hi my name's Ollie and in this politics explained video I'm going to go through everything you need to know about the Prime Minister and the cabinet in a level politics so that's not just all the knowledge you need to know with key specific examples but also key points of analysis that you can use in your essays and most likely or some potential essay questions that could come up in the exam so that you can be fully prepared so in this video I'm going to start by going the parts through the parts of the specification um this video covers and some potential essay questions and key debates from there I'm going to first look at the power of the Prime Minister in the cabinet so looking at the factors that govern the prime minister's selection of ministers um the factors that affect the Power Balance and the relationship between the Prime Minister and the cabinet and then look at two key debates so is the president is the prime minister presidential um and can the Prime Minister dominate the cabinet before finally look at looking at some case studies of recent Prime Ministers um so looking at Thatcher and Blair and Cameron um to give you a lot of examples that you can use in your essays so yeah the PDF you should be seeing up there you can find in the first link in the description to the politics explain website where you can also find lots of resources to help you in your politics a levels such as essay plans everything you need to know guides um and also apply a place to sign up for tutoring if that's something you'd be interested in so yeah that's pretty much everything let's get into it so starting off with the parts of the specification this lesson covers so it's part of the Prime Minister in the executive topic and 3.3 the Prime Minister and the cabinet and that covers both the power of the Prime Minister and the cabinet um and then three kind of like key case studies of prime ministers um so in fact I'm going to start with that first part looking at all of the key debates where we'll have a lot of case studies and examples within that as well and then look at the case studies of Thatcher Blair and Cameron in terms of the key debates um you can get asked about in in this kind of section of the specification there's quite a few of them so one could be the extent to which the prime minister is now presidential um also the extent to which the prime minister is able to dominate the cabinet and the kind of the relationship between the cabinet and the prime minister the extent of the prime minister's power overall the relative importance of different factors in determining the selection of cabinet ministers and also the relative importance of different factors in influencing the balance of power between the Prime Minister and the cabinet and if you make detailed essay plans on the questions involved below or what kind of some of them and maybe you could do some not involved then you should be really well prepared for the exam you should be able to kind of then be able to translate the content in those um to kind of approaching different questions as well obviously in a kind of individual way but kind of you can take some particular paragraphs or a lot of points um and obviously making those essay plans practices actually planning an essay as well which you'll have to do in the exam so the ones in bold will be soon be available to purchase on the politics explaining website as part of the UK government the package of UK government essay plans um but they are also really useful to make yourself as it's a really good revision method so yeah starting off with the power of the Prime Minister in the cabinet um so firstly how does the Prime Minister select their cabinet so they select their cabinet at the start of their Premiership so it's like their first cabinet choose their their whole 23 cabinet ministers and after this whilst they're prime minister they often reshuffle their cabin kind of replacing some ministers um and kind of removing others um in order to maintain their Authority and keep the cabinet fresh in terms of the factors governing the prime selection of ministers the first one I'm going to look at is individual competence and experience so this is a key factor because running a large and complex government department is very difficult and prime ministers there will have to be um very confident that the ministers will be able to run those departments effectively um and in order to do that they kind of often choose ministers who have sufficient experience and specialist knowledge in the kind of area of the department a key example of prime minister selecting their cabinet according to competence is Jeremy Hunt who's the current Chancellor and was brought in by as Chancellor by Liz truss to replace quoting off after the failure of their economic reforms and then he was kept in by Russia when British sooner became prime minister this is because he'd served in the cabinet for nine years since 2010 and he was seen as a safe pair of hands after quasi-quarting um was sacked and that's a key reason why sunak kept him as well after replacing trust as prime minister another good example of a minister who's kind of who was chosen due to their competence and experiences Ben Wallace who has been the Secretary of State for defense under Johnson sunac um Andrews was Secretary of Stephanie defense under trust as well and due to his experiences of former Soldier and his perceived competence in the job on the other hand kind of individual confidence and experience um it can be counted and suggested that it's not always the case that this is kind of prioritized as a factor so Liz trust appointed quasiquarting and James cleverly to really important roles both of whom had limited experience in government so quieting for example had served in the cabinet for just two years um and then a final way in which kind of competence and kind of future competence potentially is considered is the premises sometimes considered the prospects of MPS becoming future cabinet ministers when they select their junior minister so for example David Cameron made Liz truss a junior minister in 2012 and then she was able from that to kind of then um become a cabinet minister in 2014 and then eventually rise up in the ranks and become Prime Minister in 2022. so that's the first one individual competence and experience I think that's a really important one a second thing Prime Ministers consider is establishing their Authority so when they become Prime Minister they often seek to stamp their authority over their party by removing certain cabinet ministers and replacing them with their own allies so when this trust became PM she removed important members of Johnson's cabinet including Rob Doris and um pretty Patel and Richie sunak did this too bringing in bringing back Dominic Roberts Justin secretary bringing back Michael Gove and swella braveman as Home Secretary despite the fact that trust had stacked her just weeks earlier for breaking the ministerial code another key factor that Prime Ministers consider is loyalty and political reliability so loyalty in particular um well launching political reliability I think could be seen as really important because Prime Ministers not only