Cabinet Government in the Twentieth Century

Cabinet Government in the Twentieth Century Christopher Fostern This paper examines the main features of the cabinet system as it had emerged during the twentieth century, and which Jennings did so much to crystallize in his pioneering study on Cabinet Government. It then assesses the main changes that have occurred over successive administrations since the late 1970s, and concludes that even if cabinet government seemed to return in 1990 and 2003, it was without the cabinet system that had underpinned and made it e¡ective in the past.

THE CABINET SYSTEM The Cabinet is the core of the British constitutional system. It is the supreme directing authority. It integrates what would otherwise be a heterogeneous collection of authorities exercising a vast variety of functions. It provides unity to the British system of government.

W|th these words, Sir Ivor Jennings opened his classic account of Cabinet Government.1 W|thout a written constitution, one cannot read o¡ the functions of cabinet. Many cabinet functions derive from an ill-de¢ned royal prerogative, and many are conventions whose origins are not easily traced. Many have altered to meet changing circumstances. Bagehot went no further than to describe cabinet as ‘the executive: a board of control chosen by the legislature, out of persons it trusts and knows, to rule the nation’.2 Many writers have explored its historical development, but discussion of its functions has usually gone no further than to say it is responsible for the supreme control of the executive and co-ordination of departmental activities.3 The great works on cabinet government of Jennings and Mackintosh describe the development of its operations historically, but do not de¢ne them. These executive functions are nonetheless as important and time-consuming as policy discussion. The cabinet controls the Government’s legislative n

Sir Christopher Foster’s public service roles include acting as Director General of Economic Planning at the Ministry of Transport,1966^70 (advising Barbara Castle and Richard Marsh); Special Economic Advisor. Department of Environment, 1974^77 (advising Anthony Crosland, John Silkin and Peter Shore); Special Advisor on local government ¢nance to the Department of Environment, 1984^85; and Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for Transport, 1992^94 (advising John MacGregor). He is a former Professor of Urban Economics at the LSE and for many years was head of the Public Sector and Economics Practice at Coopers and Lybrand. 1 W. I. Jennings, Cabinet Government [1936] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3rd ed,1959) 1. 2 W. Bagehot,The English Constitution [1867] (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1997) 9. 3 J. P. Mackintosh, British Cabinet (London: Stevens,1962) 246^283; G. C. Moodie,The Government of Great Britain (London: Methuen, 1964) 75. See V. Herman and J. A. Alt, Cabinet Studies (London: Methuen, 1975) xi^xxvi. An exception is G. Jones,‘Development of the Cabinet’ inW. Thornhill, The Modernisation of British Government (London: Pitman, 1975) 31^62.

r The Modern Law Review Limited 2004

(2004) 67(5) MLR 753^771

Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

Cabinet Government in the Twentieth Century

programme.4 Other functions are challenging (but then supporting) the prime minister’s leadership, overseeing relations with parliament, and ensuring that ministers’ accountability and other aspects of performance are acceptable. Even more demanding has been its use to co-ordinate the overall work of the di¡erent departments. ‘In substance’, notes Jennings, ‘the Cabinet is the directing body of the national policy’.5 Jennings notes that the convention of cabinet collective responsibility was established in the eighteenth century.6 Its main requirement is that government policy was that of the whole cabinet, so that the government resigned if it were censured in the Commons. For about a hundred years after the establishment of this convention, governments resigned when they lost the Commons’ support over a major policy issue. During this period, the constitutional requirement of collective responsibility was well aligned with the political requirement that the government needed to command a majority in the Commons. It corresponded to an early stage in the development of political parties, when members were readier to vote against their parties on particular issues or even cross the £oor.7 The emergence of political parties meant governments thereafter resigned because they lost their majority, felt they had too small a majority to continue, or dissolved parliament to ¢ght an election.8 A second part of the convention was that no minister should publicly disagree with government policy. Any who did should resign. Earlier, cabinet colleagues had often disagreed publicly.9 The case, which established collective responsibility in this regard, was that of Lord Thurlow whom, as Lord Chancellor, George III following custom had personally chosen.10 W|lliam Pitt persuaded George III to sackThurlow in 1791 because he had opposed the establishment of a sinking fund in the House of Lords, despite the fact that the proposal was government policy agreed by other members of the cabinet. Since then, many ministers have

4 Since the 1930s, when the Home A¡airs Committee took on the role, cabinet has always used a legislation committee to co-ordinate and vet bills before they enter Parliament This committee has varied in the extent and depth of its activity, being, by repute, at its most active under Lord Chancellors Dilhorne and (but only early in the life of the ¢rst Blair administration) Irvine. 5 Jennings, n 1 above, 228. 6 ibid,134^5. However note Sir John Anderson’s 1946 view that: ‘[t]heoretically, the responsibility of each individual policy pursued in his own department rests upon [its minister] alone. No other minister^not even the Prime Minister^has any legal power to override him’. Cited inT. Daintith and A. Page,The Executive and the Constitution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 30. 7 There were 10 examples of administrations resigning in such circumstances between 1832 and 1867 alone. Gladstone’s in 1885 was the last clear example, though there were later examples of policy issues arguably being the last straw that brought down governments, but only (as in 1924 and 1979) when they were without a majority. See A. H. Birch, Representative and Responsible Government (London: Unwin Hyman, 1964) ch 10. 8 The odd exception, like the resignation of Sir Samuel Hoare as foreign secretary in 1935, proved the rule. The cabinet had approved the Hoare^Laval pact but, when published, it proved so unpopular, the cabinet disowned its support for it. Hoare resigned because his newfound disagreement with the rest of the Cabinet was exposed. See Jennings, n 1 above, 476^478; Mackintosh, n 3 above, 443. 9 However the realisation that a cabinet minister should resign if he disagreed with his colleagues, J. H. Plumb traces back toWalpole: see P. Hennessy,The Prime Minister (London: Penguin, 2000) 39. 10 H.W|lson,The Governance of Britain (London: Book Club Associates, 1976) 72^76.

