Andrew Blick and George Jones
We begin with the general argument of our book, 'Premiership: the Development, Nature and Power of the Office of the British Prime Minister' (Exeter: Academic Imprint, 2010). Then we draw out some general lessons for the operation of the premiership in coalition governments, focussing particularly on the circumstances of today.
We are concerned primarily with the premiership as an institution, rather than the individual who occupies the post of Prime Minister, although there is clearly a close relationship between the two.
The Prime Minister has always needed help, and has always had help since prime-ministerial aides have existed from the time of Walpole – commonly regarded as the first premier – in the early eighteenth century. In other words, while the Prime Minister as a post has always been filled by one person, the premiership as an institution has always been exercised by a group.
The fundamental role of the premiership is to provide public leadership, which involves giving strategic direction and making urgent responses to events, which other institutions and procedures on their own cannot, and it involves setting the tone of the Government and giving it a public face.
There are many different ways and means in which public leadership can be exercised. This variety can be detected through the history of the premiership. It is associated with two tendencies we have identified as manifesting themselves over time at No.10: 'zigzag' and 'institutional fusion and fission'.
'Zigzag' refers to changes of style in the way the premiership operates. It occurs when there is a handover from one Prime Minister to another and this event is associated with a transition from a more to a less domineering premier, or vice versa.
Though zigzag does not take place with every transition from one Prime Minister to another, it is a frequent occurrence. Instances of zigzag, involving a less assertive No.10 replacing a more assertive one include the changeover from William Pitt the Younger to Henry Addington in 1801; the Duke of Wellington to Earl Grey in 1830; Winston Churchill to Clement Attlee in 1945; and Margaret Thatcher to John Major in 1990. Movement in the opposite direction is marked by the transition from the Earl of Aberdeen to Lord Palmerston in 1855; Herbert Asquith to David Lloyd George in 1916; and John Major to Tony Blair in 1997.
A second way in which the leadership function can vary is in the substance rather than the style of the premiership, through a phenomenon we call 'institutional fusion and fission'
The premiership can be viewed as a cluster of rights and people performing functions centred on the individual who is Prime Minister. Institutional fusion and fission involve these rights and personnel: on the one hand, being created within or moved towards the ambit of the premiership, or on the other hand being moved away from it, or abolished altogether.
There have been frequent occurrences of both fusion and fission since the time of Walpole.
Notable accretions to the office of Prime Minister, that is occurrences of fusion, include obtaining the sole right to request Dissolutions of Parliament in 1918; and the surge in staff numbers that occurred under Tony Blair.
Significant cases of fission include the separation of the role of Leader of the House of Commons from the premiership, which occurred finally during the Second World War. The most important occurrence of fission came during the mid-nineteenth century when prime ministers ceased to exercise direct control over the Treasury, which had been an important source of strength for No.10 since the days of Walpole. It began in 1841 when Robert Peel decided not to combine the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer with that of First Lord of the Treasury.
After the 1840s the premiership moved away from being a departmental entity with specific roles and responsibilities, and a relatively large staff, towards having a more vaguely defined coordinating role, supported by only a small team of aides. This transition, we argue, marks the point at which the premiership left behind its first phase and moved into its second. And, following the building up of staff, functions and rights under Tony Blair from 1997, the premiership perhaps entered a third phase, in which it is once more a departmental institution. To indicate the kind of change that occurred: when Blair succeeded John Major in 1997, the number of staff directly serving the premiership was in the low hundreds; by 2005-6 the figure had risen to 782 staff. Though the total has dropped subsequently, it remains historically high. The longer the premiership is supported by staff on this scale, and possessing the direct policy roles that were taken on from 1997, the more clearly the Blair period will represent, rather than an expansionist 'blip', the beginning of a full third phase for the office of the UK Prime Minister.
The two tendencies we have identified do not involve continuous development in only one particular direction. While we detect trends developing over time, there are jagged and sudden changes of direction both in style and substance. When Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone alternated at No.10 between 1868 and 1880, there was an accompanying oscillation back and forth between the hands-off style favoured by Disraeli, and the control-freakery pursued by Gladstone, whose own private secretary, Algernon West, said he had 'the reputation of being an autocrat'. When Harold Wilson took office for the third time in 1974, he abruptly increased the staff support available at No.10 when he formed the Policy Unit, under Bernard Donoughue, his Senior Policy Adviser. And as we will show later, the advent of the Coalition government has forced the premiership to commit to a sharing of powers over which it previously had more direct control.