seek to reward the Loyalty of the key allies um who may have helped them in their kind of campaign to become Prime Minister um they also know that they'll accept Collective responsibility and support government policy in public they need people that they can trust um as the Prime Minister must be confident that ministers won't destabilize or embarrass the government by going off message um to the media or questioning its policies in his 2020 cabinet reshuffle um Boris Johnson for example sacked Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith and replaced him with Ally Brandon Smith this was despite the fact that Julian Smith was seen as a very effective normal Inception well liked within Northern Ireland as well um and he did that because Julian Smith had spoken out against a No Deal brexit and therefore showed a lack of loyalty so he removed a minister who was individually very competent um because he hadn't shown enough loyalty and loyalty was also a major factor in Liz truss's selection of her cabinet almost all of whom had supported her in her leadership campaign on the other hand though loyalty and political reliability must be balanced with prime ministers keeping faith there with keeping favor with different factions of their party and that's where the next fight to come in comes in and that's ideological balance so in order to make sure that party stays United Prime Ministers often select an ideologically balanced cabinet which represents different factions of the party keeping important members of the party who may oppose you who may be from a different faction within the cabinet is effective as they have to sign up to Collective ministerial responsibility and therefore can't publicly challenge the government so Theresa May for example appointed a number of brexities and a number of remainers to kind of have that ideological balance so brexiters such as Johnson and David Davis remainers such as Philip Hammond and Jeremy Hunt whilst Blair's cabinets always have some brown eyes and Browns cabinets after 2007 had some Blair rights as well showing that kind of balance um kind of ideological balance within the party after leadership elections another way in which um they um kind of kind of seek to off kind of kind of maintain control over their party by having the ideological balance in different factions I mean so they offer their failed opponents in the league of election um cabinet positions often so after Boris Johnson won the leadership election in 2019 he gave cabinet roles to Matt Hancock Michael Gove Domin all of whom had ran against him in the leadership campaign more recently though prime ministers have been teamed to have placed less importance on this ideological balance and place more importance on loyalty so popular premises with large majorities in particular may feel safer appointing like-minded ministers and often clear out less supportive ministers in cabinet reshuffles but even Liz trust who wasn't kind of she did have a big majority of course but she wasn't amazingly popular prime minister kind of really didn't put that much emphasis on ideological balance and put a lot more emphasis on loyalty um so she didn't offer receive a cabinet position after defeating him in the conservative party leadership election and appointed a lot of allies Boris Johnson um also appointed a significant number of brexiteers and allies to his first cabinet um with Home Secretary Priti Patel and foreign secretary Dominic Robb both being brexitives so that's um ideological balance the final Factor I'm going to look at is direct representation and diversity so especially in recent years prime ministers have found it important to ensure their cabinets are somewhat representative of the population in terms of gender and ethnicity in particular and these may be factors they consider when choosing their cabinets so Blair appointed Margaret Beckers Britain's first female Home Secretary and brown appointed Jackie Smith as the first uh no sorry Becky was the first female foreign secretary and brown appointed Jackie Smith as a first female Home Secretary and I think both um both promises may make quite a point of it um in kind of showing they were trying to have a more diverse cabinet more recently there have been more diverse cabinets as well so Boris Johnson's December cabinet um had six ethnic minority members out of a total of 23 and Richie sunax current cabinet um has four ethnic minority members of a total 20 out of a total 23. overall kind of as a counter to that however Parliament and the government are still largely dominated by white men and are broadly very unrepresentative um still so the current cabinet has just seven out of 23 uh members which are women and recent cabinets under Theresa May um and Cameron in particular were very unrepresentative so that's everything um in terms of the fact discovering the promises selection ministers what I'm going to look at now is the factors that affect the relationship between the Prime Minister and the cabinet okay so the first Factor affecting the relationship between the Prime Minister and the cabinet is the ability of the Prime Minister to manage their cabinet so an effective prime minister can use their powers of patronage to shape their top team in a way that enhances their power and enables them to promote their policy priorities and agenda by removing poor performers bringing in fresh talent and promoting ideological allies this can allow prime minister to maintain their Authority and marginalize the power of factions and individuals in their party who may want to challenge them for the leadership or destabilize the government if the Prime Minister becomes too dominant and doesn't give ministers some control though this may also cause discontent and result in them being removed by the cabinet as was the case with Thatcher in 1990 therefore they have to kind of really strike that balance the Prime Minister depends on medicines to run their departments well while also helping um them to drive forward to the broader government agenda in the specific policy area of their department and defending the government effectively in the media Theresa May for example failed to effectively manage her cabinet and was constantly undermined by leaking and briefing against the government by Boris Johnson in particular also linked to this um is the fact that the Prime Minister chairs all cabinet meetings and sums up the discussion at the end and it's this kind of this power kind of enables them to kind of drive through their agenda through cabinet if they're effective at doing so which so as I said it gives some scope to lead people towards their desired position on particular issues senior ministers will Express their views which the Prime Minister must address but the cabinet rarely votes and that leads the prime minister to sum up the discussion at the end in a way that suits them the Prime Minister also decides what's on the agenda of the cabinet so they can keep key things off the agenda um of meetings if they want to so Theresa May for example prevented a vote within the cabinet when there are no deal brexit should be an option despite other important cabinet ministers supporting one David Cameron