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resigned over policy di¡erences.11 However the Hoare-Laval pact is not the only case in which the pure constitutional convention - that ministers had publicly to agree the cabinet line or resign - has been watered down.12 Moreover there have been several agreements to di¡er in public.13 These examples pointed the way for the Major administration ^ and Blair’s from 2003 - when ministers hardly hid their disagreement over many issues. Nevertheless, Questions of Procedure for Ministers (now called the Ministerial Code) still states that ministers must uphold the convention. Over the years that convention has been applied increasingly widely to include members outside the cabinet, junior ministers and ¢nally parliamentary private secretaries. In recent times that included about a hundred ‘ministers’ and therefore a sizeable proportion of government-side MPs.14 In parallel, changes in the cabinet system have provoked Herbert Morrison’s contention that despite the development of cabinet committees on which some members of the cabinet do not sit, all ministers remain bound by the decisions of such committees as if of the whole cabinet.15 Although binding on all government by convention, cabinet decisions have no legal authority.16 Neither are there rules on the decisions cabinet must take, a fact that made it possible to diminish the functions of cabinet at the end of the twentieth century without formal determination. Consequently, the convention of collective responsibility has altered from an agreement not to disagree publicly after there had been cabinet discussion, or the opportunity for one, into a binding discipline to accept the prime minister’s decisions, even when there had been no opportunity for serious discussion.17 Cabinet solidarity is a quality intrinsic to an e¡ective executive.18 It does not require collective decision-making if by that is meant one that emerges from discussion around a table, but it implies reasoned approval of de¢nite proposals put 11 Among them have been Joseph Chamberlain over protection in 1903; John Burns and John Morley over entry to the ¢rst world war; under Ramsay MacDonald, Oswald Mosley over economic policy and Trevelyan over the failure of his education policy as well as, eventually, the cabinet’s surviving free traders; Eden and Cranborne over Munich; Bevan, W|lson and Freeman in 1949 over prescription charges; Boyle over Suez;Thorneycroft, Powell and Birch over public expenditure in 1957; under W|lson, Mayhew over the navy programme and Cousins over incomes policy. There were also to be Heseltine, Lawson and Howe under Margaret Thatcher and Clare Short and Robin Cook under Blair. 12 Disraeli could not dismiss Salisbury in 1877 over the Eastern Question. Joseph Chamberlain did not disguise his disagreement over protection and was too strong to be ousted. Rosebery as prime minister and Harcourt as leader of the Commons disagreed over almost everything. Churchill sat as a free trader under Baldwin. In 1928 Lord Birkenhead as Lord Chancellor was openly against a bill on women’s su¡rage he was introducing in the Lords. John Elliott and Oliver Stanley did not resign over Munich. Jim Callaghan in 1969 egged on opposition to Harold W|lson’s and Barbara Castle’s attempt to discipline the Unions, Department of Employment and Productivity, In Place of Strife (London: HMSO, 1969). 13 Women’s su¡rage was an open question under Asquith. Initially the free traders in 1931^2 were allowed to dissent from the protectionists as were the pro and anti common marketeers from each other inW|lson’s second administration. 14 D.Woodhouse, Ministers and Parliament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) 170^171. 15 H. Morrison, Government and Parliament, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959) 25. The Home A¡airs Committee inWW2 became parallel and equal to cabinet, Mackintosh, n 3 above, 425. 16 Jennings, n 1 above, 276. 17 Daintith and Page, n 6 above, 52. 18 F. Mount,The British Constitution Now (London: Heinemann, 1992) 116.


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to it. Even that may not be easy, as Gaitskell and later Dell found, horri¢ed by cabinet meetings where ministers talked rubbish after reading briefs they did not understand.19 Many cabinets became so argumentative that it was surprising more cabinets did not break up for this reason, especially on important issues over which they disagreed strongly. They did not because they did not want to hand government to the opposition, because as individual ministers they did not want to leave o⁄ce, and because (as Nigel Lawson was to say) once ministers are in cabinet they became pre-occupied by their departmental business.20 While many di¡erences in relations between prime ministers and cabinet re£ected di¡erences in personality and reputation, the increase in the volume and complexity of business, the growing importance of interdepartmental issues and central handling of major policies, as well as the greater intrusiveness of the media, made prime ministers’ chairing cabinet and its leading committees more demanding and time-consuming, di⁄cult and often conspicuous. Churchill said of his second administration that two or three problems were discussed at cabinet meetings, each of which would have occupied a full cabinet meeting before the First World War.21 Despite Churchill’s rambling, if entertaining, di¡useness prolonging cabinet meetings in the 1950s, somehow the business got done; but W|lson’s tendency to allow everyone to talk too much slowed down what cabinet could achieve (even though part of his great tactical skill in handling opposition). Endlessly observed in the Crossman, Castle and Benn diaries, but not unprecedented, were the chairing strategies and tactical manoeuvring needed to achieve enough consensus to reach any conclusion, rather than one W|lson particularly wanted; but again one should not confuse such greater prime ministerial activity within cabinet with increasing power. Although the necessity for practising the arts of chairmanship has grown with complexity, they have always been essential to cabinet government.22 Charismatic prime ministers ^ Gladstone, Churchill, Macmillan, W|lson, Blair ^ have often been the worst chairmen, the least charismatic ^ Attlee and Douglas Home ^ the best. But all prime ministers found it easier to run a cabinet whose members are in broad agreement and feel involved and committed to its policies. However, there is no necessary correlation between skilled chairmanship to keep cabinet together and a prime minister using that skill to get his own way. Moreover, not all prime ministers had personal political objectives and, on most issues, did not have them most of the time, as Macmillan and W|lson explicitly stated.23 The younger Pitt, Palmerston, Lloyd George, and Churchill had at times dominated their cabinets, as Thatcher and Blair were to do, though most faced rebellion in the end. Crossman, an early proponent of the view that the prime minister had acquired presidential power, tried to blunt the signi¢cance 19 20 21 22

Hennessy, n 9 above, 163. N. Lawson,TheV|ew from No 11 (London: Bantam Press, 1992) 127^129. Hennessy, n 9 above, 206. B. Pimlott, Harold W|lson (London: Harper Collins, 1992) 520^521; A. King in A. King (ed),The British Prime Minister (London: Macmillan,1985) 114^118. But see J. Morley, Life ofW|lliam Gladstone (London: Macmillan, 1906) vol ii, 23. 23 A. King in R. Skidelsky (ed),Thatcherism (London; Chatto and W|ndus, 1988) 54^55; also King, n 22 above, 51, 115.

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of a cabinet being able to end the career of a prime minister by arguing it would need to be veiled in such a cloak of conspiracy that a prime minister could maintain e¡ective control of its business until the last catastrophic moment.24 But several prime ministers lost the support of their cabinets and went in varying circumstances: Palmerston, Asquith, Lloyd George, Churchill and Eden. So later would Thatcher. Only one can plausibly have said to have dismissed his cabinet MacDonald - and the price was his becoming a prisoner of the Conservative party. Macmillan was mistaken in dismissing a third of his cabinet in July, 1962 and Thatcher’s purges to secure colleagues to her taste would ultimately fail to secure their lasting loyalty.25 There is a long tradition of issues not coming to full cabinet for discussion and decision, particularly the budget, but also aspects of defence, foreign and nuclear policy.26 Whatever excluded ministers may have felt, this practice did not always increase prime ministerial power. Often the reverse, particularly, but not solely, because prime ministers have always discussed budgets with chancellors of the exchequer, and in such bi-laterals have occasionally felt unable on their own to resist measures, which they did not like, against strong minded chancellors like Thorneycroft or Lawson.27 As its processes changed, one can see the same con£icting forces shaping the cabinet system as caused £uctuations in prime ministerial power: the almost relentless growth in government business; the prime minister’s wish to control the cabinet either for policy reasons or to expedite business; the desire of cabinet ministers to be involved in and agree many aspects of that business; and the prime minister’s continual need to placate many of them. Despite its committees becoming practically more important than cabinet, the rationale of the system remained the need for ministers’ proposals to pass the personal scrutiny of their colleagues, particularly those in other departments with an interest in the policy. Extensive discussion in cabinet itself was a last resort for still contentious business. Several prime ministers altered the cabinet system to increase its capacity as the pressure of work increased, principally by expanding the role of cabinet committees, but without lasting success, since the problems increased more than enough to ¢ll the new capacity. Acutely aware on becoming prime minister of the di⁄culty of working the cabinet system in the early 1950s, Macmillan asked Attlee, then opposition leader, to consider how to lessenThe Burden on Ministers, as Attlee’s report was called. His main recommendation was greater use of cabinet 24 Crossman, in his introduction to the 1963 edition of Bagehot. 25 H. Young, One of Us (London: Macmillan, 1989) 331^336. Thatcher thought that by replacing wets and di⁄cult dries by professional politicians, they would be readier to toe the line: King in Skidelsky (ed), n 23 above, 1^64; but see Lawson, n 20 above, 479. 26 R. A. Butler in Herman and Alt, n 3 above, 193^199; H.W|lson, n 10 above, 59; P. Hennessy,The Hidden W|ring (London: Gollancz, 1995) 85^90; Mackintosh, n 3 above, 135; Mount, n 18 above, 121^128; K. O. Morgan, Callaghan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) 605^606. The atom bomb was never discussed in cabinet or defence committee until after Nagasaki, just between Churchill and Anderson, Hennessy, n 9 above, 51. Under Attlee, decisions on nuclear matters were made by a small cabinet committee, of which Gordon Walker had been a member, not by the PM alone: P. G.Walker,The Cabinet (London: Jonathan Cape, l970) 89. 27 In Herman and Alt, n 3 above, 207; also Lawson, n 20 above, 649, 664, 5; E. Dell,The Chancellors (London: Harper Collins, 1997) 223^241, 490^540.