Partly for this reason we are at odds with some previous interpretations of the premiership. Often other observers claim variously that the premiership is becoming ever larger, ever more overloaded, ever more presidential, ever less collegiate, ever more powerful, or ever less powerful. We, however, find no such inevitable progressions. The premiership is like an elastic band that can be stretched to accommodate an assertive prime minister and relaxed for a less dominant figure. While there have been changes to the structure of the premiership, comprising the framework over which this elastic is stretched, there has always been some degree of flexibility. The premiership's role has fluctuated: at times dominant and at others less assertive, depending on contingent circumstances like the attitudes of ministerial colleagues, events, whether government policies are succeeding, the government's popularity, the party composition of the government, and the wishes of the prime ministers themselves. Above all the prime minister remains only as powerful as the cabinet colleagues let him be.
This final issue – that of power – is the most important of all in the analysis of the premiership. As in other areas our approach to power differs from that of others. While the power of No.10 is often portrayed as the ability to obtain the consent of others – getting them to agree to certain courses of action - particularly within the executive, and in other arenas like Parliament, we argue that the best measure of power is whether particular policies once adopted achieve the objectives that were intended for them, whatever those objectives may be. This yardstick will apply to the David Cameron premiership as much as any other.
We now consider how these general ideas can be applied to present circumstances. In his 1878 novel The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope depicts a scene in which his character the Duke of Omnium returns home after being asked by the Queen to form what will be a Liberal/Conservative coalition government and finds his wife thrilled at the prospect of his elevation to the post of Prime Minister. But he tells her 'I never felt before that I had to lean so entirely on others as I do now'. His 'efficacy for my present tasks depends entirely on the co-operation of others, and unfortunately upon that of some others with whom I have no sympathy, nor have they with me'. The Duchess proposes a solution to the problem of the more problematic 'others', recommending that he 'Leave them out'. But the Duke explains 'they are men who will not be left out, and whose services the country has a right to expect'.
In this scene, as elsewhere in the novel, Trollope accurately describes some of the constraints which, though applying to some extent to all premierships, are particularly strong within a coalition. But should we conclude, as the Duke of Omnium does, that in such circumstances, a Prime Minister is a hopeless figure? Is he or she condemned to follow the historic example of the Duke of Portland who was only titular head of the Fox/North coalition established in 1783?
A key right long possessed by No.10 has been to disburse ministerial posts. It is likely that in a Coalition there will be greater than normal pressure to share this power. At the formation of the Peelite/Whig Coalition in 1852 the Peelite Earl of Aberdeen, who became Prime Minister, had to resist pressure to exercise the power jointly with the Whig, Lord John Russell.
David Lloyd George recorded that, after becoming head of the First World War coalition government in late 1916, he would have liked to recruit to his newly-established War Cabinet 'Mr. Winston Churchill – one of the most remarkable and puzzling enigmas of his time…His fertile mind, his undoubted courage, his untiring industry, and his thorough study of the art of war, would have made him a useful member of a War Cabinet.' But unfortunately for Lloyd George nearly all the Conservative ministers 'were unanimous in their resolve that he should not be a member of the Ministry, and most of them made it a condition precedent to their entry into the Government that he should be excluded'.
This tying of the hands of a coalition Prime Minister over the composition of the government applies to David Cameron, and in some senses has been made stronger since it is set out in a published document, the Coalition Agreement for Stability and Reform, published in May 2010.
It sets out the principle that:
the Parliamentary Party with fewer MPs will have a share of Cabinet, Ministerial and Whip appointments agreed between the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, approximately in proportion to the size of the two Parliamentary parties. The Prime Minister, following consultation with the Deputy Prime Minister, will make nominations for the appointment of Ministers. The Prime Minister will nominate Conservative Party Ministers and the Deputy Prime Minister will nominate Liberal Democrat Ministers.
In other words, a process of fission has taken place. A right previously possessed solely by the Prime Minister – to nominate people for ministerial posts, and to remove them – is now formally shared with another member of the government, the Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg. Though this power was always exercised by No.10 subject to political realities and constraints, this shift is more definite, and has been formally defined. In this sense David Cameron may share the complaints of the fictitious Duke of Omnium.