made austerity key to the coalition's policies and the responsibility of every Department therefore effectively um setting the government and the cabinet's agenda Boris Johnson by contrast suffered significant leaking from the cabinet when he was prime minister suggesting his limited Authority and limited ability to set the agenda so far it's Unix has been seemed to have less leaking suggesting he's been able to do so more effectively the next kind of thing to consider when looking at the relationship between the cabinet and the prime minister is how important the cabinet is in decision making and what I'm going to look at now is three key ways in which um in recent decades the cabinet has been largely modeled marginalized or increasingly marginalized in decision making and the first of these is through the use of cabinet committees and informal groups to make decisions so prime ministers have a lot more control in smaller forums than they do in the cabinet and it's a lot easier to reach compromise with one or two key ministers than with the cabinet as a whole and as a consequence they often use smaller cabinet committees bilateral meetings with ministers and informal groups to make decisions rather than using the cabinet as a whole under Tony Blair for example he and his Chancellor Gordon Brown negotiated with each other to determine Economic Policy whilst Blair often used bilateral meetings with important ministers to determine policy on a particular area as he felt he could use them to talk ministers around his view Blair's style of governing was dubbed so for government as a result as he'd largely shot the cabinet in the Coalition the quad was known as the quad was used to make a number of key decisions and resolve issues between the conservatives and the lib dams and that quad consisted of David Cameron his chancellor who was also a conservative George Osborne and then two lib Demps leader of the lib Dems Nick Clegg and on second in command in the lib Dems Danny Alexander the same could be seen with Boris Johnson and Theresa May who used cabinet committees to make decisions on important issues so these are kind of smaller uh smaller groups within the cabinet but with only a few ministers so Theresa May for example used the committee on exiting the European Union to make important decisions on brexit whilst Boris Johnson used the covert night used the covid-19 strategy committee to make key decisions on Covert restrictions with health secretary Matt Hancock and Michael Gove having particular power within it more recently in her short tenure Liz truss and kind of used kind of bilateral meetings with quasi-quarting to develop their economic policy with little input from the cabinet so it was mainly those two so some members of the cabinet even spoke out against the government it starts the first in the use of informal groups and cabinet committees in order to Sean the cabinet and enable the prime minister to have a bit more power and drive through polity more effectively in the way they want the next kind of thing that's effective and kind of embolden and enable the prime minister to have more power over the cabinet um is the use of special advisors so in recent years special advisors um also known as spads have occupied an important role in Downing Street and in decision making these are unelected and are hired directly by the Prime Minister working closely with them to develop government strategy so John Major had just eight special advisors but by 2005 Tony Blair had 30 showing that growth um and a really good example of a special advisor having a lot of power and control within government and therefore having a lot more power or kind of relatively innate like because they work for the Prime Minister that's the Prime Minister often having more power than the cabinet um is special advisor Dominic Cummings um who held a very significant amount of power in Boris Johnson's government arguably far more than any cabinet minister or any member of government and Boris Johnson even took a significant hit um to the government's popularity to to defend Dominic Cummings after he broke covered Rules by driving from London to Barnard Castle during the covert pandemic so the fact that Boris Johnson was kind of willing to stick out his neck on the line um and take a big hit to his popularity in order to protect Cummings shows how much power Cummings had um within government decision making and how important he was to it um so if a special advisor like that is having so much power it shows that the cabinet the government's not having that power right it's a special advise who's unelected and works directly for the prime minister and the third kind of thing to consider is the growth of Downing Street in recent decades so whilst in the past prime ministers had little Central support and relied a great deal more on the cabinet as ministers had the administrative support of large departments modern Prime Ministers now are well supported by the prime minister's office in the cabinet office as well as a number of other kind of offices within um within Downing Street and these prime minister's office and cabinet office work closely with the Prime Minister under Blair with prime minister Blair to coordinate policy across department so what you see is that kind of these have helped the move away from the Cabinet Government where the cabinet really makes all the key decisions um to kind of the problem is having a bit more power themselves and these resources within Downing Street are now arguably greater than those available to many ministers and enable the prime minister to have an overview of policy and drive delivery and strategy across government so whilst at first Cameron um when he was prime minister deliberately tried to allow ministers to have more autonomy after kind of running into some problems in 2011 he strengthened the center again with the creation of the policy and implementation unit in Downing Street in 2011. under Blair Downing Street also tried to exercise considerable control over government messaging in the media using the communications and strategy directorate and he also had a strategy unit and a delivery unit to um to the first of these develop long-term policies and the second monitor the progress of departments in meeting their targets so that shows strong centralized control rather than kind of letting giving departments a lot more control themselves and ministers a lot more control themselves under Boris Johnson during covert daily televised press briefings were used to control government messaging in relation to the pandemic so it shows how it was quite centralized um around the Prime Minister as well and then um a final kind of group of factors and to look at when considering the relationship between the Prime Minister and the cabinet is the political and party context and the first thing of these is to consider is the size of a government's majority so when the pm has a large majority it strengthens their power and control over the party and the cabinet as they can risk upsetting certain parts of their party while still being able to pass policies through Parliament it's a blast majorities and for example meant that he could