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committees.Yet it was without much bene¢t, to judge by complaints about overload towards the end of Macmillan’s regime.28 W|lson brought innovations into the cabinet system to which he gave considerable thought both before and between his administrations.29 Heath tried a di¡erent method from Attlee’s to reduce cabinet size: he combined several departments into mega-departments, but that created its own problems. Because of the growing need to reduce business coming to cabinet, the papers, decisions and minutes of cabinet committees, unless challenged and so forced onto the cabinet agenda, were held to have the same status and binding e¡ect as cabinet papers, decisions and minutes. By the ¢rstW|lson administration, government business had become so heavy, he required even ministers questioning a cabinet committee’s treatment of their own business to get the committee chairman’s agreement before bringing it to cabinet.30 Only the Treasury retained an automatic right of appeal. Even so, as late as that administration, achieving collective responsibility still required full cabinet to approve white papers, page by page.31 To the ministers concerned, cabinet discussion could occasionally seem unsatisfactory.32 Among the cabinet papers in 1968 I had a hand in, the whole cabinet went through a White Paper on RoadTrack Costs, full of calculations and analysis, which was held to need such cabinet approval as a main plank of transport policy.33 One can see Crossman going through it, struggling with issues, like many ministers before and since, which he had neither the time nor expertise to understand.34 But in almost every aspect the solutions to the cabinet system which prime ministers suggested simply alleviated the problem rather than ending it. If cabinet was government’s ‘e⁄cient secret’, its own was the re-drafting of cabinet papers. Government activities were dominated by ministers, helped by civil servants, making policy recommendations which would then be turned by iterative steps into cabinet papers. Among them would be interdepartmental discussions and, if necessary, o⁄cial committees35 to clarify issues before ministers met to negotiate agreement on those papers; then discovering if the relevant cabinet committee agreed and, if not, setting the interdepartmental machinery in motion to ¢nd a compromise; until ¢nally getting the imprimatur of cabinet.36 These steps often occurred several times as a major policy was worked up through a 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36

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Hennessy, n 9 above, 166^167. W|lson, n 10 above, 42^76. W|lson, ibid, 65, 6; S. James, British Cabinet Government (London: Routledge, 1994). W|lson, ibid, 52, 3. He said the practice ended in mid-1970s, because Cabinet O⁄ce clearance of papers with departments had improved to make it unnecessary. Even if they improved then, was the improvement maintained? And what has been the position since cabinet papers generally fell into disuse? See eg R. H. S. Crossman, Diary of a Cabinet Minister: Minister of Housing:1964-61 (London: Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape, 1975) 34^36. R. H. S. Crossman, Diary of a Cabinet Minister: Lord President and Leader of the Commons:1966^1970 (London: Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape,1976) 541.Tony Harrison, another economic special adviser and I were allowed virtually to write that white paper, so specialised were its contents. For similar problems with respect to the nationalised industries’ white paper, see Crossman, n 33 above, 524. O⁄cial committees date from 1930s,Walker, n 26 above, 68. An account of this from the inside is G. Kaufman, How to be a Minister (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1980) ch 7. Largely repeated in his 1997 edition as if it remained true, which it did not.


Christopher Foster

preliminary position paper, often followed by a preliminary white paper or green paper, then the white paper setting out the policy and ¢nally the Bill itself. The process was interleaved with ministerial statements and speeches explaining the more di⁄cult or contentious issues in some depth. It was a mechanism for getting not only agreement, but also thoroughness into ministerial lawmaking, policymaking and important decision-making.

THATCHER AND THE CABINET

After 1979 ministers entered cabinet expecting it to be as collegiate as Heath’s had been. Thatcher preserved the formalities of cabinet government to the end; all collective decisions were legitimated in cabinet or cabinet committee minutes. She started by using her cabinet conventionally for most purposes,37 but to get her way she selected the order in which ministers spoke and primed those she hoped would say what she wanted to hear.38 Even so, she could not have carried her neo-liberal economic policies and her campaign against the unions after extensive discussion in cabinet committee and full cabinet, any more than Gladstone could carry Irish Home Rule, or W|lson the reform of trade union legislation.39 Therefore, from the start Thatcher by-passed cabinet over economic policy and held breakfast meetings before cabinet with those who thought like her.40 The paramount importance of those issues may reasonably justify the means she took. While disliking parliamentary debate she was assiduous ^ unlike Blair - in touring the corridors and tea-rooms to discover what back-benchers thought. If she could carry them and the party, she was less concerned about cabinet.41 Gilmour reported no cabinet discussion of economic policy in the vital ¢rst year.42 So he made critical public speeches while still a cabinet minister.43 Prior did not knowVAT was to go up by 15% until it was announced.44 The ¢rst Peter Walker, as minister of agriculture, heard of the abolition of exchange controls was on radio. Howe later protested he simply had not realised how deep the Wets’ misgivings had been over economic policy since she did not give them the chance to express them to their colleagues.45 By mobilising support in cabinet and cabinet committee, Prior achieved more emollient union legislation than she wanted, but such manoeuvres later became more di⁄cult.46 When she had a cabinet majority against her resisting public expenditure cuts in 1981, she did not give in, but reshu¥ed the cabinet.47 37 J. Prior, A Balance of Power (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986) 133. 38 Private information. 39 An account of how it happened is C. D. Foster and F. Plowden,The State Under Stress (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1996) Introduction. 40 G. Howe, Con£ict of Loyalty (London: Macmillan, 1994) 147^149; Prior, n 37 above, 133. 41 P. Dunleavy and G. Jones in R. A. W. Rhodes and P. Dunleavy, Prime Minister, Cabinet and Core Executive (London: Macmillan, 1995) 295^296. 42 I. Gilmour, Dancing with Dogma (London: Pocket Books, 1992). 43 Howe, n 40 above, 168. 44 Young, n 25 above, 149^150. 45 Howe, n 40 above, 148^149. 46 Young, n 25 above, 193^198. 47 Lawson, n 20 above, 107^108.


