Simon James - Prime Minister and Cabinet Government

Readers of the previous two editions of this definitive work will be delighted to see a much-welcome update is now available. Newcomers will find it an accessible and comprehensive account of central government in the UK. It fills what is a surprising gap in the field.

Andrew Blick, Director of the Centre for British Politics and Government, Kings College London, UK

Readable, wide-ranging and authoritative, this book offers a fascinating account of the role of the Cabinet system in contemporary Britain. Drawing on deep scholarship and wide personal experience, it is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the governance of the country today.

Paul Webb, Professor of Politics, University of Sussex, UK

Fully revised and updated, this new edition of Simon Jamess comprehensible and accessible text provides an excellent insight into the work of the Prime Minister and Cabinet government. It draws on the wealth of new material that has become available in recent years to shed light on the mechanisms and processes of the Cabinet system in Britain, focusing on the post-1979 period. Its coverage includes:

ministers and their departments;

collective decision-making;

the role of the Prime Minister;

the strengths and weaknesses of the Cabinet system; and

the future of the Cabinet system.

Prime Minister and Cabinet Government will give both A-level students and undergraduates a clear understanding of the realities of this central aspect of British politics.

Simon James worked formerly in the Cabinet Secretariat and for the past 20 years has advised countries overseas on their Cabinet systems and central policy-making systems. He is a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Political Economy of Kings College London.

Prime Minister and
Cabinet Government

Third Edition

Third edition published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2020 Simon James

The right of Simon James to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

First edition published by Routledge 1992
Second edition published by Routledge 1999

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: James, Simon, 1960- author.
Title: Prime minister and cabinet government/Simon James.
Other titles: British cabinet government
Description: Third edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Revised edition of: British cabinet government. 2nd ed. 1999. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019058345 (print) | LCCN 2019058346 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138545946 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138545953 (paperback) | ISBN 9781351001489 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cabinet systemGreat Britain.
Classification: LCC JN405 .J35 2020 (print) | LCC JN405 (ebook) | DDC 320.441dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058345
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019058346

ISBN: 978-1-138-54594-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-54595-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-00148-9 (ebk)

Typeset in Avenir
by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

Returning to this book after an over-long gap of 20 years, I am relieved to see that it has stood up reasonably well to the passage of time. In this revised edition I have kept substantially the same structure and coverage as in previous editions, but have updated examples and case studies and added a short chapter dealing with the coalition government of 201015. In doing so I should express my indebtedness to the work of Anthony Seldon, whose outstanding biographies of successive premierships are a goldmine of material, and to the Institute for Government and its former director, Peter Riddell, for their analytical work on aspects of the governmental system, notably their invaluable study of government ministers 15 Minutes of Power. I have also re-worked the first chapter to give an account of the legal and procedural foundations of the central government system, a product of my work advising foreign governments over the past two decades, mostly in countries where, rightly I think, more attention is paid to the legal basis of the system than in the United Kingdom.

Given that I previously worked for the Department for Education and in the Cabinet Secretariat, readers may reasonably ask to what extent this is an authorised or official version. It is not. The first edition was written before I joined the civil service. The second appeared while I was working in the Cabinet Office on the Blair governments constitutional reform programme, as one of the secretaries to the Ministerial Committee on Devolution. My employers were remarkably tolerant, as long as I stuck to writing about process rather than the substance of policy and included no confidential information acquired in the course of my work (which, as a matter of professional ethics, I would not do anyway). The full text of that edition was cleared by a senior official and I can fairly say that nothing of importance had to be omitted as a result. It was therefore not an authorised book except in the negative sense that it had been checked for unprofessional indiscretions; the content, examples, analysis and argument were mine alone.

Since I have worked as a freelance consultant since 2001, no such considerations apply to this third edition which, however, has benefited from the much greater openness of government than in previous eras. Yet, as I wrote in the prefaces to earlier editions, the foundations of my understanding of the government system lie in the series of exceptionally revealing seminars (at least 150 of them) that I attended throughout the 1980s and 1990s at London School of Economics, organised by John Barnes and Anthea Bennett, at which serving Cabinet ministers and senior officials spoke under Chatham House rules about the national policy-making process. To this I have added, 20 years after the event, some examples from my time in government, while adhering carefully to the Radcliffe-Maud principles that govern the publication of the memoirs by former ministers and former civil servants which is more than many Prime Ministers have done. I also could not resist including the story of the badgers which appears at the end of , in the interests of national merriment. However, wherever possible, I have illustrated every point made by adding a reference to a published source so that students can, if they wish, follow it up and put the point in context. I am aware that this may create the impression that I have relied unduly on ministerial memoirs; so be it.