endure several rebellions from the labor left without suffering serious defeats and still being able to kind of pass through um his policies and that kind of gave Blair a lot more power over their cabinet as well especially the kind of members from the left of the party who were in the capital when the Prime Minister has a smaller majority by contrast Rebellion can be a lot more damaging and prime ministers therefore have to have less control over their counter as they need to keep key individuals who kind of May oppose them from so who are from different factions of the party within the cabinet um and keep them on site therefore the cabinet kind of has a lot more bargaining power so if a member of the cabinet is from a different faction um can say okay we're not going to vote for you if you don't do this then the kind of problem is going to have to listen to them a lot more if they have a smaller majority because that fact should not voting for them is very much like very likely to risk them not being able to pass at their vote but if they have a big majority that faction has less power because if they don't vote for it the Prime Minister might still be able to pass that policy through Parliament so Theresa May for example had much less control over her cabinet than Blair after losing her majority in the 2017 election with brexit supporting ministers with Boris Johnson in particular consistently briefing against the government and sometimes even speaking against uh out against the government and voting against the government we showed how she had a lot less control over her cabinet with Collective ministerial responsibility largely breaking down the next one which for me is a really important factor um in influencing the relationship between um the Prime Minister and the cabinet is the popularity of the Prime Minister and the Electoral prospects of the party so the popularity of a prime minister with the public is highly important in influencing whether they're able to exercise control over their cabinet and over their party if a prime minister is popular with the electorate they'll be supported by their Kavanaugh party as they'll help MPS and cabinet members get elected in the next election and therefore keep their jobs because they're very popular and people will want to vote for them if a prime minister is very unpopular or even just somewhat unpopular however they'll be seen as an electoral liability as they may might actually be a negative factor that takes votes away from a party and therefore takes votes away from from MPS I'll fight governing party um and if that happens if they do become really unpopular the party in the cabinet will often turn on them and seek to remove them so Thatcher for example is very popular Midway through being prime minister and was able to exercise significant control over control over our cabinet in that period bringing in a lot of allies however because she became unpopular with the public near the end of her um Premiership and she was unpopular with her cabinet as well after for example trying to push through the poll tax despite it being very unpopular with the public and being very unpopular with members of the cabinet and that was a key factor um so her unpopularity was a very key factor in key members of her cabinet ultimately resigning and bringing her down um in 1990. in the year after the 2019 election Boris Johnson was a major electoral asset to the conservative party he was helping to win votes from the red wall among traditional labor voters and as a result he had strong control over his party and his cabinet who was largely unified but after he after he became very unpopular with the public after the party gets Scandal the cabinet gained in power and he was eventually forced out by key members of the cabinet resigning including sunak and Javid again Liz trust was forced out in large part due to her unpopularity and how she'd kind of um decrease the popularity of the conservative party um after her failed economic reform so her cabinet and the party kind of got rid of her after just 54 days in charge and then two final things to look at are how unified a party is and The Wider political and economic situation so in terms of how unified a party is promises are going to be a lot better able to manage their cabinet and their party if that party is Unified because there won't be different factions competing against each other whereas if that party is very divided as it was we're under Theresa May for example between hard brexiteers and kind of one nation conservatives um it's a lot less it's a lot more difficult to control and it's a lot more difficult for the prime minister to therefore exercise control over their cabinet and over their party um and the final thing as I said is a wider political and economic situation so the ability of the Prime Minister to control the cabinet is also to a large degree shaped by external events and pressures which will influence their popularity um for example so crises can really damage the Prime Minister um or crises can actually help them so if if so one way that crisis can damage promises if they harm their popularity um such as the 2008 financial crisis harmed labor and Gordon Brown but if prime minister can be seen to deal with crises well um then that can also help their popularity such as Tony Blair whose approval ratings reached over 90 after he was seen as dealing with on the death of Princess Diana relatively well um and prime ministers are more likely to be popular and have effective control over their cabinet when they're presiding over a successful economy as Thatcher and Blair were for a long time but if the economy takes a massive hit as it did with trust their party's um kind of support is going to go massively down that's going to result in their cabinet losing a lot of um kind of losing faith in them and getting rid of them so yeah that's everything in terms of different factors um influencing the relationship between the cabinet and the Prime Minister what I'm going to look at now is the presidentialization of the Prime Minister and the debate over whether the prime minister is presidential so firstly what does the presidentialization of the Prime Minister mean what does it imply so the presidentialization of the Prime Minister um suggests that the prime minister is increasingly acting like and having the powers of a U.S president it's linked to Michael Foley's concept of spatial leadership and suggests that Prime Ministers are becoming more like U.S president by distancing themselves from the party in government for which they are responsible so they present themselves as Outsiders and develop personal popularity using the media in particular so I'm going to look at some key arguments they have become more presidential and then some counter arguments suggesting they have them the first argument they have become more presidential is that they often behave like a head of state so the Prime Minister often lacks acts like a head of state particularly in the context of foreign policy and in emergencies when they can rally the country behind them so in the UK the Prime Minister isn't the head of state they're not the head of the country the