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After the Falklands war she often succeeded without attempting cabinet consensus. Since opposition was frequently based on doubts about her policies’ feasibility rather than their desirability, she was often proved politically right afterwards by belated public support as well as within her own party.48 She banned the unions at GCHQ without bringing it to cabinet. Cabinet did not hear of her agreement with Reagan to lift the ban on using British-based aircraft to bomb Libya until the night of bombing;49 she was not interested in cabinet’s views, which would have been hostile.50 Thatcher’s by-passing or steam-rollering of cabinet colleagues opposed to her suited a situation where she and those close to her had a clear, well-de¢ned agenda and when she paid relentless attention to detail to ensure she got what she wanted. Given her approach, it is hardly surprising that full cabinet discussion of policy became rare. By the mid-1980s cabinet itself had become little other than a formal or ritual occasion.51 Lawson regarded cabinet meetings as the most restful and relaxing event of the week.52 Though the committee structure covering all aspects of government survived, she had fewer and used them less than Callaghan had, preferring ad hoc committees. But choosing such a committee of those best quali¢ed to progress a matter, as had happened in the past, was not the same as packing one to get the outcome she wanted, as she did, even against the wishes of the cabinet majority, for those measures she particularly cared about.53 This practice biased scrutiny since it ensured it was done by those favourable to a measure. Most o⁄cial committees, which had gone over di⁄cult material before it reached ministers, had disappeared. The time-pressure on ministers had become so great and the need to be away from London ^ for example on European business ^ so insistent that regular meetings were hard to schedule.54 As time passed, what Lawson called ‘creeping bi-lateralism’, that is, meetings between herself and the departmental minister, became her preferred and usual vehicle for scrutiny. The guarantee of the reasonable thoroughness and practicality of new measures was no longer through the constructive criticism of other cabinet colleagues, but her own inexhaustible appetite for papers and minute attention to detail. Collective responsibility was replaced by her relentless interrogation of ministers about the e¡ects of their proposals.Whether a measure got through thus came to depend more on her personality and judgement. Ridley, among her strongest supporters, tried to re-de¢ne the convention of collective responsibility as one of her singular responsibility. He argued:

48 However, as judged by monthly Gallup polls, she was the second least popular Tory leader since the war: ‘Her peaks of popularity did not approach Callaghan’s in the 1970s,W|lson’s in the 1960s, Eden’s and Macmillan’s in the 1950s or Attlee’s after the war. Her troughs, however, sank lower than those of any other prime minister.’ Crewe in A. Seldon, HowTory Governments Fall (London: Fontana, 1996) 401^403. 49 Young, n 25 above, 475^479. 50 Mount, n 18 above, 122, 3. 51 Private information. 52 Lawson, n 20 above, 125. 53 Lawson, ibid,127; K. Baker,TheTurbulentYears (London: Faber and Faber,1993) 255^256; King, n 22 above. 54 R. Butler, Cabinet Government (London: Attlee Lecture, 18 March 1999).

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Ministers in Britain, like their counterparts in America, are ‘hired and ¢red’ by the person in whom the power of the Executive is vested.They do not have positions in their own right . . . they are there to help the prime minister and at the prime minister’s pleasure.55

A novel interpretation, but it did not work. Though indefatigable ^ sleeping four or ¢ve hours a night - she found all power could not be concentrated in the prime minister.To take a routine example, she was at her best as in bus policy, where she had a minister ideologically and personally congenial, and a policy proposal not her own. Ridley’s own conviction politics made him wish to privatise and deregulate busses, but she required extensive research and analysis ^ with substantial academic and practitioner input ^ to convince her and Whitehall of its practicality.56 There were other examples of the bene¢ts of her attention to detail. But even in the best circumstances, her scrutiny of cabinet papers was no substitute for detailed collective discussion between departments and with all interested external parties to discover what was capable of e¡ective implementation. Cabinet solidarity withered. Evading discussion in cabinet, cabinet committee or bi-laterals, some colleagues pursued policies of which she did not approve.57 Lawson refused to adopt progressive ¢scal measures to o¡set the regressive e¡ects of the poll tax and make it more palatable. In 1987 Lawson decided to shadow the mark o¡ his own bat; furious when she found out, there was nothing she could do about it since he had all the levers.58 Towards the end she did not always get her way in cabinet, as over the Hillsborough agreement59 or the future of Hong Kong.60 Earlier it was rumoured that Carrington and Gilmour had to threaten resignation to stop her pressing further the terms she had renegotiated on Britain’s contribution to the EC budget.61 Howe and Lawson also had to threaten resignation to get agreement over the Madrid summit.62 Thatcher increasingly became isolated.63 In 1988 Whitelaw - her lightning conductor with the rest of the cabinet - retired. Publicity misfortunes made her closest supporters, Parkinson and Ridley, resign. She clashed with Tebbitt. She provoked the resignations of Heseltine, Bi¡en, Lawson and Howe and so brought about her own downfall, proving, as some said, that cabinet government still worked. But not until that astonishing end. A cabinet which works only to engineer a prime minister’s downfall is hardly a promising example of collective

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

N. Ridley, My Style of Government (London: Hutchinson, 1991) 26^28. Private information. See King, n 22 above, 116^189. M. Thatcher,The Downing StreetYears (London: Harper Collins, 1993) 703 wondered whether she should have sacked Lawson; also A. Kavanagh and A. Seldon,The Powers Behind the Prime Minister (London: Harper Collins, 1999) 199. In her middle years she was occasionally beaten in cabinet, eg in late 1985 when she wanted to sell Austin Rover to General Motors: Kavanagh and Seldon, nn 58 above, 201^203; Thatcher, n 58 above, 437^438. Young, n 25 above, 431. J. Nott, HereTo-Day, GoneTo-Morrow (London: Politico’s, 2002) 186. Howe, n 40 above, 578, 9; Lawson, n 20 above, 927^936; Ridley, n 55 above, 209^210. Recognised by the cabinet secretary, R. Armstrong,The Duties and Responsibilities of Civil Servants in Relation to Ministers (London: Cabinet O⁄ce, 1985) 447^452.


