Is the UK Prime Minister now effectively a President? (40 marks)

The arguments that used to take place among political academics about 'prime ministerial government' have now largely disappeared. Few, if any, now doubt that the office of prime minister dominates the British political system. As long as the holder of that office is not faced by too many limiting factors, such as a small parliamentary majority or a divided party, the British system has moved away from the traditional 'cabinet government' model to a 'prime ministerial' model. But a somewhat different question has emerged concerning the role and importance of the prime minister. This asks whether the system has now become 'presidential'.

The prime minister has come to be, effectively though not legally, the head of State, the leader of the nation, irrespective of party allegiance. It should be stressed that this is not the same as national 'popularity'. Rather, it means that in times of difficulty, emergency or crisis such as war or terrorist threats, the country can unite behind its head of government. Nothing new in that, and certainly it has always been true to a great extent. But it can be argued that there has been a long term drift towards seeing the prime minister of the day rather than the monarch as national leader, and thus creates a more presidential 'feel' to the prime minister.

The prime minister now has an extensive network of personal advisers, think tanks, policy units and working groups that serve him alone and are not available to the rest of the government unless he wants them to be so. So, just as the US President has his own White House staff and large executive office, the prime minister has his own 'government department' mostly in Downing Street. It used to be the case that the prime minister was at a disadvantage when negotiating with ministers because they had huge departments of civil servants to assist them, while he, the prime minister had very little. However now, with an extensive network of advisers solely for the PM, it can be said this leads to a more presidential image to the title, rather than that of prime minister.

The growing importance of the media in politics has contributed to the greater concentration on the individual holder of the office of prime minister rather than the government as a whole. Prime ministers now have large groups of advisers whose sole task is to enhance the media image of their master and to control the flow of infortmation coming out of Downing Street. Perhaps as a result of this, or perhaps coincidentally, the general public have also come to see government in terms of its leading member rather than as a collection of ministers and MPs. This is a double-edged sword for the prime minister. He can often claim credit for the successes of the government in general, but he also takes personal blame for their failures, whatever his own role may have been.

Finally, we turn to the concept of spatial leadership. This is a relatively new theory of prime ministerial power. It suggests that political systems are increasingly led by leaders who consider themselves to be distinctly separate from the rest of the government. This separateness gives rise to the term spatial. Presidents are naturally spatial leaders, largely because they are elected separately from the rest of the government and therefore have a different source of authorty and are accountable directly to the people. This has not been the case with the British prime minister. Nevertheless, as the role has become more dominant there has been a tendenccy for the office holder to see himself as separate from government and, to some extent, to have his own mandate directly to the people.

There has long been a body known as the 'cabinet office' situated in Downing Street. A relatively small organisation, the cabinet office was largely administrative, existed to serve the whole cabinet and did not become directly involved with policy making. This was the situation up to the 1960s. Since then there has been a steady growth in the Downing Street machine. Furthermore it has shifted from serving the government as a whole, to serving mainly the prime minister alone. In addition, it has become far more concerned with the development of policy than ever before. This means that, wherever policy needs to be coordinated between different departments the Downing Street organisation is in a position to develop strategy. Effectively, the prime minister has an establishment of several hundred advisers who work directly, or indirectly, for him.

The concept of spatial leadership was developed by Michael Foley. In it, he looks at leaders such as the US President Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Above all, he suggests these leaders deliberately make themselves into outsides within government. They separate themselves from its other members and so are able to act independently, but also to remain part of the government itself. Thatcher and Reagan took this a step further. They even criticised governments of which they were the head, suggesting that they tended to be inefficient, wastefu and simply tried to do too much. On taking office in 1981, Reagan expressed the issue thus: 'government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem'. Meanwhile, Thatcher was promising to 'roll back the frontiers of state', was roundly criticising the civil service for its conservatism and wastefulness and was not averse to openly opposing her own ministers. Both Thatcher and Reagan were popular leaders who commanded great public support. This enabled them often to appeal to the people above the heads of their own party leadership.

So far we have looked at the evidence that suggests that the British prime minister is indeed effectively a president. However, there are some important arguments against this thesis. Firstly, and perhaps the most compelling argument has been provided by Professor Peter Hennessy. He suggests that the office of prime minister is an extremely flexible one. In other words, it is what the holder wishes to make of it. Some prime ministers will therefore seek to dominate, while others will be either unable or unwilling to do so. The actual powers and limiations of the office have not, he argues, changed a great deal in modern times. What has happened is that Britain has seen two very dominant individuals - Thatcher and Blair - who have been able to squeeze as much power from the office as possible. The weaker premierships of Edward Heath, John Major and James Callaghan prove that presidential style is not inevitable.

A second critique is that there has indeed been a change in recent decades but that it has been a change of 'style rather than substance'. In other words, prime miisters now seem to be more presidential - largely the result of media attention and the importance of foreign policy - but in fact they are subject to the same restraints that have always existed. This was most clearly seen with Margaret Thatcher, who ultimately was reined in by her own party leadership when she attempted to implement a policy (the introduction of a local poll tax) against their wishes.

A third analysis has been offered in the past by Professor George Jones. This is the 'elastic' theory. It suggests that, as a prime minister tries to stretch the powers of the office further and further, the forces of constraint become increasingly strong. Again this analysis fits well with the experience of Margaret Thatcher, who gained increasing numbers of enemies as she sought to exercise more and more control. Eventually the enemies turned on her when they felt they had enough strength to remove her. Many suggest that Tony Blair went this way in his second and third terms.

As we have seen above, David Cameron has been unable to dominate domestic politics, as some of his predecessors have done. This is largely the result of two factors. First, that he leads a coalition government and, second, that Britain remains in a precarious economic condition. Although it can be argued that the prime minister is now effectively a president, with the PM performing most of the functions of the head of state, having extensive sources of advice of their own, foreign and military affairs, as well as the media's influence, we can be assured that the PM is now not effectively a president. This is due to no permanent change, a change in style but not in substance, the restraints on the prime minister's power, as well as the important and unforgettable fact that the prime minister is not actually even the head of state. This position stays with the monarch, and thus means the prime minister is not effectively a president.