Like presidents, modern prime ministers can generate different political resources through these different roles and the techniques required by them. At the same time and in similar fashion to presidential politics, prime ministers are increasingly monitored and assessed according to criteria that are quite different to those experienced by senior colleagues, also like Presidents a modern day prime minister is often voted in due to factors that have nothing/ little to do with their political agendas, for example in 1997 Tony Blair
Due to the increasing presidential style of recent prime ministers and the party loyalty of the executive one can consider Parliament’s control of executive power minimal. However, due to the development of independent bodies surrounding Select Committees and the delaying of legislation by the House of Lords it can still be argued to be effective. The government usually has an overall majority. This is due to our voting system of FPTP which gives preference to the two main parties, normally giving them majorities (and increasingly large ones) as opposed to coalitions and minority governments which are produced through other voting systems such as AV in Scotland and Wales. Although we are currently in a coalition the government still has a majority through the combination of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
Overtime, the role of the cabinet may have increasingly been seen to be less and this may have changed peoples’ perception on the system of government used in the UK. The fact that a Prime Minister can dominate parliamentary proceedings gives him/her great power, and this has been linked to the concept of an ‘elective dictatorship’. Prime Minister dominance has occurred in recent years, with the leadership styles of Thatcher and Blair being of particular significance. Blair as prime minister used bilateral meetings with ministers, to discuss important policy decisions. This led to dominance over the cabinet and Blair being seen more as a ‘President’ than a Prime Minister.
The institutionalized Executive branch now includes the White House Office (WHO) the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Executive Office of the President (EOP). These offices provide modern presidents with layers of bureaucracy that they can use to enhance their power and influence to achieve their policy goals successfully. However, some presidents have found that the White House bureaucracy can actually make them feel out-of-touch with his position and powers. As many political programmes within the Executive branch mainly the White House Office developed, so did the agencies that ran them. These agencies have strong connections with Congress as it is Congress that authorizes their existence and finds the funds to finance them.
But people still need to recognise we have an institutional responsibility to do oversight on the President” Garry Bass, Congress. This quote supports my view on the Congress being a watchdog. If the Congress is a lapdog, the President can have a free ride on running the country how he wishes and not represent the people’s view. However that is not the case as the President cannot do everything which pleases him. However, looking at the statistics such as Bill Clintons presidency, in the first 2 years which was a united government, Congress exercised limited oversight, and when needed to, asked softball questions, however , when Republicans took over Congress, things got much harder as they seek to hold the President to account, and after a while, impeach.
But in reality, especially in the “domain of foreign affairs”…the central legal issues rarely come before the Court at all. The law is effectively settled within the executive branch or by the informal agreements between the president and Congress” (Caplan 21). The other branches of government are aware of the overuse of presidential power but do not know how to address the issue to somehow resolve or better the situation. Too much executive power could lead to the abolishment or stacking of Congress, the judiciary system, the House and the Senate. By doing this it would lead the democracy to a dictatorship.
An essential model of the executive that has been in operation for many of our previous governments is Cabinet government, which could be said to sprout from the idea that the prime minister was originally ‘primus inter pares’, according to Walter Bagehot – or ‘first among equals’. This form of leadership is usually approached with prime ministers using cabinet frequently to seek advice and counsel on issues and even proposed legislation. As the chair of cabinet and head of government, the prime minister has power over the length and frequency of the meetings, and as part of Cabinet government, this is usually exercised in a manner such that the Prime minister does not have any significant power over the rest of cabinet, and therefore decisions should be made collectively as possible, and consensus should be achieved. The issue of collective responsibility must also be mentioned; this is an important aspect of UK government and maintains strength in the executive. This type of government was operating in full flow under the leadership of James Callaghan in 1976, where he allowed his cabinet to freely debate whether or not the UK should accept the loan from the IMF.
It has been argued though, that we now have Prime Ministerial Government as opposed to Cabinet Government, due to the shift in power towards the Prime Minister over the years from Thatcher to Blair. More important than head of the Cabinet, the Prime Minister is the leader of the
If a party gains a majority it will be offered the chance to form government by the Queen. The MP is then responsible for representing all constituents, even those who didn’t elect the member. For example in 2005 George Galloway received only 18.4% of his constituents but was still elected MP for Bethnal Green and Bow. [1] This high proportion of constituents who didn’t vote for Galloway is not a unique anomaly, during the 2005 election only three MPs secured more than 40% of their constituents votes. It may be argued that voter apathy has a large influence on this
equally important is the election of the president at the time of the assembly election. The head of the government is head of state: Whereas in pre-parliamentary monarchies the head of state was also the head of the government, in the presidential system it is the head of the government who becomes at the same time head of state. The president appoints heads of departments who are his subordinates: In parliamentarism the prime minister appoints his colleagues who together with him form the government. In presidential systems the president appoints secretaries, who are heads of his executive departments. The