Evaluate The View PM are Able To Dominate The Cabinet Flashcards
Intro
The extent to which PM dominates has been long debated. While cabinet is constitutionally the Supreme deicision making body, it’s argued that PM excercise dominant leadership role within it. Thsi essay demonstrate how balance of power has shifted in favour of PM as the Prime Minister arguably largely dominates the cabinet.
Able to dominate due to power of patronage to …
Shape the team in a way that enhances their power and enables them to promote their policies. Enables them to marginalise power of individuals who may who want to destabilise Gov.
PM can sack ministers if seek to undermine their authority by breaking CMR and use the threat of this to maintain ministerial discipline.
E.g. Nov 2023 Sunak sacked Suella Braverman as Home Secretary following a controversial opinion piece in the Times about Met Police handling of Pro-Palestinian protests accusing police of playing favourites and protestors described as hate marchers.
L- her piece was published without being reviewed and apporved by Downing Street therefore, violate ministerial code.
Statements seen as a direct challenge to sunaks authority + widely criticised by Conservative Party members
Counter
PM’S power of patronage shouldn’t be overstated, to maintain their authority over large and often divided parties, must represent different party factions. limits extent to which can appoint allies who’ll be easy to manage.
• Theresa May, for example, appointed a cabinet with a balance between Brexiteers (including Boris Johnson) and Remainers (Jeremy Hunt).
• Prime Ministers also sometimes have to appoint and give power to other key figures, known as ‘big beasts’, within their party.
• despite being a very popular + powerful PM, Tony Blair’s power was significantly limited by his Chancellor Gordon Brown. Blair had to concede a significant amount of control over a number of policy areas.
Further, when a Prime Minister is weak and unpopular, CMR often breaks down and they are unable to control their cabinet, particularly ‘big beasts’ within it.
• When Foreign Secretary in May’s gov, Johnson consistently leaked his dissatisfaction with gov policy and briefed against the PM, including writing critical weekly articles in the Daily Telegraph.
• Due to his popularity within the Conservative Party, esp. Brexiteers, + May’s weakness as a Prime Minister, she wasn’t able to sack him, though. This shows how she’s unable to dominate the cabinet.
Prime ministers are able to dominate as can bypass the cabinet when determining government policies thru informal committees and SPADs
P- easier to reach a compromise with one or two key ministers than the whole cabinet. As a consequence, they often use smaller cabinet committees to make decisions.
E- Under Tony Blair, he and Chancellor Gordon Brown negotiated with each other to determine economic policy e.g increase spending on public services.
Theresa May( committee on exiting the EU) and Boris Johnson(COVID-19 Strategy committee), used cabinet committees to make decisions on important issues e.g. Brexit and COVID restrictions,
P- Recently SPADs also important in Downing Street and decision making. Work closely with PM to develop government strategy.
E- SPAD Dominic Cummings held very significant amount of power in Johnson’s gov, arguably far more than any cabinet minister or member of gov.
•Boris even took a significant hit to his government’s popularity to defend Cummings after he broke COVID rules by driving from London to Barnard Castle.
Counter
The cabinet is highly important for a gov to project unity to the public and make important decisions during a crisis, as joined up decision making between departments is essential.
• For example during COVID, Johnson not only wanted to present a united front, but also relied a lot on government ministers, especially Health Secretary Matt Hancock. Coronavirus Act 2020 which passed thru parliament in only 4 days.
DISGAREE with statement Prime Ministers still ultimately rely on the party in order to pass the government’s legislative agenda and on the Cabinet to deliver government policy.
E- If PM distances themselves too much from either/seeks to sideline the cabinet in particular, the cabinet can remove them.
• mostly occurs when PM no longer popular with public + therefore would no longer help the party win the next election.
• The 3 Conservative Party Prime Ministers - May, Johnson and Truss - were ultimately removed by their cabinets and the wider Conservative Party after becoming unpopular.
The greater the Prime Minister’s efforts to expand their power, the more crucial it becomes that their policies have approval of Cabinet
• For example, Thatcher was ultimately removed by her cabinet despite her big majority. This was in part due to her pursuing the Poll Tax in 1989/90 despite opposition from all sides and without consulting local authorities fully.
• Her sidelining of the cabinet and conviction politics ultimately came back to bite her and bring her down.
Counter - could argue PM can dominate cabinet by develop personal popularity with public.p which they can use to dominate gov and drive through policy.
E- can be aided by the growth of social media
Tony Blair was very successful in courting support from right-wing press and
developing personal image. Due to his v high popularity at the start of his premiership, he was able to determine a lot of gov policy himself, for example in health and education, where there was a lot of centralised control. E.g. cutting NHS waiting lines.
