Читать книгу The British Prime Minister in an Age of Upheaval - Mark Garnett - Страница 12

The fact that Prime Ministers are elected to the House of Commons on the same territorial basis as other MPs is never forgotten either by holders of the office or by their constituents. The latter rarely feel that they are inadequately represented, since Prime Ministers always have a well-qualified team to deal with any local or national issues which constituents might raise, and their visits are likely to evoke feelings of pride and gratitude even among residents who voted for one of their opponents. Prime Ministers are usually glad to return the compliments, claiming that the freely expressed views of their constituents help to keep them ‘grounded’ in public opinion more generally. Yet this commendable attempt to feel the public pulse is not necessarily very informative, since the mere fact of being Prime Minister seems to have a distorting effect on the mindset of one’s constituents. Since 1979, in every general election after a Prime Minister has stood down as an MP, the vote for her or his successor as the party’s constituency candidate has declined.

Not even the most earnest and perceptive Prime Minister will find it any easier to monitor the mood amongst MPs, which is much more volatile and likely to be concealed from those who seek to gather information on the Prime Minister’s behalf. If Prime Ministers conduct their own fact-finding exercises – for example by touring the numerous places of refreshment available to MPs at Westminster – the response is likely to be even less informative. At larger gatherings, like the notorious Conservative 1922 Committee, the banging of desks to greet the Prime Minister could mean almost anything – even, occasionally, sincere support.

In one respect, what Michael Foley called ‘leadership stretch’ has always been inherent in the role of Prime Minister (Foley, 1993, 120–47). There are unmistakable clues in both of the words of the job title. Being a minister of any kind means that one is a decision-maker, however humble. A Cabinet minister is not only a decision-maker, but also someone who attends meetings where other people’s decisions are discussed. People who reach this status are bound to experience a change in perspective which affects their personal relations with backbench MPs. Becoming Prime Minister takes this enforced estrangement to a different level; the people who merely discuss the decisions taken (or proposed) by ministers are far removed from the individual who oversees the whole decision-making process. For politicians who first enter the Commons fired by an ambition to reach the top rung of the ladder, it is natural after they have realized this goal to consign their fellow MPs to three classes: those who would like at some point to succeed them or at least to graduate into the ‘decision-making’ ranks; a number of embittered politicians whose ministerial careers have already ended; and others who genuinely wish for nothing more than to continue as representatives of the people who gave them the right to sit in Parliament. When contemplating all of these groups, Prime Ministers must find it difficult to repress mingled sentiments of pity, contempt and fear. Thanks to the erection of security gates at the end of Downing Street – one of several relevant developments during the Thatcher years, but this time for very good reasons – the barriers to real collegiality are both physical and psychological. As David Cameron lamented in his memoirs, ‘It didn’t matter that I took great pains to be accessible and inclusive. Being behind those black iron gates symbolised (and to a certain extent produced) separateness’ (Cameron, 2019, 237).

When they answer the first of the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs: see below), Prime Ministers still have to include ‘my duties in this house’ as part of their standard reply to an inquiry about their schedule for the day. This is a cleverly worded formula, since there are no prescribed parliamentary ‘duties’ for any MP, let alone the Prime Minister. If so minded, Prime Ministers can feel that they have discharged their duties merely by turning up for PMQs every week while Parliament is sitting (although when they are unavoidably absent they can supply a deputy). David Cameron might have felt that he ‘took great pains’ to act like a normal MP, but the days of Winston Churchill, who in his final term of office (1951–5) often turned up to listen to debates even when he had no intention of speaking, are long gone.

Why has this happened? Arguably, a more pertinent question is why an inevitable development was delayed for so long. Until 1979, it might be claimed, the head of government wasted time in the Commons which could always have been used more profitably elsewhere. Even if a particular bill was judged to be very important to the Government’s overall purpose, the presence of the Prime Minister on the front bench during debates – unless there was a serious prospect of defeat – could seem superfluous. Indeed, it might suggest a lack of confidence in the Cabinet minister whose department was directly responsible for the proposed legislation. Far better, then, to use the authority of the office more sparingly, saving it for those occasions when the incumbent was really needed.

As so often, the trendsetter in this respect was Margaret Thatcher. A forensic study of prime ministerial involvement in the House of Commons reports that ‘her speech making and her interventions in debates dwindled away to virtually nothing during her long tenure of office … Many Tory MPs elected after 1987 claimed almost never to have met her’ (Rhodes and Dunleavy, 1993, 288). Thatcher’s semidetachment certainly did not arise from any fears concerning her ability as a Commons performer: her reported concern that she might lose a vote of confidence during the Westland Affair in January 1986 suggests misgivings about the substance of her argument on that occasion, rather than her mode of delivery. Since radio broadcasts of the proceedings of the House began in the year before Thatcher became Prime Minister, voters could hear, as well as read about, her combative debating style. However, until the Falklands War of 1982 her leadership of the Conservative Party was not secure, and many MPs thought that her economic policies were leading the party to electoral disaster. Given the choice, not even the most self-confident individual will spend too long in the company of so-called supporters who either offer insincere encouragement or show active hostility.