head of state is the monarch whereas in the US the president is the head of state increasingly in this context of foreign policy and in emergencies the kind of prominence has been taking on a very presidential role so Tony Blair for example with foreign policy drove through foreign policy in the Iraq War um I had a very close personal relationship with George Bush um and in terms of like negotiating with other leaders and turning up to International conferences and institutions that's where the Prime Minister can also very much behave like a president like a head of state for example is the prime minister that represents the United Kingdom in the G7 and the G20 and it was the Prime Minister that largely negotiated um with the EU rather than Parliament for example and then again in emergencies as well so during the covid-19 pandemic prime minister Boris Johnson was initially very popular and rallied the country behind him against the pandemic whilst hosting regular press conferences about the pandemic on TV so the fact he was able to kind of rally the country behind them in an emergency and really speak for the country can be seen as kind of very much acting like a US president like a head of state yeah that's the first one the next key factor is that the prime ministers use the media to reach out to the public and develop personal popularity so the Prime Minister can use the media and their personal popularity to reach out to the public and create a level of personal support like a president does that can allow them to determine and drive through policy through their government this has been aided by the growth of television and social media as well as TV debates I mean the fact that the media often does focus on Party leaders so Tony Blair was very successful I'm in courting the support of um the right-wing press and developing his personal image and had very high popularity um at the start of his Premiership and was as a result able to have a lot of control over his cabinet really drives policy through the government in the same way that um so kind of have a more of a greater control than the president has it is in the similar way to the present house um because of that personal popularity the next factor is that Prime Ministers increasingly rely on non-elected advisors rather than the cabinet and seek to determine all of the government's policies that's what we looked at earlier with spads the growth of Downing Street and the use of kind of smaller informal committees and that can be seen as being presidential because it's similar to The West Wing um in the U.S where the president has a significant apparatus supporting them and developing policy as the president and trying to force it through rather than in the past uh when the Prime Minister was very much prime ministerial was when they relied a lot on the cabinet and it was very much a Cabinet Government rather than kind of presidential government so that shift to the Prime Minister having more central control and administrative support can be seen as making them more presidential and the final thing linked to the one about media we've already talked about is how pregnancies have sought to distance themselves from the rest of government and their party and a really key example of this is um Boris Johnson who in the 2019 election distance himself from the conservative party they've been in power for nine years and sought to present himself as offering the electorate a change including including a move away from austerity and it was his personal popularity was that was very important in the conservative party being able to win over significant numbers of um former labor voters in the red wall also Blair appoints was seen as far more personally popular than the labor party and he sought to present himself as somewhat separate from it and driving change away from the traditional make party so there's some arguments of the Prime Minister has become increasingly presidential in terms of smart arguments that the Prime Minister hasn't um I've got three here so the first one of these is that the prime minister is ultimately still accountable to the legislature and party both of which can remove them so even though they can develop this personal popularity they're still very much accountable to the legislature to their party and to their cabinet so Prime Ministers are ultimately not president there are countable to their party and to Parliament and have to keep both on side in order to effectively pursue their goals Prime Ministers rely on MPS to pass the government's legislative agenda and therefore have to maintain their support and they also need to maintain the support the cabinet who will remove a prime minister if they feel their they aren't an electoral asset kind of went through and if they sideline the cabinet too much and it can be argued that the office of the Prime Minister is elastic so the more a prime minister seeks to expand the office the more resistance they face and that can be seen in the rate of Thatcher um who is ultimately removed by her cabinet after seeking to grow her own power too much and sideline the cabinet too much the next kind of argument that the Prime Minister isn't presidential is that the Prime Minister ultimately still relies on the cabinet the UK government operates under a core executive model where power is very fragmented and the Prime Minister can't control all of government policy they simply can't instead they seek to act as managers using their appointments power and their ability to offer some coordination to gain as much influence as possible so they ultimately very much do rely on cabinet ministers to run their departments whilst relying on cabinet decision making to settle key disputes and past policies especially when there's a cabinet rivalry or the government has a small majority or limited popularity so when Theresa May was seek to introduce a brexit deal for example she had to give significant power and really listen to the brexiteers in her cabinet including Boris Johnson who had a lot of influence due to their support among the party and they forced Theresa May towards a harder brexit deal and this is kind of especially been the case this kind of resurgence the cabinet um could potentially be seen in that way um it's been the case since 2010 where there have been a series of governments with smaller majorities or coalitions and a series of un kind of less popular prime ministers the final argument uh that the Prime Minister um isn't presidential um is the events and a divided party can limit the prime minister's ability to act like a head of state so the ability of a promise to act like a president is limited by their personality and events outside of their control so while some prime ministers are able to kind of develop that personal um popularity others lack Charisma and are hampered by events outside of their control um which mean they're a lot less able to act um presidentially so whilst Blair and Thatcher may have been able to be more presidential due to their large majorities and due to their Charisma John Major Gordon Brown and Theresa May were much less able to do so further as I said these kind of Gordon Brown well not Gordon Brown