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responsibility. To Blair and his associates, re£ecting on her experience, more seemed necessary to ensure lasting prime ministerial power. THE CABINET UNDER MAJOR

After Thatcher,1990 was an opportunity to revert to a more collegiate - yet rigorous and thorough - government and to revive meaningful collective responsibility and cohesive cabinet solidarity. Another prime minister - Howe or Lawson (both still in the Commons), Heseltine or Hurd (both still in the cabinet) - might have done it. W|th a united cabinet and party so might Major. But Thatcher wanted Major because she thought him ‘one of us’ and could control him from beyond her political grave. Others wanted him because he was her antithesis. But he was neither an executive leader in her mould nor as good a chairman and mediator between colleagues as W|lson, Callaghan or Douglas-Home had been. Nevertheless for about two years Major did restore a more collegiate style.64 At his ¢rst cabinet he asked Hurd to report on Jordan.65 Heseltine, returning to cabinet from exile since Westland, asked a question, almost unthinkable under Thatcher. The atmosphere relaxed, and others also asked questions. For a while a collegiate atmosphere reigned. Robin Butler, the Cabinet Secretary, commented that Major’s early cabinets were like the Prisoners’Chorus from Beethoven’s Fidelio where the prisoners, released from their chains, start celebrating di⁄dently and gradually gain con¢dence until they are heard revelling in their newly found freedom.66 Hurd was often heard trying to help bring order by summarising points at issue, setting out the pros and cons. Major was a great setter-up and user of cabinet committees for policymaking. Despite growing di⁄culties, the more collegiate spirit survived until after the 1992 election, when cabinet discussion became rancorous. Even a strong prime minister would have found it di⁄cult to re-build cabinet solidarity, maintain the cabinet’s role in legitimising decisions, and assume Thatcher’s role in scrutinising policy proposals. But Major’s position was weakened by the need to include Thatcherites in his cabinet.67 Appealing to both sides on Europe, Major united his party and cabinet immediately but divided it more in the long run.68 Disagreements over Europe encouraged some to be fractious over other matters. Also, many ministers had long been in o⁄ce and were tired; many thought they were at least John Major’s equal and as likely to be right. And Major was unable to ¢nd his Whitelaw to help smooth over widening cabinet divisions. Almost as soon as the 1992 election was over, the Conservative standing in the polls plunged and never recovered.69 The Labour opposition at last revived and showed an ability to attack.70 The lobby hung around Downing Street 64 Kavanagh and Seldon, n 58 above, ch 8; P. Hennessy, n 9 above, ch 17; Kavanagh in A. Kavanagh and A. Seldon,The Major E¡ect (London: Macmillan, 1994). 65 Private information. 66 Kavanagh and Seldon, n 58 above, 224. 67 C. Campbell and G. K.W|lson,The End ofWhitehall (London: Blackwell, 1995) 103. 68 Riddell in Kavanagh and Seldon, n 58 above, 51^55; Hennessy, n 9 above, 456^457. 69 Seldon in Kavanagh and Seldon, ibid, 39^43. 70 Riddell, in Kavanagh and Seldon, ibid, 55^56.

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to observe if cabinet stayed late; if it did, the media sensed disagreement and rang its cabinet contacts in the afternoon for a story. Therefore to give an appearance of unanimity cabinet started ending promptly, however un¢nished its business. But in vain: the media had their claws into ministers in its endeavour to make them part of their entertainment industry. Ministers, including the prime minister, started to announce policies to the media before bringing them to parliament or sometimes to their colleagues or their o⁄cials. By the end of Major’s administration it was said that a ‘cabinet of chums’ had become a ‘cabinet of vipers’.71 The old disciplines were lost. The fall in the number of cabinet papers - that is, policy documents circulated to the whole cabinet ^ from 340 a year under Attlee and 140 under Heath to 20 a year under Major had been almost linear.72 Among the reasons given for that decline since 1979 were ¢rstly that the huge increase in legislation from the Thatcher years made it impossible for ministers to read their papers and master their briefs; secondly that events were now moving too fast, so that a cabinet paper written one week might be out-of-date by next week’s cabinet meeting, (yet while foreign policy, and occasionally defence and major industrial disputes, can move so fast that reports to cabinet must be oral - as has always been recognised - most issues, certainly policy issues, coming to it can be more considered) and thirdly that it would reduce leaking.73 But most cabinets have leaked and this one continued to do so.74 The lack of cabinet papers did not reduce their frequency but only their accuracy, as ministers came away with various impressions of the oral summaries they had been given at cabinet. Under Thatcher a stronger defence was that fewer papers written for cabinet were more than o¡set by similar and as thorough papers written for cabinet committees and or for bi-laterals with her.What characterised the Major administrations was not so much the further drop in papers written for the whole cabinet, but the decline in the number and shortening of most written for cabinet committees or meetings with the prime minister. Sensible discussion between ministers on the basis of clear statements of the issues thus became di⁄cult.75 Instead, ministers reported orally to cabinet and cabinet committees on the progress of their business, which could include reporting progress or lack of it on a policy, seeking approval of a white or green paper or bill, or their reactions to press comment. Therefore the only account many cabinet ministers had of other departments’ policies or proposals was oral, given by the minister in cabinet or, if absent, as recorded tersely in the cabinet minutes.76

71 72 73 74

Kavanagh and Seldon, ibid, 226. R. Butler, n 54 above. Ridley, n 55 above, 37^38; Prior, n 37 above, 134. H. C. G. Matthew, Gladstone:1875^1898 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1995) 115. But for other early examples see Mackintosh, n 3 above, 257; Crossman, n 32 above, 580. 75 A good description of her handling of cabinet and cabinet committee is Baker, n 53 above, 255^ 260. 76 W|lson, n 10 above, said the habit of starting a cabinet minute with a preŁcis of the relevant cabinet paper, even if it were not delivered, goes back to the 1920s. But what is there to preŁcis if there is no cabinet paper?


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The cabinet became indecisive, a tangle of shifting alliances and, without papers, with a diminished ability to master complex issues. It did not resume enough cabinet solidarity to be e¡ective. Departments were no longer motivated to think matters through clearly when initiating or implementing a policy proposal. Attempts were made to arrange cabinet committee meetings to develop fellow feeling and agenda-based discussions among ministers, but formal meetings became harder to arrange and attend.77 Furthermore, while in the past an occasional minister may have tried to override the normal civil service practice of free discussion with o⁄cials in other departments relevant to an issue, civil servants found ministers more often trying to block such discussion, mostly because of the many deep policy disagreements among ministers round the cabinet table. Kenneth Clarke said that, because of cabinet becoming as leaky as a sieve, ministers would not bring their business there.78 Though Major had started seeking consensus in cabinet, increasingly he too would bring less to cabinet after 1992 for fear of leaks. Cabinet did not discuss Back to Basics, which had a short-run success, (though by 2002 it had made Major seem hypocritical).79 Robin Butler recalled that the inability to bring pit closures or the complex issues surrounding Britain’s membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism before cabinet or cabinet committee showed how fear of leaks - driven by disagreement - stopped proper discussion.80 When initiating proposals departmental ministers found they had a choice: they might ask the prime minister either to put it on the cabinet agenda or to set up a group to consider it. Or they might believe it sanction enough if able to persuade the prime minister on a matter with minimal or no consultation with other a¡ected ministers. Decisions began to be taken in what was called the political cabinet or in more informal meetings, usually without o⁄cials present to take minutes and record decisions.81

THE BLAIR CABINET

The new Labour government started as it meant to continue. Blair’s cabinet was not conducted like his shadow cabinet,82 which was more like a traditional cabinet that had discussed policy and tactics.83 There were to be no cabinet decisions. The decision to hand interest rate determination to the Bank of England was taken 77 78 79 80

Private information. Hennessy, n 9 above, 444^445. E. Currie, Diaries:1989^1992 (London: Little Brown, 2002). Hennessy, n 9 above, 459; P. Stephens, Politics and the Pound (London: Macmillan, 1996) 262^263. Major had been much identi¢ed with entering the ERM. His prestige and e¡ective power dropped on exit. 81 The decision to abolish the National Economic Development Council, for example, was taken by a few ministers coming together by chance behind the Speaker’s chair just before the 1992 election, furious because of the ribbing about that election they had just had from its union members at the Council meeting. As chairman of a NEDO working party, I happened to be at that meeting; also private information. 82 Information from Lord Richard who was in both shadow cabinet and cabinet; also M. Mowlam, Momentum (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2002) 75; J. Kampfner, Blair’s Wars (London: Free Press, 2003) 14^15. 83 Information from Lord Richard; J. Jones, Labour of Love (London: Politico’s, 1999) 318.