In short, the unavoidable institutional considerations which create a distance between the Prime Minister and her or his parliamentary party were reinforced in Thatcher’s case by ideological ones. The default position was non-attendance: the Prime Minister would only make the short trip from Downing Street to the Palace of Westminster when there really was no alternative. Displays of Thatcher’s parliamentary pugilism were best reserved for occasions when the Government was under attack from the Opposition, and backbenchers were most strongly minded to rally behind their leader, whatever their real feelings. It was perhaps fortunate for Thatcher that her Labour opponents repeatedly called votes of no confidence in her government, providing regular opportunities for her to display her virtuosity. The Opposition even called such a vote on the day when she resigned as Prime Minister in 1990, as if they wanted her to depart in a blaze of glory. After her contribution the Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown congratulated Thatcher on ‘a bravura performance of the sort which she had made her own’; one of her backbenchers, Michael Carttiss, probably spoke for many of his colleagues in the emotionally charged chamber when he exclaimed, ‘You can wipe the floor with these people.’¹ Thus Thatcher’s infrequent attendance actually augmented her legendary status: it meant that she was never afflicted by the law of diminishing returns.

Thatcher’s successor John Major was a much more gregarious individual, with consensual views to match. By the time of his departure from the Commons in 2001 Major had few reasons to thank his immediate predecessor, but he could at least feel some gratitude for her precedent of parliamentary truancy. While Thatcher had been fortunate to face ineffective Opposition leaders, in his second term (1992–7) Major was lumbered with John Smith and Tony Blair, who would have been difficult to master even without the numerous misfortunes which befell Major’s government. While Thatcher’s relish for verbal confrontation meant that she was at her best when at bay, Major’s speaking style reflected a preference for compromise which was increasingly ineffective as Conservative divisions over Europe deepened after 1992. In July 1993, at the height of the parliamentary crisis over the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, Major famously gave vent to his feelings about critics within his Cabinet. At the time, most media speculation focused on the identity of these disagreeable individuals. Yet Major was talking about the state of his parliamentary party, and the probability that the sacking of Eurosceptic ministers would only make things worse. As the Prime Minister put it, the Conservative benches were already full of ‘the dispossessed and the never-possessed … We don’t want three more of the Bastards out there’ (Seldon, 1997, 389–90).

Major’s outburst was more understandable because he had just experienced a thirty-six-hour ride on a parliamentary roller-coaster. In a debate on the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty (22 July 1993), Tory Eurosceptics had made it no secret that they were exploiting the issue as their only realistic chance of preventing the ratification of the Treaty. Accordingly, they joined Opposition parties in voting to reject an ‘opt-out’ which Major had negotiated at Maastricht, in the hope of appeasing potential critics. Major – fresh from a somewhat premature ‘end-of-term’ party for MPs held at No. 10 – was judged by one of the attendees to have ‘opened the debate quite brilliantly. He has never been better. He was simple, direct, passionate … When he sat down at the finish, he looked so happy. And we roared our approval and waved our order papers in the air’ (Brandreth, 1999, 198–9). A Prime Minister with the ability to command a majority in the Commons, and who had presented a plausible argument with clarity and conviction, ought to have prevailed comfortably. However, the government lost the division by eight votes. Major promptly announced that the government’s motion would be brought back on the following day, this time as an issue of confidence which would precipitate a general election if the result was unchanged. When Major spoke in the confidence debate, the same observer thought that he ‘was tired and it showed. The speech was workmanlike, but lacklustre.’ In contrast, Labour’s John Smith was ebullient. In his memoirs, Major himself agreed with these appraisals. However, as Major put it, ‘The real action took place outside the Chamber. Conservative constituencies were livid with the rebels for risking the government’s survival in defence of a Labour policy’ (Brandreth, 1999, 201). MPs duly voted to reverse their decision of the previous day.

If Major had delivered a lame speech on the original motion but followed up with a personal best in the confidence debate, the voting would almost certainly have been the same. He was left to wonder ‘Was there something I could have said … a speech, a broadcast, an argument which might have begun my party’s journey back to sanity?’ (Major, 1999, 384–5). On the evidence of July 1993, probably not; certainly, if there was such a verbal formula, Major never found it. It was not surprising that, after the defeat of his party in the 1997 general election, Major immediately sought refuge from politics at the Oval cricket ground, where his beloved Surrey gave the British Universities the kind of pasting which Labour had just administered to the Conservatives.