Yet, compared with the larger parties in earlier coalitions, the Conservatives under Cameron have obtained a good deal in achieving the principle of approximate proportionality in relation to their Commons representation. Groups such as Aberdeen's Peelites and (in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century) the Liberal Unionists were afforded a prominence in ministerial appointments that seemed to outstrip their strength in the Commons; as were non-Conservatives, initially, in the National Government following the General Election of 1931.
The fission – that is, the sharing of powers which were previously by convention prime-ministerial - does not end there.
The establishment of Cabinet Committees, appointment of members and determination of their terms of reference by the Prime Minister has been and will continue to be agreed with the Deputy Prime Minister…
The potential importance of Cabinet sub-committees is demonstrated by the influence that was achieved by the Liberals who dominated the Home Affairs committee in the Lloyd George Coalition. In the present Coalition Chairmanship of the Home Affairs committee has been taken on by Clegg, which, in his words to the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee (PCRC): 'covers the broad waterfront of domestic policy'. It is further noted in the Coalition document that:
The general principle will be that the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister should have a full and contemporaneous overview of the business of Government. Each will have the power to commission papers from the Cabinet Secretariat…
In his account of this final occurrence of fission in the office of Prime Minister, Clegg told PCRC :
I am before you as Deputy Prime Minister of a new coalition government and in that role I work alongside...the Prime Minister in developing and overseeing the implementation of policies across the range of government.
As well as a shift in the substance of the premiership, there is evidence of a change of style, perhaps even amounting to a case of the 'zigzag' phenomenon. Under Tony Blair, and then Gordon Brown, No.10 was not disposed to function in a collegiate fashion and utilise Cabinet, although the ability of Brown to override other ministers was to some extent compromised by his often weakened political circumstances. The Cameron No.10 will probably be obliged by the circumstances of Coalition to operate differently, perhaps following the example of the exceptionally conciliatory Aberdeen. The experience of the Cameron premiership so far is already demonstrating that Cabinet is not the redundant historical anachronism as it is regularly portrayed, but is potentially vital to the functioning of a government, particularly a Coalition.
Data on the Lloyd George and Churchill coalitions – despite their reputation as domineering, un-collegiate leaders – show they both made exceptionally high use of Cabinet, its sub committees and circulated papers, and under them large numbers of staff were recruited to support these activities (though both deployed other more informal methods of reaching decisions as well). A similar emphasis will need to be placed on Cabinet and the collective government it facilitates within the current Coalition. In a section headed 'Collective responsibility' the Coalition Agreement for Stability and Reform states:
2.1 The principle of collective responsibility, save where it is explicitly set aside, continues to apply to all Government Ministers. This requires:
(a) an appropriate degree of consultation and discussion among Ministers to provide the opportunity for them to express their views frankly as decisions are reached, and to ensure the support of all Ministers;
(b) the opinions expressed and advice offered within Government to remain private;
(c) decisions of the Cabinet to be binding on and supported by all Ministers;
(d) full use being made of the Cabinet Committee system and application of the mechanisms for sharing information and resolving disputes set out in this document.
As implied by these stipulations, the existence of a Coalition places a premium on the need to involve ministers from both parties in important decisions, if the government is to be internally cohesive and present a united public face. Collective responsibility also ensures that both parties are bound into the taking of unpopular decisions, particular over cuts in public expenditure. Sharing the power can mean sharing the blame.
Perhaps fearing such an outcome, the Liberal Unionists under Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain in 1886 were initially reluctant to join the Conservatives in government, despite the party balance in the Commons suggesting such a course of action. In 1886 the Conservative Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, remarked of the Liberal Unionists that 'though they are affectionate in private they don't like showing us to their friends till they have had time to prepare them for the shock.' It was not until 1895 that the Liberal Unionists were willing to enter a Coalition with the Conservatives, choosing from 1886-92 only to provide parliamentary support for a minority Conservative government (during which time of minimalist cooperation Chamberlain saw many of his social reform objectives achieved). In 2010 the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg did not exhibit the same qualms and immediately entered a Coalition.
It should not be assumed that all tensions within Cabinet will be inter-party. Divisions in Herbert Asquith's 1915-6 First World War Coalition over conscription were not strictly along party lines. Cameron's No.10 may be strengthened in its dealings with his own party by support from Liberal Democrats; just as Churchill was supported in May 1940 by the Labour component of his War Cabinet in his desire to fight on against the Axis, while there was significant support in the Conservative party for a peace deal.
