The Prime Minister The Office and Its Holders Since 1945 by Peter Hennessy - Book Report/Review Example

 “The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders since 1945” by Peter Hennessy. The book under discussion is about the role of British Prime Minister who runs the government with the help of his/her Cabinet. The book spans through the ambitions, the contributions and the efficacy, revealed by the recently declassified and exhilarating archival content, of many leading British prime ministers since 1945. The book is divided in four parts: Prelude, Premiership, The Prime Ministers, and Coda. The first part Prelude discusses the constitutional position of the prime minister. The first chapter of Part first; The Platonic Idea and the Constitutional Deal, starts with the sayings of John Morley (1889), to highlight the relationship of the Prime Minister with his/her Cabinet, from the page 157 of his book Walpole which goes,” The Prime Minister is the keystone of the cabinet arch.” (pp, 3) The chapter deals with the arguments of the power of the Prime Minister. To differentiate between the platonic idea of power and the real power, which the writer calls the ‘pragmatic in real –life’, the writer first quotes Robert Armstrong about the powers and purpose of the Privy Council; the Cabinet. Armstrong (1999) is of the view that the Privy Council is the apex “where politics and administration come together and where difference and conflicts have finally to be reconciled.” (pp, 4) That is the ‘classical notion’ of Cabinet government. But on the contrary in pragmatic real-life situation the Prime Ministers act on their own whim. As the system “has been adopted, stretched and distorted in particular times.” (Hennessy,2001,pp,4) To substantiate his view point the writer illustrates different examples taken from Robin Butler’s public version of his IHR seminar where he charted strikingly the ‘decline of the full Cabinet’. Butler (1999) says,” By the 1990s’ it could be said that, from being an executive body(at least in formal sense)in Attlee’s time, Cabinet had reverted to something close to what it was in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—a meeting of private colleagues at which the issues of moments were informally reported or discussed.” The chapter II; Continuity and Cottage Pie, is about the process of continuity of the office of the Prime Minister no matters who reins the helm of affairs. The phrase cottage pie, actually a dish of minced meat topped with mashed potato, is used symbolically to illustrate the dismal mood of the out going prime ministers. The phrase in the chapter is used by the member of the private office of the outgoing Prime Minister Callaghan who lost election to Thatcher “The private secretaries had a final lunch with Audrey and Callaghan and we had a cottage pie.” (pp,13) Later in the chapter we come across a striking anecdote of the meeting of the outgoing and elected prime minister with the Queen in the Palace. The out going prime minister had to leave the palace unceremoniously. Callaghan left 10 Downing Street for Buckingham Palace “in the special, bomb-proofed, prime ministerial car, a vehicle fitted with the most advanced communications equipments of the day.”(pp, 13) But when he left the Place Callaghan was shown a second car which was markedly less hi-tech and which “took him from ministerial life for ever.” (pp,13) Whereas, the incumbent Prime Minister Thatcher on leaving the Palace for 10 Downing Street had a special prime ministerial car and was suggested by Stowe that she should “sit on the right hand side so that she could alight on the pavement ready to talk to the cameras once the vehicle had moved on.” (pp, 13) It is the most revealing chapter to make us realize where the actual power lies in Britain. Obviously, it is The Monarchy; everlasting and all pervasive. In Part II the chapter 4, Organized by History: The Premiership Before 1945, deals with the subject of the policies of every incumbent Prime Minister who,” chooses or is able to make of it, with its implication of choice and individual flexibility.” (Hennessy,2001,pp,36)Since the writer is of the view that ‘British Constitution is a product of history’ and nevertheless the legacies of the past does have the capacity of shaping effects but it is not a powerful constraining effect. The every incumbent Prime Minister can act as he/she wishes to act.(Hennessy,2001,pp,37) The chapter gives us the glimpses of the memoir of Harold Wilson, who cherished the glory of the past history of the 10 Downing Street during his premiership in different periods of history, as described by the writer, “For Wilson, much of the glory of the premier ship lay in its antiquity” (Hennessy, 2001, pp, 37) and Wilson calls the role of the British Prime Minister,”organized by history,” (Wilson, Harold, Sir.(1976)Governance of Britain,) Later in the chapter we have instances of different Prime Ministers like Churchill and the first British Prime Minister Walpole. The war times have been the real test of the mettle of the office of Prime minister but with the addition of nukes in the British arsenals the responsibility of the Prime Minister has increased manifold. And the pages of history reveal that this office came up to the war situation with all the required responsibilities. The part IV contains the separate chapters on different Prime Ministers; Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair. The writer thinks that “Clem Attlee did not think he was extraordinary. He neither created a myth about himself nor did he start to believe in it.” (Hennessy,2001,pp,148) He was reticent and as his economic He would never use one syllable where none would do.” Wilfred Fienburg would say, “ that a conversation with an ordinary person was like game of tennis; a conversation with Attlee was like throwing biscuits to dogs---all you could get out of him was yup, yup, yup.” (pp,149) But he was the efficient and enviable Prime Minister for the coming premiers. “He provides a kind of gold standards against which future practitioners of the premiership will be judged.” (Hennessy, 2001) He became the shining and guiding star for the office of the premiership, as the writer says that he would never forget the words of Christopher Soames, “[Mrs. Thatcher] was not really running a team. Every time you have a Prime Minister who wants to take all the decisions, it mainly lead to bad results. Attlee did not. That’s why he was so damn good.” (Hennessy, 2001) Churchill cherished the idea to be the part of the history he “glorified in a