15 Minutes of Power by Peter Riddell

Author:Peter Riddell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2019-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Shadow of Number 10, the Treasury and Special Advisers

‘I was just constantly reminded of the quote from an American politician that every time I climb another rung up the political ladder, power seems further away. I was just astonished by the extent to which Number 10 and the Treasury and the Cabinet Office stuck their nose into departmental affairs. I had made speeches in opposition about Downing Street, under Gordon Brown’s Treasury, meddling. The reality was far worse than any of my rhetorical flourishes. I had just no idea of the extent to which they micro-managed and nosed into departmental affairs. I was absolutely horrified by it.’

– Nick Harvey, Liberal Democrat Minister of State for Defence 2010–12, Ministers Reflect interview, 2015

No minister, however junior and in however obscure a role, can forget 10 Downing Street and the Treasury. This is not a book about Prime Ministers, their power, and rise and decline. But it is impossible to ignore the impact of the Prime Minister, and his or her advisers, in affecting the lives of ministers and what they can, and cannot, do in departments. And in most cases, that has also meant relations with the Treasury.

The style and approach of the centre has varied, but the past forty years has been marked by a number of strong, and often ultimately fractious, partnerships between Prime Ministers and Chancellors leading government – Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson from 1983 until 1989; Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1997 to 2007; and David Cameron and George Osborne from 2010 until 2016. They all had their particular styles, and relations between Number 10 and the Treasury waxed, and usually waned, but they set the tone and direction of government for ministers. Departments have to negotiate and manoeuvre with both.

Historians can debate when and how the centre became more assertive – and it has, in practice, depended heavily on personalities. James Callaghan at the end of the 1970s was always seen as a traditionalist. He is quoted by Bernard Donoughue, the then head of his Downing Street Policy Unit, as saying (in Weller, 2018, p130): ‘Callaghan, when we pressed him to interfere and make a department do this or that, which we foolishly thought was the right thing to do, would say: “That is for the department. That is for the minister. Back him or sack him.”’ Some see this period as a golden age of Cabinet government and ministerial responsibility for their departments, but it was also a period of major strains for the government system and for the UK generally.

Margaret Thatcher unquestionably drove governments, for most of the time in conjunction with the Treasury, but sometimes, and on some issues like the poll tax, not. Like most Prime Ministers, her greatest power was in appointing and shifting, or dismissing, ministers – in that way, she could get people committed to reform in the key departments (as discussed in Chapter Ten on reshuffles). The power of the reshuffle can, by definition, only be exercised occasionally.

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