PM & Cabinet - CMR & IMR Flashcards
Collective Ministerial Responsibility CMR
Principles, Case studies
Ministers are collectively responsible for all government policies
All ministers must publicly support all government policies, even if privately disagree
If a minister wishes to dissent publically from gov, they must first resign to backbench
If a minister dissents without resigning, the PM will remove them
Cabinet meetings are secret, dissent must be concealed
Case studies
May - Phillip hammond 4 years once UK left EU, David Davis 2 - Davis resigned from Brexit sec after disagreement
May - Johnson accusing saudi of proxy war 2016, did not resign
Individual Ministerial Responsibility IMR
Principles, Case studies
Principles
Ministers must be responsible for their departments policies and face questioning by SCs and parliament
If a minister makes a serious error of judgement, they should resign - Knowingly mislead Amber Rudd 10% or johnson
If a ministers departments screws up, even if not the ministers fault, they should resign
They must stick to the ministerial code of conduct or resign
Priti Patel - 2017 meetings with Israel not approved by FCO, should have left, didn’t, then found out there was more and resigned
Amber Rudd - Claimed unaware of of 10% removal immigrants, emails showed she was fully aware
CMR Weaknesses/Failures
Encourages leaking of cabinet meetings to media to sway opinion in their favour
Disgruntled ministers can cause major issues to government (Cummings 7 Hr health committee)
Public disillusionment with politicians ‘suffering in silence’, what do they really think
Under coalition, collective responsibility doesn’t work, or weak gov 2010-19
Major division makes it hard to maintain - Major cabinet over EU membership
Social media makes it hard to maintain a united front
IMR Weaknesses/Failures
Ministers even unaware of wrongdoing in thier dept. are responsible
Ministers may not have approved or hired all department members
It is a convention, no formal mechanism enforcing it.
