Prime ministerial power - With recent examples

Prime ministerial power - With recent examples

• 1.
  Three Political Truisms  All political careers end in failure Enoch Powell  It’s the economy, stupid Bill Clinton aide  Events, dear boy, events Harold Macmillan
• 2.
  Prime ministerial powers -formal  Head of the Executive  Chair of the Cabinet  Quasi Head of State  Commander-in-chief  Foreign policy leader  Parliamentary leader  Dissolution
• 3.
  Prime ministerial power -informal  Chief policy maker  Patronage  Government spokesperson
• 4.
  Limitations on power -formal  Parliament  Cabinet  Party
• 5.
  Limitations on power -informal  Popular Image  Media image  Personality  Parliamentary majority  Party dissent  Cabinet dissent  Strength of Opposition  Stature of predecessor
• 6.
  Jim Callaghan  Parliamentary majority  Party dissent (unions)  Media image  Wilson’s stature  Misuse of dissolution power  Legacy of oil price hike
• 7.
  Margaret Thatcher  Internal dissent  Media image  Length of tenure  External events
• 8.
  John Major  Stature of predecessor  Parliamentary majority  Party dissent  Cabinet dissent  Media image  Personality  Economic events  Strength of Opposition
• 9.
  Tony Blair  Internal dissent  One big event  Parliamentary majority  Lords and judicial activism
• 10.
  Gordon Brown  Stature of predecessor  Personality  Media image  Misuse of dissolution  Events – in spades  Strength of Opposition  Parliamentary majority
• 11.
  Lessons from Prime Ministers’experience - 1  10 years and that’s it  Thatcher, Blair, Brown  Pareto’s revolving elites  Patronage  Media
• 12.
  Lessons from Prime Ministers’experience - 2  External events are increasingly influential  It’s not the events, it’s how you are perceived to be handling them
• 13.
  Lessons from Prime Ministers’experience - 3  It’s not just the economy stupid  Major 1992, Major 1997  Brown – memories are short  We’re doomed, Cap’n Mainwaring, we’re all doomed.