British Politics by Tony Wright

British Politics by Tony Wright

Author:Tony Wright [Wright, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192562234
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2020-04-21T00:00:00+00:00


The plan had brought Blair into another collision with the Cabinet Secretary about the centralist style of governing. Handing over control of monetary policy was, by any standards, a sensational step, and the more so because it had not been advertised in advance either to the electorate or anyone else in the Cabinet. When the Prime Minister allowed him into the secret, Sir Robin Butler was astounded to learn that Blair and Brown were planning to act without consulting any other ministers. The Cabinet would not meet until two days after the announcement. Butler suggested to Blair that his senior colleagues should surely be involved in such a momentous change. The Prime Minister was not interested in giving the Cabinet a vote. ‘I’m sure they’ll agree,’ responded Blair. The Cabinet Secretary persisted: shouldn’t the Cabinet at least be informed? ‘They’ll all agree,’ repeated Blair, more emphatically. Butler made a final attempt to convince Blair to follow what Britain’s most senior civil servant regarded as the constitutional proprieties. ‘How do you know that the Cabinet will agree with the decision when it’s still a secret?’ Blair replied very simply: ‘They will.’

There is endless discussion about whether Cabinet government has now been replaced by prime ministerial government. Each period and each prime minister allows a new twist to be given to this debate. Thus Margaret Thatcher was ‘strong’, but was eventually brought down by her colleagues. John Major was ‘weak’, with the Cabinet stronger but with government more ineffective. Tony Blair was ‘presidential’, which helps to explain why the Cabinet failed to assert itself in relation to the Iraq war in 2003, but this had more to do with a particular conjunction of circumstances—a huge majority, a willing party, a personal authority—than with a permanent alteration in Britain’s governing arrangements.

Once the circumstances change, as they can do dramatically, rapidly, and unexpectedly, then so does the centre of gravity within government. Blair’s diminished popularity after the Iraq war eventually enabled Gordon Brown and his supporters to force his resignation. Gordon Brown began strong, but his dysfunctional style of governing soon made him very weak; while David Cameron had to negotiate the particular circumstances of coalition government. Teresa May, with no majority and a divided party, struggled to maintain her authority (and was eventually forced to resign). In 2019 Boris Johnson acquired a thumping majority and with it the authority that May lacked (Figure 6). The truth is that a prime minister is both commanding and vulnerable. She dominates the political landscape, but this does not mean that she is in secure and permanent control of all that she surveys. In his memoir of his time in office, Gordon Brown reflected on how every issue ‘landed on the doorstep of No.10, no matter what the issue and which department was formally responsible’, which was why ‘the role of the prime minister has kept expanding and that of the Cabinet has diminished’.

6. Boris Johnson returns to Downing Street after his election victory, December 2019.



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