constitution sculptured by the singular history of the country”(Hennessy,2001) In party terms he was known as “monogamist” because of his sense of history and “appetite foe adventure” and during his final term he created a personal approach to national and international politics. His insistence to keep the old faces in the Cabinet had to do with his age since in his final term he had grown old. He was a meticulous person as described by the writer,”He would work deep into night reading the first edition of the national newspapers and firing off biting minutes to un-briefed ministers on whatever claims the Daily Express and other papers might be making about people’s diet or housing.” (Hennessy,2001,183) Harold Macmillan has different story to tell that he did not have the ‘faintest idea’ how the people were living in rationing days. The character of Churchill is also vividly described by Macmillan,” There unless the Cabinet or Cabinet committee he chaired was due to meet, Churchill would lie until shortly before lunch , an unlit cigar in his mouth, his bed covered in papers, a Garden Girl’ beside to take dictation. At his feet would be Rufus the poodle, whose breath was likened to a flame- thrower by one of his private secretaries. On his head sat Toby, the constantly twittering budgerigar.” And the tradition he left was the small role of the Cabinet as it remained so ever since. The chapter 9 is about Anthony Eden; who is considered to be the greatest prime minister the English ever had. He is still remembered as the greatest foreign policy expert since it was difficult to challenge him foreign policy. (Thorneycroft, 1993). Eden was the tragic figure to be in the 10 Downing Street in the after war period, since the ‘waters of Suez Canal’ sank his public and political life and he could not grow out of his tarnished image ever since. His official biographer Robert Rhodes James put it by borrowing the phrase of Churchill used for Curzon,” The morning had been golden; the noontide was bronze; and the evening lead.” (James,1978). He had to resign in the wake of Suez crisis in 1957. Brandon observes, “In his mind his whole proud career had been scarred by a decision which misfired for lack of American co-operation.” (Brandon,) The chapter on Eden is with an interesting caption (title)”The Colonel and the Drawing Room”. The caption entails a post Suez crises remark of the lady Eden. Lady Eden told the Conservative women that throughout those crisis months in No. 10, she felt as if the “Suez Canal was flowing throughout the drawing room.” (Hennessy 2001) Of course, Colonel of the caption is Colonel Nasser; who nationalized the Suez Canal Company on 26 July, 1957 and whom Eden wanted to destroy. It is also worth noting that he mostly relied on the decisions made by his Cabinet, but the most trustworthy was the small group within the Cabinet. Noel Coward remarks; he put on his diary about Eden brings the whole man in view, “Poor Anthony has resigned, given up, and is on his way to New Zealand, a tragic figure who had been cast in a star part well above his capabilities.” Macmillan was as Anthony Sampson saw him,” a study in ambiguity [partly because] like Disraeli, he seemed to see himself as part of a fashionable play.” (Sampson,Source,Hennessy,2001,pp251). He was pleased to be with his, Cabinet, he was a very amusing man and it was fun to be with him. In the words of his official biographer Alistair Horne he also took his premiership as fun. The writer compared Thatcher with Lloyd George since Thatcher was also a ‘constitutional traditionalist’ as she believed in carrying people with her. Interestingly she was intolerant with her Cabinet and it is her major failure as premier on the pages of history. Watkins wrote about her, “Large claims were made for Mrs. Margaret Thatcher as great Prime Minister; but they are melting before our eyes like snows of spring. My prediction is that history will judge her as just above average, below C.R Attlee and H.H Asquith, who has better claims than she to being a great peacetime Prime Minister, but above Harold Macmillan and Harold Wilson.” (Source, Hennessy, 2001)Still it is not possible for the historians to write about her objectively. The writer says “Margaret Thatcher continues to present a problem to would -be rescuers like me even with over several years’ perspective plus two bulging volumes of memoirs from her.” Last but not the least is Tony Blair. His period is concluded with remarks of his Home Secretary, “Our Prime Minister has adopted the mode developed by Mrs. Thatcher in the 1980s’, whereby fewer decisions were made at full Cabinet level with more developed to cabinet committee.” The last chapter of the book is “Towards a New Specification: Premiership for the Twenty-First Century.” Sir Patrick says that two important factors would fashion the job of a premier in 21st century. “ First the character, personality and personal style of different Prime Ministers may well determine the development or importance of particular functions and the way in which they choose to perform them-or even whether some function is accepted as a task for he Head of Government. Secondly, so long as Parliamentary democracy in its present form continues to exist in the UK, the Prime Minister must continue to undertake the functions of political party leader , of exercising power through Cabinet government, and of being accountable to Parliament.” In his concluding remarks the writer emphasize the role of the Cabinet government since he believes that the tradition of Inner Cabinet has never been successful and for a prime minister, who wants to be known as efficient prime minister of the 21st century, it will become essential to him/her to pay heed to his/her cabinet. Conclusion: The book The Prime Minister, the office and its holders since 1945, is to prove the dictum that “the office of Prime Minister is what its holder chooses and is able to make of it.” Usually, it is believed that the office of the Prime Minister of Britain is run by following the traditions but in reality every Prime Minister chooses his/her own course of history. Moreover, the book also concentrates that the role of the Cabinet, as described in text books, is not that vital in the governance of Britain. The book incorporates insight of many senior officials, politicians and journalists, who provide the -in depth study of the changes in the role of the Prime Minister over the years. Source: Hennessy,Peter. The prime minister: the office and its holders since 1945. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. Read More