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before cabinet ¢rst met.84 Besides Blair and Brown, only Prescott and Cook knew, though they had no part in the decision.When Robin Butler remarked that transferring monetary policy to the Bank of England was a major decision which cabinet must be expected to endorse, Blair misunderstood the point and said, ‘Don’t worry, the cabinet will agree.’85 When Clare Short, on resigning in 2003, condemned Blair for disregarding cabinet, the main incident she recalled was the cabinet discussion in June 1997 whether to abandon the Millennium Dome. Momentarily ministers thought they were asked for a decision, but it was for an expression of opinion. Blair left the room, leaving the chair to Prescott.86 Although the majority was against the Dome, Prescott concluded the discussion by gaining agreement that the decision ‘should be left toTony’.The cabinet majority against did not stop Blair deciding in its favour.Thereafter Clare Short could not remember one occasion when cabinet was asked to make, or had made, a decision.87 The closest was when a few ministers ^ worsted in legislation committee - asked that bills they wanted should be reconsidered for inclusion in the legislative programme; but the decision on that, as on everything else, was taken afterwards by the prime minister.88 Ministers believed Blair and Brown took the more important decisions in private.89 W|thout decisions or discussion of issues, cabinet meetings rarely lasted more than an hour, sometimes much less. As under Major there were no papers.90 Short recalled only ones on the legislative programme, outlining what was to be in the Queen’s speech, and none on policy. For the ¢rst time since 1916 there was no detailed agenda.91 Blair hated formal meetings. He was not good at teasing out issues and he never seemed to be able to talk freely except to his closest advisers. Rather what was called a more ‘organic discussion’ developed, often hard to minute.92 The foreign secretary had long made an oral report on foreign a¡airs, a practice extended to ‘parliamentary’,‘economic’, often Northern Ireland and, for a time, also to ‘European’ a¡airs. But cabinet now rarely discussed ministers’ individual items of business, except when media pressure led a minister to make an oral report. For example, the cabinet was not involved in the early discussions of the Euro.93 Exceptions were when there was a crisis like BSE or the ¢re brigade 84 D. Draper, Blair’s 100 Days (London: Faber and Faber, 1997) 26^34; Hennessy, n 9 above, 480^481. Unlike devaluation and other macro-economic decisions which must be taken rapidly and secretly, there was no need for speed in this case, though this claim has been made, Draper, ibid, 34.When Blair was asked if he wanted a paper on the subject, he said no: A. Rawnsley, Servants of the People (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2000) 32. The Treasury was even more o¡ended that they had no prior warning at all that Brown at the same time told the Governor of the Bank he was to lose his regulatory functions. 85 Private sources; Rawnsley, ibid, 33. 86 Private sources; Rawnsley, ibid, 54^56. 87 Corroborated to me by Chris Smith for the ¢rst four years (interview, 8 July 2003) and by Lord Richard (interview, 11 July 2003) for the ¢rst year of the Blair administrations; also R. Cook,The Point of Departure (London: Bloomsury, 2003) 115^116. 88 Interview with Clare Short, 11 June 2003. 89 Interviews with Chris Smith and Lord Richard, n 87 above. 90 Robin Cook complained he alone among ministers put a paper to cabinet: Cook, n 87 above, 63. 91 Hennessy, n 9 above, 481. Short recalls that at ‘political cabinets’ at Chequers they would get papers on polling; also Cook, n 87 above, 246^247. 92 Draper, n 84 above, 35. 93 Rawnsley, n 84 above, 76.


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strike was about to burst onto the media, when the minister concerned might make a brief report. But these did not provide the occasion for discussion. The important new item was the Grid: next week’s plan for the timing of ministerial announcements and for avoiding their possible clash with other political, cultural and sporting events.94 For the ¢rst time the government’s chief press o⁄cer, Alastair Campbell, regularly attended cabinet meetings. The focus of almost all that was said ^ it cannot be called discussion - was on the Grid, the media and other presentational matters. Cabinet was now for chatting about next week’s business, keeping everyone broadly aware of what was going on, laying down the messages on leading topics if door-stopped by the media.95 Formal decisions were reached on the legislative programme and public expenditure, but without substantive discussion. For a while an inner cabinet of Blair, Brown, Prescott and Cook was thought the real decision-maker; it never was and stopped meeting before the end of 1997.96 Consulting cabinet, as frequently reported in the media, became a euphemism, put out by the press o⁄ce, for Blair consulting those he chose to consult.97 In 2000 he was to be openly dismissive of cabinet government, recalling the 1970s ‘the old days of Labour governments where meetings occasionally went on for two days and you had a show of hands at the end.’98 Later in 2000, when the going became choppier, what Chris Smith called occasional ‘discursive’ discussions began.99 W|thout a cabinet paper to crystallise issues, and a few hand-written notes rather than the carefully crafted chairman’s brief of the past, the prime minister would indicate the position on the topic as he saw it for perhaps ten minutes. Brown would follow, brie£y supporting him from an economic slant, not disagreeing with him in front of cabinet. Then the prime minister would ask everyone’s opinion. All would chip in with their own thoughts, trying to contribute something useful. Prescott was always loyal; Mo Mowlam, Clare Short and (rarely) Robin Cook might express a di¡erent view. If passionate about an issue, you could express that passion, but were nonetheless disregarded. W|thout papers or other preparation, and with it being actively signalled that disagreement was not expected, ministers were more likely to embellish rather than contradict what the prime minister said. The few dissenting voices he would mention only brie£y in summing up, when he usually reasserted the conclusion with which the discussion had begun. As Robin Cook said:‘Normally he avoids having discussions in cabinet until decisions are taken and announced to it’.100 Cook also spoke of the ¢rst cabinet discussion on Iraq ^ there were more later as ‘a real discussion at cabinet at last’, though Clare Short, who had demanded a 94 Hennessy, n 9 above, 481.When Jo Moore made her fateful announcement on 11 September 2001 about putting out bad news under cover of the attack on NewYork, she was following one principle embodied in the grid. 95 Interviews with Chris Smith; Lord Richard, n 87 above. I am indebted to Professor George Jones for reminding me that chatting about next week’s business has long been an item on cabinet agenda, but not virtually to the exclusion of other business. 96 Hennessy, n 9 above, 401. 97 J. Jones, n 83 above, 119. 98 Rawnsley, n 84 above, 52. 99 Interview, 8 July 2003; also Cook, n 87 above, 166. 100 SundayT|mes, 5 October 2003.