but um John Major and Theresa May in particular show how Prime Ministers are hampered by the size of their majority and their personal popularity and David Cameron's a good example of that as well um where he struggled to act presidentially as he was in charge of a coalition government and therefore needed to cooperate with the liberal Democrats both in Parliament and in the capital okay so what I'm going to look at now is the debate over whether the prime minister is able to dominate the government so I've looked at a lot of these points already I'm in a lot more detail with this kind of just sums them up in person together so the first um with the arguments that the Prime Minister can dominate their Covenant is that in recent decades the role of the cabinet in decision making has decreased significantly so rather than there being Cabinet Government like they used to be where all government decisions were made by the governor the Prime Minister now uses Capital committees bilaterals informal groupings and has an extensive network of spans as we went through and Leadership is also more personalized and centered around the prime minister the second argument is that the prime minister is often able to use the media to distance themselves from their party somewhat and develop personal popularity in order to drive through their own agenda using um the Downing Street apparatus that has grown in power this is particularly the case for popular Prime Ministers with large majorities and the third argument is that Prime Ministers can use their power of patronage to have significant influence over the cabinet by selecting a cabinet that is loyal to them and using reshuffles to hire or fire ministers and maintain their Authority the collective ministerial responsibility forces ministers to support the government publicly and that's quite important in terms of arguments of the Prime Minister can't dominate the capital is that the cabinet can play a crucial role in weakening the power of the Prime Minister and causing their downfall through resigning if they no longer support the Prime Minister which usually happens when the prime minister is no longer an elect or asset to the party Boris Johnson Margaret Thatcher and Therese May were ultimately brought down by ministers resigning and the last two prime ministers as well are Aussie Boris Johnson well the last three actually Boris Johnson to his May and Liz truss as well was brought down after losing their confidence of that party and also it must be considered the collected ministerial responsibility is often limited especially when the prime minister is weak so it largely broke down under Theresa May for example um the second point is that promises largely do still rely on their cabinets to settle key disputes run departments and parts policies especially when there is a cabinet rivalry or if the Prime Minister has a weak or no majority the UK government does operate under a core executive model where power is very fragmented and the promise to ultimately can't control the world of government policy and needs to rely on the company the third Point said the company is highly important for a government to protect Unity um to the public at a time of Crisis and is important in decision making during a crisis as joined up decision making between departments is essential for example during covert and the final point is that when there are big beasts also big beasts as ministers so really powerful ministers prime ministers have to recognize their status and the support they have across the party and therefore keep them happy by giving them significant autonomy and significant power so yeah that's everything in terms of looking at the power of the Prime Minister in the cabinet um in a bit more abstract looking at a lot of points obviously there were a lot of examples in there what I'm going to look at now and I'm going to go through these quite quickly and feel free to pause the video um if you want to kind of really read through them in a lot more detail or um go to the politics explain website and purchase the everything you need to know guides um for the whole of UK government and this will be in included in them um I'm going to look at case studies of three prime ministers so starting with Thatcher um then going into Blair and then more recently with David Cameron so starting off with Thatcher so key policies and achievements are that she's kind of generally in the scene as an agenda setting prime minister and one or three elections um she ultimately changed the industrial relations landscape and really did um successfully weaken the powers of trade unions which is one of her key aims she also instead massive economic changes bringing in on privatization of almost all of Britain's key Industries um and um bring in a near a liberal economy with massively lowering taxes um and she was able to kind of tackle kind of rising inflation and like um lead to economic growth as a consequence of this her victory in the Falklands War brings into our approval ratings when they were very low and she's seen as kind of The Iron Lady in terms of her foreign policy because she's staunchly protected Britain's interests abroad and is seen along with Reagan um and given some credit for defeating comments and following the fall of the USSR he doesn't have main failures and setbacks is that up until 1982 she was very unpopular having to introduced unpopular economic measures that didn't yet appear to be having an effect and she was very Reliant in the 1983 election on the Falklands War to win it the Falklands War I mean the victory in it really did boost her popularity and without that she was very it was very unlikely that she would have won a 1983 election um secondly due to her conviction style and sidelining of her cabinet she became very unpopular with her company at the end of the Reign and um became a lot had a lot less power over her cover so At first she was forced by her Chancellor to join the extreme exchange rate mechanism but for ultimately being forced to resign by cabinet resignations further the introduction to poll tax in 1989 1990 was hugely unpopular and led to riots um and that to pursued the policy despite massive opposition from all sides including from within her cabinet and this kind of was ultimately quite important in decreasing her popularity which obviously kind of contributed to her downfall um in terms of her strength as prime minister is that that was a conviction politician with a very dominant personality who refused to compromise with her opponents and supporters like this and think of her as Prince called a Visionary through policies such as the right device scheme um she was able to come popular beyond the traditional conservative party base and win the support of some working class Focus and in the early years of her Premiership her skillful management of the cabinet which she made much less use of than her prison she was able to kind of drive through a lot of policy herself but her skillful management of it enabled us to cement her Authority when her approval ratings were low and when many ministers doubted her policies and after she became a lot more popular she was able to kind of really