and Bush Jnr) all forged close links with US Presidents. Furthermore, all of these 3 PM’s led the country into important foreign wars.

Question 5

How does the concept of spatial leadership imply that the PM has become more of a President?

Answer 5

A new theory of PM power suggests that political systems are increasingly led by leaders who consider themselves to be distinctly separate from the rest of the government. This separateness gives rise to the term spatial. Presidents are naturally spatial leaders, as they are elected separately from the rest of government and therefore have a different source of authority and are accountable directly to the people. This hasn’t been the case with the British PM, nevertheless, as the role has become more dominant there has been a tendency for the office holder to see himself as separate from government and, to some extent, to have his own mandate directly from the people.

Question 6

What is the ‘Cabinet Office’?

Answer 6

It is situated in Downing Street and is a relatively small organisation.

Question 7

What was the ‘Cabinet Office’ until the 1960s?

Answer 7

Largely administrative and existed to serve the whole Cabinet and didn’t become directly involved with policy making.

Question 8

How has the ‘Cabinet Office’ grown since the 1960s?

Answer 8

It has shifted from serving the government as a whole, to serving mainly the PM and has become far more concerned with the development of policy. This means that, wherever policy needs to be coordinated between different departments the Downing Street organisation is in a position to develop strategy. This enables the PM to play a pivotal role and so appear to be dominating government.

Question 9

Give examples of coordinated action in the Cabinet Office?

Answer 9

Measures to combat youth crime, terrorism, drug abuse, child poverty and homelessness in recent times.

Question 10

Give examples of some of the most important elements of the PM’s policy advice organisation under Cameron

Answer 10

The Policy Unit
Prime Minister's Private Office
The Director of Political Strategy
Political Strategy Unit
Effectively, the PM has an establishment of several hundred advisers who work directly or indirectly for him.

Question 11

Who developed the concept of spatial leadership?

Answer 11

Michael Foley and he suggests that some leaders deliberately make themselves outsiders in government. They separate themselves from its other members and so are able to act independently, but also to remain part of government itself.

Question 12

How did Thatcher and Reagan take spatial leadership a step further?

Answer 12

They criticised government and suggested that they tended to be inefficient, wasteful and simply tried to do too much. Reagan expressed the issues thus: ‘Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.’

Question 13

How did Thatcher criticise Government?

Answer 13

She was promising to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state’ and was roundly criticising the civil service for its conservatism and wastefulness and wasn’t averse to openly opposing her own ministers.

Question 14

What did Thatcher and Reagan’s popularity enable them to do?

Answer 14

To appeal to people above the heads of their own party leadership, most famously Thatcher eventually decided to use her own advisers on economic policy and to bypass her own Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, a tactic which ultimately led to his resignation in 1989 and contributed to her own demise a year later.

Question 15

How was John Major a spatial leader?

Answer 15

This wasn’t necessarily through choice, as he had to separate himself from large parts of the government simply as they were his political enemies. He wasn’t powerful enough to remove them so he had to try to govern without them. He was also something of an outsider, as he was generally more popular in the country than the government as a whole. He was trusted and they were not.

Question 16

How was Tony Blair a spatial leader?

Answer 16

Chose to adopt certain policies as his own - foreign affairs, Northern Ireland, education and health - and attempted to dominate the political agenda by introducing his own policy initiatives above the heads of the relevant ministers. In areas where he didn’t chose to become involved - the economy, poverty relief and the environment - he left matters very much to his ministers. In this way, he became an outsider. When we add this to his total domination of foreign policy, we see a PM who was indeed very separate from the rest of government.

Question 17

How can Blair be seen as a President?

Answer 17

He dominated some parts of the domestic political agenda, but his real preference lay in foreign and international affairs.
Took a world lead in supporting US Middle East policy
Took a close interest in world environmental issues (though not domestic ones), in world poverty and in the reform of EU finances and its political structure.
Made periodic attempts to solve the Northern Ireland problem and eventually achieved a final settlement.
He appeared more comfortable in these roles and was certainly more popular and respected abroad - on the world stage he was a President.

Question 18

How did Blair’s Presidential style negatively impact him?

