The Prime Minister Of Great Britain Essay

, Research Paper

The Prime Minister of Great Britain

There are a lot of political issues in Great Britain today. United

Kingdom is a large, industrialized democratic society and as such it has to have

politics and therefore political issues. One of those issues how should

executive branch work and whether the Prime Minister has too much power. Right

now in Great Britain there is a great debate on this issue and I am going to

examine it in detail. The facts I have used here are from different writings on

British politics which are all listed in my bibliography, but the opinions are

my own and so are the arguments that I used to support my views.

First let me explain the process through which a person becomes a Prime

Minister. The PM is selected by the sovereign. He (or she) chooses a man who

can command the support of majority of the members of the House of Commons.

Such a man is normally the leader of the largest party in the House. Where two

are rivals in a three party contest such as those which occurred in the 1920s he

is usually selected from the party which wins the greatest number of seats. The

Prime Minister is assumed to be the choice of his party and nowadays, so far as

he can be ascertained, participation of a monarch is a pure formality. Anyone

suggested for this highest political office obviously has to be a very smart and

willing individual, in fact it has been suggested that he be an “uncommon man of

common opinions”(Douglas V. Verney). Not all Prime Ministers fitted this bill

exactly, but every on of them had to pass one important test: day-to-day

scrutiny of their motives and behavior by fellow members of Parliament

before they were ultimately elected to the leadership of their party. Unlike

Presidents of the United States all Prime Ministers have served a long

apprenticeship in the legislature and have been ministers in previous Cabinets.

Many Presidents of our country have been elected and on many occasions they have

never even met some of their future co-workers, such as case of Kissinger and

Nixon who have never even met prior to Nixon’s appointment.

Let’s now examine the statutory duties and responsibilities of the Prime

Minister. Unlike the United States where the President’s duties are

specifically written out in the Constitution, the powers of the Prime Minister

are almost nowhere spelled out in a statute. Unlike his fellow ministers he

does not receive the seals of office: he merely kisses the hands of the monarch

like an ambassador.

The Prime Minister has four areas of responsibilities. He is a head of

the Government; he speaks for the Government in the House of Commons; he is the

link between the Government and the sovereign; he is the leader of the nation.

He is chief executive, chief legislator and chief ambassador. As we can see the

PM has an wide range of powers, maybe too wide. As head of the Government the

Prime Minister has the power to recommend the appointment and dismissal of all

other ministers. Far from being merely first among equals, he is the dominant

figure. Ministers wait in the hall of PMs office on No.10 Dowling Street before

being called into the Cabinet room. He may himself hold other portfolios such

as that of Foreign Secretary(as did Lord Salisbury) or Minister of Defense(as

did Mr. Churchill). He has general supervision over all departments and

appoints both the Permanent Secretary and the Parliamentary Secretary. The

Cabinet office keeps a record of Cabinet decisions to make sure that PM has up

to date information. He controls the agenda which the office prepares for

Cabinet meetings. There is a smaller Prime Minister’s Private Office which

consists of a principal private secretary and a half a dozen other staff drawn

from civil service. Perhaps owing to American influence the two offices are

becoming increasingly popular and there are signs that the Prime Minister is no

longer content to be aided by nonpolitical civil servants. There is little

doubt that if he chooses the PM can be in complete command of his Cabinet.

The PM must also give leadership in the House of Commons, though he

usually appoints a colleague as Leader of the House. He speaks for the

Government on important matters-increasingly, questions are directed to him

personally-and controls the business of the House through the Future Legislation

Committee of the Cabinet which he appoints mainly from the senior

nondepartamental ministers. Since the success of his legislative program

depends mainly on support of his party he must as a party leader attend to his

duties and ensure that the machinery of his party is working properly and in the

hands of men he could trust. Basically the PM controls his party and in essence

he controls the Parliament, but that is not all. The PM alone can request the

sovereign to dissolve the Parliament and call a ne

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