submit her Authority in the cabinet and bring in a lot more allies um and then finally kind of linked to her conviction politics is that she refused to about depression from including from within her cabinet to tone down her monetarist kind of neoliberal budget of 1981 despite the fact it was very unpopular um and they wasn't it wasn't going to work immediately um and she kind of trusted that it would work eventually um and that proved to be kind of important as it did really start to work and helped her win um two elections after um well afterwards in 1983 and the 1987 elections in terms of our weaknesses of the Prime Minister often that kind of the flip side of what some people see as their strength is that she made much less use of her cabinet than her predecessors keeping many issues away from the cabinet and often beginning tablet discussions by announcing government policy on an issue rather than kind of seeking to debate it and come to a come to an agreement so senior ministers accuser are paying greater attention to our advisors than to them and this was ultimately this kind of sidelining of the cabinet was ultimately key in bringing her down in 1990 after she became very unpopular she was ultimately also a very stubborn and uncompromising and that can be seen in a lot of her policies which kind of will criticize from a lot of sides include for me in the company such as section 28 which is extremely homophobic and the poll tax as well so moving on from Thatcher um to a labor prime minister to Black in terms of his main policies and achievements again he won three um three elections which is pretty unheard of um especially for a labor leader um since the war all with relatively big majorities um and perhaps his first kind of key and important success with the 1998 Good Friday agreement which brought into the troubles um in North Island and he was seen as a very effective negotiator and being able to build personal relationships with key individuals on both sides in the first time he was introduce a number of really key constitutional reforms um and he had relative success in introducing the ideas and methods of the business sector it's really kind of further in neoliberalism um into kind of improving the delivery of the public sector particularly in education and health such as in education with self-governing um academies and in health with the setting up Foundation hospitals also they managed to capture and represent the public mood in his response to Princess Diana's death after which his approval ratings reached over 90 I'm showing how popular he bought at one point in terms of his main setbacks and failures um The crucial one is Iraq um so you took Britain to war in Iraq in 2003 and lost a lot of credibility afterwards um so it inflicted particular lasting damage on his reputation um as after kind of Saddam Hussein was removed the country really disintegrated I mean there was very little order within the country and it kind of prove that there was no real plan with the US to the Reconstruction of Iraq after the toppling of Saddam Hussein and also crucially critics focus on the fact that um Blairs winning this kind of Blair was very willing to go to the war um on the basis of unsubstantiated claims that Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction and another key kind of setback will failure quite early in this time was that within months of uh Blair becoming prime minister in 1997 he faced criticism following the Revelation that Bernie Appleton a motor racing boss had donated one million pounds to the labor party and the fact that he was alleged there was a link between this and a delay in implementing a ban on Tobacco advertising in F1 racing and Blair is going to forced to go into TV and justify himself but the money was subsequently returned in terms of his strengths as prime minister um he ruthlessly insisted on party unity and discipline and was very aware of how to project a winning image through the media um so he had a kind of um I think it was called a Communications and strategy director within Downing Street the really managed government messaging and was very effective in kind of maintain control over the cabinet and their messaging and the party as a whole so for example in 1995 he said to John Major there's one very big difference I leave my party he follows this for a Time Blair was also extraordinarily popular I had a mandate to make significant party changes and he did make those policy changes especially um well with Iraq and with constitutional reform he also places strong emphasis on strength in the center of UK government in order to cut across departments and Tackle problems in a more joined up Manner and that's what kind of we look through with the kind of delivery unit um the strategy unit kind of using direct Street a lot more and therefore having more control um overall policy in comparison to the cabinet having control and also key to this was his informal meetings and so for government in which he was able to kind of have a lot more control over policy and determine it more for himself in terms of his weakness as a prime minister as a prime minister two key ones I selected are kind of also what can be seen as a strength as with Thatcher was the marginalization of the capital so the use of informal meetings and so for government greatly marginalized Blair's cabinet noise spectacular example of this was in the Iraq War um when it did feature on the cabinet agenda but there was very little discussion on it around the cabinet table I mean this is with desired access to key documents and this was really criticized afterwards um and but it's also a way in which he can be seen as presidential but a key weakness in terms of his power was Gordon Brown so Gordon Brown's president's Chancellor faces significant limitation on brown or Blair's power sorry within government so the two men instruct an informal deal in May 1994 after the sudden death of former Naval leader John Smith and effectively Brown allowed Blair to have a clear run of the leadership and to win the leadership election in return to being promised that he would be Chancellor when they came to power um and the Blair would eventually step down to allow um Brown to become Prime Minister and labor party leader um but this kind of relationship meant that Blair had to concede a significant amount of control um to Brown over a number of key areas there was a lot of tension between the two so Brown kind of had a lot of autonomy over Economic Policy um as Chancellor and for example he effectively denied Blair's wish to join the European single currency to join the Euro by devising five economic tests that would first have to be passed and insisting that the treasury um which Brown controlled would determine when they had been met and ultimately they decided they hadn't either these tensions meant that although Blair had the advantage of a broader United party um with most labor MPS grateful for him for winning three elections um there were destabilizing conflicts between Blair right and brown functions so final prime minister on a quick look at is David Cameron so in terms of his his main policies and achievements that he introduced a number