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Unit 7: Constitutional Structure: Executive

As already pointed out, the findings of Crossman invited comments from several eminent persons Notes
most of whom criticized him for going too much away from the plane of political reality. The sum
and substance of the critics boils down to this essential point that though the powers of the Prime
Minister have immensely grown, it is still incorrect to designate him as the singular ruler of the
country. The position of the Cabinet is still quite strong and no Prime Minister can be in a position to
arrogate to himself what really belongs to it. As such, the nomenclature of Cabinet Government is
still in existence. While furnishing a plausible rejoinder to what Crossman has argued, G.W. Jones
has put his own point to substantiate the existence of the ‘Cabinet Government’ in England. He has
tried to assert: “Shared responsibility is still meaningful, for a Prime Minister has to gain the support
of the bulk of his Cabinet to carry out his policies. He has to persuade it and convince it that he is
right. Its meetings do not merely follow his direction. Debate and conflict are frequent. It cannot be
bypassed and he cannot be art autocrat. To attempt to become one presages his political suicide.”
Patrick Gordon Walker, who had the privilege of serving as a minister in the Labour Cabinet of
Wilson, endorses the same point. According to him, although by the 1950s and, 1960s, the office of
the Prime Minister has risen greatly in status and that he has acquired an authority different in kind
from that of his colleagues, he is still not independent of the Cabinet. The Cabinet remains the sole
source of political authority. On occasions and for a while, a partial Cabinet can act in its name, but
the power of a partial Cabinet always depends upon the assurance that sufficient number of leading
ministers shared in its decisions to secure the full authority of the Cabinet in the end. As he says: “A
strong Prime Minister can be very strong. He can sometimes commit the Cabinet by act or words. But
he cannot habitually or often do so. A Prime Minister who habitually ignored the Cabinet, who
behaved as if Prime Ministerial Government were a reality – such a Prime Minister could come to
grief. He would be challenged by his colleagues in the Cabinet and on occasion overridden.
Theoretically, a Prime Minister could dismiss all his Ministers; but then he would present his critics
in the party with potent leadership: Mr. Macmillan’s mass dismissal in 1962 were generally held to
have weakened him. Macmillan was less dominant in the new Cabinet that in his old. Prime Ministers
may well, like Mr. Harold Wilson, regard Mr. Macmillan’s slaughter as an example to be eschewed.”
In this direction, we may refer to a sharp rejoinder given by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
He says: “Cabinet is a democracy, not an autocracy. Each member of it, including the Prime Minister,
seeks to convince his colleagues as to the course to follow. The Cabinet bears his stamp, it is true, on
each and every policy issue, but it is the Cabinet not the Prime Minister who decides. The growth of
Cabinet committee system is one factor which would restrain the overwhelming desires of a would-
be dictator.” In order to contradict the thesis of Crossman, he hazards the following propositions:
1. In peace time in this century and earlier, the Prime Minister in each decade has exercised, or has
been able to exercise, more powers than his predecessor. But this is oecause, over the whole
period, governments have exercised more power and influence. The Prime Minister has shared
in this increased power, and almost certainly has increased his share. Now every action of the
Prime Minister is personalized in the daily dramatization of politics which makes him. superior
to, but by no means supreme over, his colleagues.
2. Arguments based on emergency situations such as world wars are inadmissible for peace time
conditions. The Prime Minister is invariably accorded emergency powers, but these are limited
in duration; still more, they are conditional on his maintaining parliamentary confidence, such
as a coalition tends to ensure.
3. The arguments in support of the thesis of Prime Ministerial government entirely fail to allow
for almost 180-degree differences in the style of individual, indeed successive, Prime Ministers.
Constitutional rationalists fail to recognise that Cabinets, and Prime Ministers too, are essentially
human and, being human, are essentially different. Harold Macmillan has been rightly praised
as a successful Prime Minister, but this did not mean that he could impose his will.
4. Few Prime Ministers, except in war time and rarely then, could dictate to their Cabinets, except
on the basis of consultation with their senior colleagues. Prime Ministers who have ignored or
defied the maxim, particularly if they have refused to appoint anyone who has opposed their
views or in any way given offence, and have instituted ‘government by crony’, have invariably
paid the price. Chamberlain was an obvious, but not the only, example.

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