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discussion, remembered it as a poor thing.101 Even at that hour there were those, like Estelle Morris, who wondered if it were not premature, since war remained a future prospect not needing to be handled there and then.102 From 2003, as cabinet solidarity crumbled and Blair’s prestige waned, discursive discussions became more common. Cabinet took the decision to go for the Olympics and there were heated discussions over foundation hospitals and top-fees. No 10 used such occasions to maintain that in some sense cabinet government survived.103 But it was cabinet without the system. How could systematic, post-1916, cabinet government return without the civil service sta¡work, the preliminary interdepartmental meetings, the objective reviewing of evidence, the detailed analysis, the working up of preliminary papers and ¢nally of a cabinet committee or cabinet paper in which the issues to be settled were expressed as clearly as possible? A gulf lies between taking a decision with the relevant facts carefully evaluated after good sta¡work and an unscripted discussion, when not more than one or two know in any depth what they are talking about, and unsubstantiated opinions £ash across the table. An in¢nity of di¡erence exists between meetings genuinely meant to test whether there is agreement based on an understanding of the issues, and those intended merely to endorse or tinker with the presentation of what has already been decided. Robin Butler’s urging the use of cabinet committees to consult more widely among cabinet colleagues also fell on deaf ears: ‘we ¢nd the discussion is stripped of politics and lacks drive’.104 A full range of committees was created, but most important ones met infrequently, many not at all.105 Brown was so averse to discussion that he might not turn up, or send a deputy; if he came and chaired it, he could end discussion in a quarter of an hour, despite several weighty papers before it. The most traditional and e¡ective committees in the early years, when constitutional reform was rapid, were those chaired by Lord Irvine, but he was removed from the future legislation committee after ministers indicated resentment at being asked, sometimes not unreasonably, if their many proposals for bills, almost all manifesto commitments, were necessary or, if they were, could be shorter or more clearly expressed.106 Many resented the detail he, like Thatcher, expected, instead preferring to bargain about priority to various measures in the legislative programme, while avoiding the precision which cabinet and cabinet committee papers had once demanded. A lasting exception was the Public Expenditure Committee, but the way it generally worked was by using its members ^ cabinet ministers without spending departments ^ to take turns putting over a Treasury brief on each department’s proposed expenditure rather than resolving disputes or settling priorities.107 101 Cook, n 87 above, 212^213. 102 Interview, Clare Short, see n 88 above. 103 Private information; also Alastair Campbell’s evidence to the Foreign A¡airs Committee, 25 July 2003, where (Q1043) he maintains ‘policy decisions are taken by the cabinet, headed, as you know, by the prime minister’. 104 Kavanagh and Seldon, n 58 above, 268. 105 Kavanagh and Seldon, ibid, 274. 106 Andrew Grice, SundayT|mes 7 December 1997. On Irvine chairing a committee, see Cook, n 87 above, 32. 107 J. Jones, n 88 above, 126; Lord Richard, n 87 above.


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Numerous other formal and less formal committees and meetings, as well as bi-laterals between ministers not including Blair, produced policy recommendations. Unlike the discussions Blair was involved in, they could involve masses of paper, often highly technical, frequently produced by academics and management consultants. Many were devoted to joined-up government, such as policies a¡ecting the young, the disabled, ethnic communities, the elderly and the socially excluded or poor.108 The seminar atmosphere caused one o⁄cial later to comment that the abundance of paper often seemed in inverse proportion to the importance of the subject.109 These committees became an important occupation for junior ministers and contributed to the surfeit of policy initiatives at the centre. However, the conclusions of all meetings at which Blair was not present became only recommendations ad referendum Blair, unless he was not interested in them or they seemed trivial when they would be allowed to stand, though often without much e¡ect unless thought to have his support.110 But they might be vetoed or simply disregarded by him. So ministers’ relationships with the PM altered. They could be kept waiting for ages for a decision from him, or an agreement with their decision, sometimes until they found he did not intend to make one. They could occasionally get away with making their own decision, but at other times no sooner did they announce one than Number 10 contradicted it. In Clare Short’s memory, among those committees, which never met, was the Overseas Committee, not even over Kosovo, Afghanistan or Iraq.111 However, as war in Iraq came nearer, she recalled the civil service drew attention to the need to form a war cabinet. It consisted of the prime minister, Alastair Campbell (on one side of the PM, the civil servant taking the minutes was on the other) Jonathan Powell (his chief of sta¡), Sir David Manning (his foreign policy advisor), Sally Morgan (his political director), the Foreign and Defence Secretaries, and Short. Extraordinarily, neither the Cabinet Secretary nor Sir David Omand, for whom responsibility for the intelligence services depended, attended.112 The service chiefs, Straw and Hoon would report, but disagreements and di⁄culties never surfaced and any such were handled separately in bi-laterals with the PM. Although Hoon was known to be under considerable pressure from those under him in Defence to make a stand on various points, these were not brought out in the war cabinet where the atmosphere was wholly one of trying to please the prime minister.113 Instead of cabinet or cabinet committees, Blair relied more than Thatcher on bi-laterals as his normal way of doing business: the best way for a minister to 108 Mandelson was said to be a strong in£uence here: see John Lloyd,TheT|mes 5 December 1997. 109 Private information. 110 Since the 1970s previous practice had been that cabinet committee decisions were allowed to stand as if cabinet decisions, unless the prime minister or the departmental minister concerned ^ but only with the agreement of the committee chairman ^ wanted to bring it to cabinet. 111 Neither did cabinet meet between 25 July 2002 and 19 September 2002 while the Iraq dossiers were being prepared, P. Riddell,TheT|mes 18 September 2002. 112 The most unexpected and - before Blair ^ unprecedented presence was Sally Morgan’s, a tribute not only to her rapidly growing personal in£uence over him, but also to the importance now attached at every stage to judging how an issue would play in the parliamentary and national Party, and in the unions, a role which in the past ^ at least for MPs ^ had been the Chief Whip’s. 113 Clare Short interview n 102 above.

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secure agreement to a policy or other decision he wanted, but only if he could squeeze a meeting into the prime minister’s crowded and ever-changing diary, and then only if what he proposed was what Blair wanted to hear. If not, the minister might be asked to try again, often with only a confused idea of what was wanted from him, so persistent was Blair’s dislike of confrontation.114 Cook was to speak of Blair’s ‘immense capacity to leave the last person who spoke to him with the impression of total agreement’.115 Substantial papers were written for him, but perhaps unsurprisingly, given inordinate claims on his time, he relied most on short brie¢ngs from his sta¡.116 In that he was unlike Thatcher. In bi-laterals, ministers often found excellent Blair’s ability to listen, pick up issues, and move from point to point, but sometimes found it harder to know just what decisions had been reached, particularly if there were any hint of disagreement. As he was frequently on the move making decisions as he went, the job of discovering and legitimating government decisions, and then communicating them to those who needed to know, often became fraught. There were ‘running meetings’ at which the subjects discussed ^ and people present ^ shaded into each other.117 Extraordinarily at one such meeting over Dr David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence was represented by its permanent secretary, Sir Kevin Tebbitt, without the Defence Secretary turning up. Cabinet minutes and cabinet committee minutes were generally not used to record his decisions. Ministers found cabinet minutes among their least informative reading, less so than under Thatcher.118 Instead, there was a constant battle with informality and many of the prime minister’s meetings - perhaps most - were not properly minuted.119 Among them ^ it was almost a disaster - was Blair’s with Bernie Ecclestone over Formula 1 and its tobacco money.120 More seriously, because it was the crucial period in which the September dossier on Iraq was being prepared for publication, Jonathan Powell told the Hutton Inquiry that, though it ‘might seem odd to people outside’ (surely to most insiders too), the prime minister held up to 17 meetings a day during the space of a fortnight of which only three were minuted.121 There are three main reasons why any pretension to e⁄ciency requires meetings to be minuted. First, that those who are to implement its conclusions can do so without any misunderstandings. Secondly, that the reasons given for such conclusions be noted. And ¢nally so that one can know ^ especially if there is later to be any question of blame - what reservations, if any, were made (and by whom) to 114 Lord Richards’ bewilderment over what Blair wanted him to do over Lords’ Reform and eventual resignation are charted in J. Jones, n 83 above, 142, 146, 149, 161, 172, 191, 193^196, 250, 257, 270, 274. 115 Cook, n 87 above, 93. 116 In the past the norm was that the PM received a brief from his private o⁄ce and possibly one from his policy unit, merged under Blair into one policy directorate of which every member was called a policy adviser. As important had been the cabinet secretariat brief which summarised neutrally the known views of cabinet ministers, especially those with related departmental responsibilities. Such a brief was no longer thought relevant. 117 The Independent 19 August 2003. 118 Hennessy, n 9 above, 482; also theThe Guardian view, H. Young, n 25 above. 119 Blair was not alone. The Hutton Inquiry was told Alastair Campbell’s meetings on the September dossier were not minuted, The Independen, 15 August 2003. Cook, n 87 above, 138 said Blair was more likely to‘open up’ if his meetings were unminuted. 120 Rawnsley, n 84 above, 93. 121 P. Johnston, DailyTelegraph 23 August 2003.


