The Cabinet is the committee of senior ministers who are the main collective decision-making body of the government. Many politicians debate over how much control the Prime Minister has over his cabinet. I believe that the Prime Minister has the ability to control their Cabinet tightly and does so effectively. The Prime Minister holds and chairs meetings with Cabinet ministers. He manages the agenda as well as summarising final decisions.
As a consequence, prime ministers have gradually institutionalised their involvement in policy. The view now, is that it is the prime minister, and not the cabinet, who dominates both the executive and Parliament. This happens because the prime minister is both the head of the civil service and the leader of the largest party in the Commons. As prime ministers have considerable authority in the management and controlling of cabinet, it is argued that cabinet has declined and so the power of the prime minister has increased. Prime ministers chair cabinet meetings, this enables prime ministers to harness the decision – making authority of the cabinet to their own ends.
Political parties are a large part of the government. Even they are not supposed to, they basically control the government. Nominations and campaigns utilize a lot of time, energy, and money. Lastly, elections and voting behavior are the final step for one to obtain presidency. Political parties are a big part of the government.
One can argue in many ways that the PM has become increasingly dominant in recent years. This dominance can be portrait through different theories e.g. Cabinet government; PM government; Presidential government and through a constant flux of events. Due to this there are PMs who dominate the political and those who do not. It is said that the PM is ‘first among equals’ within their cabinet, all important decisions are discussed in Cabinet, however the PM ultimately makes the final decision, this can also act as a constraint on the PM’s dominance.
Discuss the view that the appointment and dismissal of the ministers is the prime ministers most important power. (30 marks) Many argue that the dismissal and appointment of ministers is the most important power the prime minister. There are three arguments against this statement and they are as followed: as PM he can advise the Queen as to who deserves honours, knighthoods etc, he also has the power to appoint the most senior crown members and is Commander-in-chief which allows him to basically control the army. It could be seen that Patronage or the appointment and dismissal the Prime Ministers most important power is that he can appoint and dismiss cabinet ministers. As PM Cameron, in this case, can dismiss and appoint any cabinet members without the constraints of parliament.
They conduct extensive research and hold hearings with a range of policy experts. Committee chairs are very important as they have the ability to choose which bills are moved on to next stage and which are pigeon-holed/amended. Bills are often chosen by chairs on ideological grounds i.e. Republican chairs will choose bills that appeal to their constituency or conservative ideology. If bills get past the committee stage, members can make influential recommendations as they are perceived to be policy specialists.
As a result of this the voice of a pressure group can be very loud as even if half of its members turn out to a protest or march they would have more than the total of political parties. Also there are many more pressure groups than political parties, as in 2010 there were only 398 registered parties but a much larger 7,000 organizations that could be classed as a pressure group. The figure of 398 political parties does include parties which have no influence at all due to be unable to win any seats in commons so losing a chance at a voice in parliament. Also funding is much higher for pressure groups as the trade union ‘unison’ has yearly subscriptions of 160m a year compared to 30-40m a year for cons and labs this means that pressure groups have a capability to buy more resources with which to gain their aims. On the other hand some pressure groups, in particular those classed as outsider, even with high levels of membership will struggle to get their view across as the government in power will simply not give into their pressure as it will look bad on them, especially if the group
A presidential system is a system of government where the executive branch is led by a person who serves as both head of state and head of government. That person is usually elected and titled "president", but can also be an unelected monarch. In contrast to parliamentary government, a president normally has a separate source of authority from that of the legislature. This means the executive (president) is accountable to the people directly, not the legislature. Both Margaret Thatcher (1979-1990) and Tony Blair (1997-2007) have been described by some commentators as Prime Ministers who, whilst in office, had presidential-like characteristics.
A function that demonstrates that the House of Commons is effective is because ministers are regularly questioned and held accountable. An advantage of this is that it increases constituency representation and scrutinises legislation. For example during Prime Minister question time MPs can bring different examples forward from their own constituencies which can allow them to demonstrates problems with a Bill, thereby representing people within their constituencies more. At election times the government becomes directly accountable to the people; for example in 2007 the Labour government saw popular support fall from 41%. In the House of Commons, Bills introduced under the ten-minute rule are one of the ways in which backbench MPs (private Members) can introduce legislation.
Furthermore the increase in prime-ministerial or even ‘presidential’ government in the UK, with the leader of the executive having accumulated more power, makes it more difficult for Parliament to control executive power. It could be argued that Parliament does control executive power effectively due to the range of scrutiny methods that is available; to make sure the government and executive powers are held responsible for their decisions. An important feature of the Westminster system