The Executive Flashcards
Give a brief overview of the last 9 PMs
Margaret Thatcher - closed the coal mines and known for her strong rule, the Iron lady
John Major - removed the poll tax and replaced it with council tax
Tony Blair - ordered troops into several wars
Gordon Brown - introduced the equality act
David Cameron - helped reduce the Uks national deficit
Theresa May - known for her help in Brexit
Boris Johnson - helped the UK through the start of Covid-19
Liz Truss - tanked the UK economy
Rishi Sunak - first coloured PM of the UK
What are inter-ministerial groups
Inter-ministerial groups are flexible gatherings of only a subset of a committees membership to address a specific question
What is the role of the cabinet office
to support both the Pm and Cabinet, helps prepare ministers and resolve issues across parliament
what is the ministerial hierarchy
- Secretary of state
- Ministers of State
- Parliamentary under-secretaries of state
How do civil servants differ from ministers
they are permanent employees who remain impartial and work to serve all governments that may be formed, they remain anonymous and accountable to ministers not parliament
What are special advisors
a form of civil servants who are temporary and partisan advisors, loyal to the party in government, they give advice that the civil servants could not
Three theories of executive power
Cabinet Government
Prime Ministerial government
Presidentialism
Explain a cabinet government
- traditional view of the UK executive, emphasises collective responsibility and power and equality amongst ministers
- All ministers expected to support the decisions of the cabinet, ensuring unity
- Restricts the PM
Explain a PM government
- first put forward by Richard Crossman in 1963 with a new introduction to Bagehot’s English Constitution
- key feature of the PM dominating the executive and parliament, not cabinet
- highlights growth of PM powers and idea of cabinet becoming advisory
Explain Presidentialism
- Foley (in The rise of the British Presidency 1993) and others see the growth of PM independence
- Refers to PMs such as Wilson, Thatcher and Blair
- Highlights the true lack of restraints on the PM and their power
3 Ideas the PM is becoming more independent
- Spatial leadership, distancing from the party and creating identity
- Personalised election campaigns, personality over policy
- Personal mandates and the idea that the PM won the election not the party
3 structural signs of presidentialism
- Wider use of special advisers rather than appointed ministers within cabinet, they have a personal alliance to the PM, for example Alastair Campbell with Blair
- strengthened cabinet office which is turning into a small scale PM department
- turn to populism from the PM
3 structural arguments against presidentialism
- the UK does not have a constitutional separation of powers between the executive and the legislative, unlike the US
- the US presidents do not share executive power with the cabinet
- PMs are elected through parliamentary elections, no separate election for PM
arguments cabinet is important in decision making
- They head a department of their own
- can create their own policies
- cabinet still gives authority to government policy and they must approve of the ideas before they become official government policy
Example of cabinet being important in decision making
in 2017 the cabinet members decided to hold a snap election
arguments that cabinet is not important in decision making
- there is more use of special advisors
- the PM can manipulate policy and bypass cabinet with bilateral meetings
- PMs have a policy unit at No.10
- Cabinet meet less now and have been marginalised by the PM
Cabinet is important with the PMs patronage powers
- Big Beasts in the party can be hard to silence and their sacking or resignation could erode the PMs authority
Examples of big beasts weakening the PM
Gordon Brown was seen as a big threat to Blair and even had his own advisors whilst Blair was PM
In 2020, Sunak was favoured by many Tory MPs which weakened the Johnson government
Cabinet isn’t important with the PMs patronage powers
- The PM appoints, demotes and sacks all members of cabinets, they can therefore choose a more loyal cabinet
- The PM has the ability to ruin a politicians career so they are more inclined to be loyal
Do individual ministers have influence
- they chair discussions around policy that relates to their department
- A poor reshuffle of the ministers can lead to great disharmony
Example of ministers having influence
May was unable to reshuffle her cabinet as she wished because Jeremy Hunt refused to accept her offer to move from the health department
Arguments that individual ministers lack influence
- The PMs ability to dominate the cabinet usually results in a cabinet which shares their views
- The PM shapes cabinet agenda which allows great control over how much time the ministers are given in debates
- the doctrine of collective responsibility gives the PM power to silence dissenters in cabinet
