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The Blair Style of Government: An Historical Perspective and an Interim Audit*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Peter Hennessy
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MAY I BEGIN WITH A DASH OF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE? I DO SO AS A health warning, to myself as much as to anyone else. Just as the great Lord Salisbury once said that too much poring over maps tended to drive nineteenth-century ministers and military chiefs mad, an excessive concentration on prime-ministerial styles can propel scholars and commentators smack bang into the Tommy Cooper school of analysis – here you have collective cabinet government then, just like that, when the premiership changes hands, you switch to overbearing prime-ministerial government. There has been a good deal of this since Tony Blair entered No. 10 exactly 214 days ago.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 3 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1998

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References

1 Antony Jay (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 319.

2 The best summary of this debate can be found in King, Anthony (ed.), The British Prime Minister, 2nd edn, London, Macmillan, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Evans, Harold, Downing Street Diary: The Macmillan Years 1957–1963, Hodder & Stoughton, 1981, p. 248.Google Scholar

4 For the foundation of the War Cabinet Office and its postwar vicissitudes, see Roskill, Stephen, Hankey Man of Secrets. Vol. I: 1897–1918, London, Collins, 1970; Vol. II: 1919–1931, London, Collins, 1972.Google Scholar

5 Public Record Office, CAB 21/221, ‘Cabinet and CID Secretariat, Constitution, Functions etc.’ I am grateful to my QMW and Institute of Contemporary British History colleague, Dr Peter Catterall, for bringing this file to my attention.

6 Riddell, Peter, ‘Cracks in the Cabinet Cement’, The Times, 10 11 1997 Google Scholar

7 Ibid.

8 Hennessy, Peter, ‘He went from strength to strength. Then they made him PM’, The Observer, 14 09 1997 .Google Scholar

9 The Observer, 25 February 1979.

10 ‘Address by the Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, Leader of the Labour Party, to the Newspaper Society, London March 10th 1997, Labour Party Media Office, 10 March 1997.

11 Private information.

12 Hennessy, Peter, ‘Capacity at the Centre’, Financial Times, 26 03 1997 .Google Scholar

13 ‘How Britain is Governed’, BBC Radio 4 Analysis, 24 April 1997.

14 Private information.

15 Riddell, ‘Cracks in the Cabinet Cement’.

16 Hennessy, Peter, ‘Summertime Views’, The Independent, 28 08 1997 .Google Scholar

17 For the best insider account of the 1964 experience see Alec Cairncross, The Wilson Years: Treasury Diary 1964–68, London, Historians' Press, 1997.

18 Private information.

19 Ministerial Committees of the Cabinet: Membership and Term of Reference, Cabinet Office, June 1997.

20 For the ‘overlord’ folklore see Peter Hennessy and David Welsh, ‘Lords of all they Surveyed? Churchill's Ministerial “Overlords” 1951–1953’, to be published in Parliamentary Affairs in early 1998.

21 Quoted in ibid.

22 Private information.

23 Private information.

24 Philip Stephens, ‘The Central Line’, Financial Times, 9 May 1997.

25 Draper, Derek, Blair's 100 Days, London, Faber, 1997.Google Scholar

26 Private information.

27 Ministerial Committees of the Cabinet.

28 Ibid.

29 Private information. For a vivid and accurate account of the Irvine style see Bagehot, ‘A Wigging for Lord Irvine’, The Economist, 25 October 1997.

30 Private information.

31 Ministerial Committees of the Cabinet.

32 Private information.

33 Private information.

34 Peter, Riddell, ‘Advising the Prime Minister’. Speech for the ESRC ‘Advising Whitehall’ Conference, Cabinet Office, 24 09 1997 .Google Scholar I am very grateful to Mr Riddell for providing me with a copy of his text which has yet to be published.

35 The latest version of my views on this will appear in Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945, to be published by HarperCollins in 1998.

36 Riddell, ‘Advising the Prime Minister’.

37 Lord Wakeham, ‘Cabinet Government’. Lecture delivered at Brunel University, 10 November 1993. It is reproduced in Contemporary Record, 8: 3 (Winter 1994), pp. 473–85.

38 Seldon, Anthony, Major: A Political Life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1997, p. 209.Google Scholar

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40 Peter Mandelson, ‘Co‐ordinating Government Policy’. Speech by Peter Mandelson, Minister without Portfolio, to the Birmingham University Conference on ‘Modernising the Policy Process’, 16 September 1997.

41 Private information.

42 Private information.

43 Private information.

44 Private information.

45 Private information.

46 Private information.

47 Private information.

48 Webster, Philip and Sherman, Jill, ‘Blair Promises to Clear Away EMU Confusion’, The Times, 27 10 1997 .Google Scholar

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50 Private information.

51 Private information.

52 Elliott, Valerie, ‘Powell to Remain Blair's Chief of Staff’, The Times, 4 06 1997 .Google Scholar

53 Private information.

54 Ministerial Committees of the Cabinet (June 1997 version).

55 Ministerial Committee of the Cabinet (June 1997 and February 1997 versions).

56 Private information. For a crafted evocation of the No. 10/No. 11 axis see Bagehot, ‘Friends and Neighbours’, The Economist, 18 October 1997.

57 Private information.

58 Andy McSmith, ‘Er, Tony, It's not Looking Good’, The Observer, 19 October 1997.

59 Private information.

60 Bevins, Anthony and Sengupta, Kim, ‘He gave £1m to Labour, and £14m to the Tories. What did he expect in return?’, The Independent, 12 11 1997 Google Scholar; Bevins, Anthony, ‘Labour Plans a Decent Way of Funding Politics’, The Independent, 13 11 1997 Google Scholar; McSmith, Andy, ‘Why Blair's Anti‐tobacco Drive Stalled on the Grid’, The Observer, 9 11 1997 /Google Scholar For a full chronology of the Formula One affair see Philip Webster, ‘How Blair Fell Foul of Donation Fiasco’ and for its significance in terms of Blair‐as‐premier see Peter Riddell, ‘Casual Attitude has Exposed Labour Team's Inexperience’ both in The Times, 14 November 1997.

61 Private information.

62 Private information.

63 Private information.

64 Hennessy, Peter, Cabinet, Oxford, Blackwell, 1986, pp. 102–3.Google Scholar

65 Private information.

66 Daniel, Caroline, ‘May the Taskforce be with You’, New Stalesman, 1 08 1997 .Google Scholar

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69 Private information.

70 Private information.

71 Private information.

72 Ministerial Code: A Code Of Conduct and Guidance on Procedures for Ministers, Cabinet Office, July 1997, p. 30.

73 McSmith, Andy, ‘Nobody Questions Prescott‐power’, The Observer, 3 08 1997 .Google Scholar

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77 Conversation with Amy Baker, 12 November 1997.

78 Conversation with Sir Peter Kemp, 17 September 1997.

79 Private information.

80 Private information.

81 My latest attempt to enumerate these powers can be found in Peter Hennessy, Beyond Any Mortal? Reflections on the British Premiership since 1945, University of Hull Press, 1997.

82 Private information.

83 Hennessy, ‘Summertime Views’.

84 Ibid.

85 White, Michael, ‘Blair: I can still be trusted. Apology aimed at ending £1m row’, The Guardian, 17 11 1997 .Google Scholar

86 Wintour, Patrick, ‘Tony – Spend the Money’, The Observer, 23 11 1997 .Google Scholar