Answer 18

His world stage presentation as a President to some extent rebounded on him at home where he became less popular in his second and third terms. Furthermore, the British resented his presidential style, especially after the failure to find the much promised ‘WMD’ in Iraq. Thus respect abroad was countered by lack of trust at home.

Question 19

How can it be argued that Blair wasn’t a President?

Answer 19

The political opposition to him and his governments was weak. He saw off 4 different Conservative leaders and the Liberal Democrats failed to make the major impact they had hoped for after 1997. It could therefore be said that Blair dominated not through his own efforts, but through the failings of others. But this counter-analysis doesn’t alter the fact that Blair became a major international statesman.

Question 20

Why is it suggested that David Cameron wasn’t as dominant a leader as Tony Blair was?

Answer 20

As a coalition leader Cameron doesn’t have a secure parliamentary majority
His Cabinet, being a coalition, isn’t as ideologically united as Blair’s
Cameron seems to be, by nature, a more consensual than Blair
His government is inevitably constrained by the need to reduce government debt. He’s therefore unable to contemplate many major reforms. Where he has proposed reforms - of the NHS and the welfare system - he has run into far more opposition than Blair faced.

Question 21

How does Cameron appear Presidential?

Answer 21

On the world stage, as his rapid action when the Libyan revolution was threatened in 2011 won him widespread respect. He is also maintaining a robust defence of British sovereignty in the face of moves towards greater European integration.

Question 22

How does Professor Peter Hennessy argue against the presidential thesis?

Answer 22

He suggests that the office of PM is an extremely flexible one and the holder of it can do what they wish with it. Some seek to dominate, while others are either unable or unwilling to do so. The actual powers and limitations of the office haven’t, he argues, changed a great deal in modern times. What has happened is that Britain has seen two very dominant individuals - Thatcher and Blair - who have been able to squeeze as much power from the office as possible. The weaker premierships of Edward Heath, John Major and James Callaghan prove that presidential style isn’t inevitable.

Question 23

Why does a change of ‘style rather than substance’ argue against the presidential thesis?

Answer 23

The PM may seem to be more Presidential - largely the result of media attention and the importance of foreign policy - but in fact they are subject to the same constraints that have always existed. This was most clearly seen with Thatcher, who ultimately was reined in by her own party leaderships when she attempted to implement a policy (the introduction of a local poll tax) against their wishes.

Question 24

What theory does Professor George Jones offer that argues against the presidential thesis?

Answer 24

The ‘elastic’ theory and it suggests that, as a PM tries to stretch the powers of the office further and further (a tendency among PM’s who have been in office for a long time), the forces of constraint become increasingly strong. This applies to Thatcher, who gained increasing numbers of enemies as she sought to exercise more and more control. Eventually the enemies turned on her when they felt they had enough strength to remove her. Many suggest that Tony Blair went his way in his second and third terms.

Question 25

How does Gordon Brown give us evidence to argue against the presidential thesis?

Answer 25

He suffered from lack of personal popularity, as he had never faced the electorate as PM (he became leader of Labour without an election) and perhaps above all he was unfortunate enough to preside over the devastating credit crunch and the economic recession that followed it. We can say that Brown is the classic modern example of a PM whose power was destroyed by world events, some of which were beyond his control.

Question 26

How was Cameron unable to dominate domestic politics and why does this argue against the presidential thesis?

Answer 26

As his leadership of a coalition government and that Britain remains in a precarious economic condition.

Question 27

How can it be argued that the Prime Minister is now effectively a president?

Answer 27

PM’s perform most of the functions of a head of state
PM’s now have extensive sources of advice of heir own. 10 Downing Street increasingly resembles the inner circles in the presidential White House
The media tend to concentrate on the PM as personal spokesman for the government
Foreign and military affairs have become more important. The PM dominates these
The importance of spatial leadership in the UK increasingly look like a president;s style of leadership

Question 28

How can it be argued that the PM is not a President?

Answer 28

There has been no permanent change. The dominant role of the PM constantly ebbs and flows
There has been a change to a more presidential style but in substance the role of the PM hasn’t changed
There are important forces that will rein in PM power. Most of these forces are absent for a true president.]It shouldn’t be forgotten that, although the PM may appear so, he isn’t actually head of state