PM and Executive Flashcards
What are the PM’s formal powers
- power to appoint and dismiss
- power to allocate portfolios
- control of collective ministerial discussions
- control of information
- control of media relations
- control of patronage and machinery of govt
Power to appoint and dismiss - explanation and examples
PM has the power to appoint and dismiss ministers. However, this may be constrained by different factors, such as the desire not to damage effectiveness of the departments, the need to position rivals in important roles, balancing party factions, the need for representation, and a duty to appoint senior colleagues. Ministers are bound by collective responsibility, so by appointing those with opposing views to Cabinet Minister or ministerial positions, it may improve political harmony by making it more difficult for them to dissent
- however, the freedom to choose an individual with certain views, for a ministerial role that they can choose, stacks the odds in the PMs favour that they will be useful to them
Dismissal could cause backbench dissent if a cabinet minister is sacked without just cause. A reshuffle mid-govt might be dangerous to the govt’s effectiveness. PMs have to be careful about why they are sacking a minister, because while ineffectiveness may constitute a just cause, being sacled for holding different views may decrease the popularity of the PM
Examples of some failures/constraints on the PMs power to appoint:
- sweeping reshuffles by May and Johnson when they took over - arguably very damaging
- Blair didn’t find John Prescott particularly congenial, but he was still elected as Labour’s Deputy Leader
- May spent 3 difficult years trying to balance hard and soft brexit factions in her cabinet
- Macmillan reluctantly moved from the foreign office to Treasury under Eden, only after stipulating various conditions, which included blocking the appointment of Butler as Deputy Prime Minister.
- occassionally, senior ministers are able to block the appointment of other ministers, showing the limits to the PMs powers - E.g., Brown, as Chancellor blocked the appointment of Frank Field as Social Security Secretary, despite Blair being at the peak of his power in 200
Examples to show how power of dismissal is constrained/bad:
- strong ministers difficult to dismiss - Blair couldn’t dismiss Brown even though they became enemies
- antipathy is not enough to be able to dismiss a minister. Thatcher would have liked to dismiss Michael Heseltine, SofS for Defence, long before his resignation. However, this would have led to dissent, given Heseltine was popular, and the fact that this would have led to a poor image of her by the press. After the Westland Affair led to heseltine’s resignation, Thatcher said she hadn’t fired him for other incidents because had she done it, the press would have said, in her words, “there you are, old bossyboots at it again”
- in general, cabinet dismissals are to be avoided at all costs, for they suggest divisions within cabinet, nervous govt, PM’s lack of control.
- Harold MacMillan’s Night of the Long Knives in which he sacked half of his cabinet
- Johnson sacked over half of May’s cabinet
power to allocate portfolios
- PM gets to allocate Ministers to roles in specific departments, meaning they can greatly influence that department by installing a minister whose view agrees with their own
Examples:
- Thatcher in 1982 replaced prior with hard-edged Tebbit as Employment Secretary, achieving as she wished, legislation which reduced the powers of trade unions
- similarly, Thatcher appointed Kenneth Baker as Education Secretary in 1986, leading to the introduction of a national curriculum
control of information
- No.10 private office sifts information so that only the most important information is given to the PM
- PM has access to more information than anyone else, including papers for all cabinet meetings, iterdepartmental correspondence etc
control of collective ministerial discussions
Control of the decision-making process – structure/influence of cabinet
* Talk about the different ways in which governments have used cabinet to their own benefit – Blair’s sofa govt, Cameron’s “quad”, and other PM’s bypassing of cabinet on certain decisions – e.g., Thatcher. Want to show how there is no trend in the success and importance of cabinet, illustrating that PMs can be extremely powerful if they strategically make it difficult for Cabinet to disagree with their decisions.
* Thatcher pioneered the use of ad hoc informal meetings in order to circumvent the formal mechanisms of cabinet meetings. If there was an issue which she knew that the majority of those in cabinet would disagree on, she held smaller meetings with those that suited her purpose, in order to make decisions. For instance, Thatcher used ad hoc meetings and informal meetings during the Westland Affair, meaning that Thatcher had already agreed her position with close colleagues at Chequers.
* May used a variety of ad hoc meetings
* Blair – sofa govt – had his casual methods of govt criticised by the reports of two separate enquires. Since Blair made decisions via informal meetings with a small number of cabinet ministers, his larger cabinet meetings were arguably presidential in approach, as they consisted of little argument, but rather laying out what had already been agreed upon. Criticised in a report by Lord Butler, as the decision to invade Iraq was taken largely without cabinet discussion
* Cameron – Quad
* Explain these different cabinets
Choosing in which committee decisions will be taken:
* PM has the power to decide how a policy will be processed, to hasten or delay a decision, to use an existing committee or set up a new one, and even to steer a committee chair on how to handle an issue
* For instance, when in 1979 Chancellor Howe tried to resist NATO commitment to increase defence expenditure annually by 3%, the PM ensured that he was defeated by choosing the Defence and Overseas Policy committee as the forum for this