A further consideration is that party alignments can change. Coalition is often associated with reconfigurations in the party system; with cause and effect difficult to disaggregate. Key stages in the history of the Liberal Party in particular have overlapped with the existence of Coalition governments. The party was brought into being partly by the Aberdeen Coalition; the split over Home Rule was part of a chain of events which included the Liberal Unionist/Conservative alignment; the supplanting of the Liberals by Labour as one of the main two parties was connected to the coalitions that existed from 1915; and further Liberal decline was closely linked to the coalitions that existed from 1931. Reconfigurations in the party system and coalitions have gone hand in hand in the past. Perhaps they will again.
If an agreement cannot be reached between the two parties, for instance over how to campaign in the promised referendum on the adoption of the AV electoral system, then there is an allowance to 'explicitly set aside' collective responsibility. This 'agreement to differ' approach was first used in a previous Coalition government, when in 1932 Liberal members of Ramsay MacDonald's National government could not support the adoption of import tariffs; but this innovation did not in the long run stop the Samuelite Liberals from leaving the government.
An earlier disagreement over protectionism shows it is possible for an unforeseen issue to arise which can render a coalition Cabinet virtually unmanageable. In the early twentieth century, Joseph Chamberlain's support for tariffs caused intense divisions in Arthur Balfour's Conservative/Liberal Unionist Cabinet. Within the Cabinet, the Cameron/Clegg relationship will be vital, as was that between Lloyd George and Bonar-Law; and between Churchill and Attlee – with, in 1942, Attlee being appointed, like Clegg in 2010, as Deputy Prime Minister.
Along with Cabinet, another entity that is more relevant than many assumed is Parliament and the parliamentarians who compose it. A Coalition can be destroyed by a revolt amongst parliamentarians, as were Aberdeen's in 1855 and Lloyd George's in 1922.
The Coalition exists because of Cameron's failure to win an overall majority in the Commons; although unlike Aberdeen, Lloyd George and MacDonald he at least represents the largest party in the Coalition. While the Commons arithmetic is relatively comfortable at present for the government, recent reforms mean that the timetable of House business and the work of select committees may be harder for the Government to control through the whips; though, unlike during the Lloyd George Coalition, there is a single unified whipping system rather than two separate systems.
However the various interactions discussed above are handled, the power of the Cameron premiership should be judged, as we have suggested, by how far he achieves his objectives.
Cameron seems to be a highly pragmatic politician, making it hard to assess what are his underlying goals. Perhaps the best mark of success for this Coalition government from the point of view of Cameron would be for the Conservatives to win enough seats at the next General Election (under whatever electoral system is in place) for him to be no longer dependent upon a Coalition to hold office.
Another option would be some kind of coupon arrangement whereby Coalition Liberal Democrats and Conservatives did not run against each-other, along the lines used by Lloyd George in 1918.
But he may have in mind, like Tony Blair, the forging of a new party but from a merger of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, rather than Labour and Liberal Democrats, as Blair contemplated. If Cameron were to take this third option and seek such an amalgamation, he would be doing so from a stronger position than Lloyd George who sought to do so in the 1920s. A merger would probably be regarded more as a takeover of the Liberal Democrats by the Conservatives.
At present the Coalition seems to be a genuinely bipartisan entity, like the Lloyd George Coalition, rather than clearly dominated by the Conservatives, as the National Government soon became in the 1930s. If after a General Election Cameron no longer needs Liberal Democrat support in the Commons, it is conceivable he might still choose to offer ministerial posts to certain Liberal Democrats, to widen the appeal of his Government in the country, claiming to representing the 'national interest'. Many Coalitions – including the Conservative/Liberal Unionist arrangement in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries, Lloyd George's Coalition after 1918; the National Government after the 1931 General Election; and Churchill's wartime Coalition - have not been expressly required by the party balance in the Commons.
The establishment of so many coalitions not strictly required by the Commons arithmetic suggests they have various attractions; and they can be made to work. Their viability is demonstrated by their frequent existence in pre-Second World War history at the UK level; in many other territories abroad; in local government in the UK; and at the devolved levels in Northern Ireland, Scotland (before 2007) and Wales. And they do not automatically make for a power-less Prime Minister – as Salisbury, Lloyd George and Churchill show.