of progressive social policies including the legalization of same-sex marriage introduced to minimum wage in the personal allowance ultimately brought the UK out of recession and stabilized the financial um system after the 2008 financial crash but he did so with a very hard program austerity that's since been um criticized by a lot of groups and it's had kind of very damaging effects in a lot of areas he managed to keep the Coalition together for a whole five years which can be seen as a great success um and he also introduced further Devolution to Scotland as well so that's quite a key one in terms of his main failures and setbacks is that he didn't ever win like a big majority so he won a small majority in 2015 and before that in 2010 he relied on the lib Dems um in the Coalition for for his majority the conservative party remained divided over Europe throughout his Premiership and this was ultimately what brought him down um after he called the EU referendum campaigned for remain and lost that was a kid a big failure for Cameron um he was also unable to intervene in Military and Syria as he had wanted to due to Parliament voting against it and um he was also kind of mainly like very much criticized for austerity but also criticized for making a number of policy u-turns in terms of his strengths as prime minister um is that he managed to unite the conservative party and the liberal Democrats behind the need for austerity and get the whole camera to implement it so that can be seen as having significant power in driving through on that agenda through government he managed to prevent challenges to his leadership by forming strong bonds with Osborne clag and Theresa May and keeping opponents um such as Boris Johnson Michael goer and Ian Duncan Smith near the center of power stocking team is coming in being quite effective in managing his cabinet he also appeared temperamentally suited to the Coalition and allowed mince his greater freedom to get on with their jobs adopting a more collegial approach than the doctoral Blair whilst using a seemingly successful method of decision making with the quad um and with an attempt he did have a significant um majority obviously it was a coalition but there was a significant majority he was very defeated in terms of his weaknesses um it's the because of the correlation he often lacked control and had problems exerting the personal power he would have liked to wield internal divisions over Europe constantly made his party difficult to lead and ultimately left his downfall after he lost that referendum in 2016 and to a certain extent he was also constrained by being in charge of a coalition which limited his power of patronage and his ability to come up with and pass positive ideas I was meaning he had to constantly manage tensions between the conservatives and the dams as well as within his own property and also he never really had a comfortable parliamentary majority um and that could be seen as one of his key weaknesses so yeah as I said I went through that quite quickly so um pause the video if you want to and look at those in a little bit more detail but also I'm sure you'll have notes um from class as well which you can use for that so now I'm quickly searching back to a couple of these essay questions and how you can potentially answer them in terms of evaluate the view that Prime Ministers are able to dominate the cabinet I go up to those kind of arguments and kind of match them up um so one way you could do it is that um how the cabinets role in decision making is decreased significantly against the fact that the Prime Minister still very much relies on the cabinet that could be one paragraph in terms of your second paragraph you could look at how the prime minister is often able to use the media to distance themselves um from the party um and from their cabinet and you could potentially counter that with the fact that um they ultimately have to give significant part of big piece within the party or allow the cabinet emergencies and the final one you could potentially talk about um how they've um able to use their their own choose their power of patronage and how significant influence over the cabinet versus the fact that key cabinet ministers can resign and therefore um bring them down in terms of some of these other questions um evaluate the view that political loyalty is the most important factor governing the Prime Minister selection of ministers for that I'd probably compare political loyalty with three other factors in three paragraphs so you could potentially do political loyalty against ideological balance then against individual competence and then against diversity for example as I said with all of these you don't there's no one way to do them you can answer them in a lot of different ways um evaluate the view the popularity of the Prime Minister it's the most important factor influencing the balance of power between the cabinet and prime minister to that one um again I'd probably um do popularity of the Prime Minister against three different factors um so you could potentially do popularity of the Prime Minister against um how divided or unified the party is um for the first paragraph then you could do popularity of the Prime Minister against whether they're able to kind of successfully bypass their cabinet using the kind of growth of Downing Street spads Etc and then a third one you could do maybe the management skills of the individual prime minister against the popularity of the Prime Minister and then come to a kind of conclusion for each of those and the final one evaluate the view that the prime minister is now presidential again I just match up some of those arguments that we went through in the presidentialization of the Prime Minister so what I probably do is how they're able to act as a head of state versus limitations to that ability to act like a head of state then I do kind of their ability to use the media and develop personal popularity and acceptable from their party versus the fact they're still very much held accountable by their party out by their cabinet and they're probably doing a final paragraph how they're able to kind of bypass um their cabinet somewhere and have that kind of growth of damage similar to The West Wing and counter that with the fact they still very much rely on their company um in terms of decision making and running departments effectively so yeah that should give you some ideas um as I said at the start of the video on the UK government um in the UK government package of essay plans on the politics explained website which will soon be released um for kind of most of these will be in there so you can have kind of purchase those um if you kind of are struggling with them and want some helpful and see how kind of I've planned them um but yeah that's pretty much everything for this video as I said the go to the pods explain website to find um the PDF you've been seeing up here um as well as lots of other resources to help you in your politics a level and a place to sign up for tutoring if that's something you'd be interested in um and yeah leave it in the comment section any comments or questions I could help with and I'll see in the next video