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the conclusions reached.122 The cabinet secretariat had honed the business of keeping such minutes to near-perfection, but they were no longer present at many important meetings.W|thout the checks and balances such minutes provide against the misuse of executive power, not only is there no ready check on the encroachment of such power, but blame can be shifted without limit. There was another way besides discursive discussion - another vestigial convention of cabinet government - in which the proprieties of cabinet government were formally maintained. Though the main cabinet committees scarcely ever met, there was a constant and immense £urry of papers passing between ministers who, as members of the committees, were expected to sign them all o¡ in their red boxes or at their desks. In this manner ministers were required to discharge the traditional function of collective responsibility and achieve cabinet solidarity. In particular they were expected in this way to tell their colleagues about, and seek approval for, their policy proposals; bills and public documents, and for changes in public expenditure. Once cleared, they were recorded as government decisions in a letter from the cabinet secretariat. Frequently papers were moving so quickly that a minister might not have more than a couple of days to comment on another minister’s business, even if of real concern to his own department. On relatively minor, non-contentious matters, involving more than one department, the system worked as indeed a similar system for lesser issues had worked in the past. But on major and controversial matters, it could make interdepartmental clearance harder than under the old system. Given the pressure the government felt itself under to ‘join up government across the board’, the outcome of these processes could be embarrassing, either because they moved too fast for important interdepartmental issues to be addressed; or because they became locked in stubborn disagreements.123 Except with di¡erences between those departments, which were peculiarly Brown’s preserve, and might be sorted by his advisers and o⁄cials, only the prime minister under the new prime ministerial system had the authority to decide these issues.124 But since the PM was often too overloaded to have a meeting or form a view, this method of simulating collegiate cabinet government often caused delays and great ine⁄ciency. This failure to resolve disagreement became a common reason why many bills reached parliament without underlying policy di¡erences having been reconciled, and therefore for the poor and ill-considered bills clogging parliament. A shortcoming of Blair’s form of prime ministerial government was that, while most decisions could be judged simply by whether decisions were taken as 122 Did the Joint Intelligence Committee under John Scarlett note the reservations some of the intelligence services had to the use of their material in the September dossier? W|thout a minute we cannot know if those reservations were conveyed to Alastair Campbell, Hoon and the PM. They denied they were. 123 In£uencing the push for more joined-up, that is, interdepartmental thinking ^ especially active in the early Blair years ^ were G. Mulgan, Connexity (London: Chatto and W|ndus, 1997); Perri 6, Holistic Government (London: Demos, 1997); Perri 6 et al, Governing in the Round (London: Demos, 1999); D.W|lkinson and E. Appelbaum, Implementing Holistic Government (London: Demos, 1999). 124 Chris Smith (interview n 87 above) remembers feeling so strongly about a proposal to disqualify asylum-seekers from working that he wrote twice to the Home Secretary about it. Getting no satisfaction, he managed to meet Blair over it. Blair did not express his own viewpoint, but simply decided in favour of Straw.

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ably and e¡ectively as they would have been under another regime, its inherent absolutism suddenly seemed dangerous when deciding on war.Whose signature was on the piece of paper headed ERII authorising war in Iraq? Who authorised it? Not the cabinet, a cabinet committee or the war cabinet. Not a vote in parliament.125 Where is that decision recorded? Though there seemed many things the prime minister could not achieve in practice, on matters of peace and war it would seem as if he could act on his own authority alone. CONCLUSIONS

The cabinet in Jennings’ time, and for some years more, was just about able to keep pace with the growth of government business and remain collegiate through successive developments in the cabinet system. Margaret Thatcher sought to replace cabinet by prime ministerial government, and the thoroughness of a collegiate cabinet system by her own, though not without peril as her insistent championship of the poll tax showed. Blair also wanted to supersede cabinet and for six years did so, but he had not Thatcher’s appetite for paper or eye for detail, and his in£ux of advisers, individually and collectively, were as unsystematic. Then Iraq undermined his ascendancy over his ministers.What returned was an unsystematic cabinet like Major’s without bene¢t of cabinet papers or other process elements of the old cabinet system. No wonder the outcome was frequently leaked ministerial disagreement, but also a continuation of poorly drafted bills, ill-argued and often opaque public documents, and spun ministerial statements. Why did ministers not speak up or answer Thatcher or Blair back? Initially because they were so pleased by victory after years in the wilderness. They were happily enjoying themselves in o⁄ce. They were impressed by how successful the PM was and by how much he had matters under control. Only gradually did it dawn on them that they were weak and powerless. Under Thatcher to speak up could be terrifying. Even if the manner were di¡erent, to do so under Blair received as hostile and disdainful a put-down. They knew they owed their places to the prime minister, asThatcher’s ministers had done. Both prime ministers sacked those who disagreed with them. Each was long their party’s strongest electoral asset. But had ministers not the lesson of the end of theThatcher era that if they were to unite, they could overthrow the prime minister? But it was a disturbing lesson. Had that change not led to a disastrous succession ^ in no sense planned - and what might be as long a spell in the wilderness as Labour’s had been from 1979 to 1997? But when from 1990 and mid-2003 ministers became more lively, they re-created the appearance, not reality, of e¡ective cabinet government.That requires some mixture of rebuilding a cabinet system, in which civil servants work with ministers to make their work more e¡ective, and a reduced central government workload through more devolution of government, not just in relation to 15 per cent of the UK population who live in Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland. 125 Much play was made of the fact that, apparently for the ¢rst time, a government behaved as if there could be such action only after a Commons debate, but that in itself cannot be the formal authorisation needed. Presumably it was the prime minister’s, in line with his general resumption of monarchical powers.


771