An excellent overview - with examples of recent Prime Ministers.

1. Three Political Truisms
 All political careers end in failure
Enoch Powell
 It’s the economy, stupid
Bill Clinton aide
 Events, dear boy, events
Harold Macmillan

2. Prime ministerial powers
- formal
 Head of the Executive
 Chair of the Cabinet
 Quasi Head of State
 Commander-in-chief
 Foreign policy leader
 Parliamentary leader
 Dissolution

3. Prime ministerial power
- informal
 Chief policy maker
 P olitical patronage , (which is the
use of state resources to reward
individuals for their electoral support)
 Government spokesperson

4. Limitations on power
- formal
 Parliament
 Cabinet
 Party

5. Limitations on power
- informal
 Popular Image
 Media image
 Personality
 Parliamentary majority
 Party dissent
 Cabinet dissent
 Strength of Opposition
 Stature of predecessor

6. Jim Callaghan
 Parliamentary majority
 Party dissent (unions)
 Media image
 Wilson’s stature
 Misuse of dissolution power
 Legacy of oil price hike

7. Margaret Thatcher
 Internal dissent
 Media image
 Length of tenure
 External events

8. John Major
 Stature of predecessor
 Parliamentary majority
 Party dissent
 Cabinet dissent
 Media image
 Personality
 Economic events
 Strength of Opposition

9. Tony Blair
 Internal dissent
 One big event
 Parliamentary majority
 Lords and judicial activism

10. Gordon Brown
 Stature of predecessor
 Personality
 Media image
 Misuse of dissolution
 Events – in spades
 Strength of Opposition
 Parliamentary majority

11. Lessons from Prime
Ministers’ experience - 1
 10 years and that’s it
 Thatcher, Blair, Brown
 Pareto’s revolving elites (opposing
parties rotating in and out of
government offices and squabbling
endlessly over policy)
 Patronage
 Media

12. Lessons from Prime
Ministers’ experience - 2
 External events are increasingly
influential
 It’s not the events, it’s how you are
perceived to be handling them

13. Lessons from Prime
Ministers’ experience - 3
 It’s not just the economy stupid
 Major 1992, Major 1997
 Brown – memories are short
 We’re doomed, Cap’n Mainwaring,
we’re all doomed.