Involved) is traditionally regarded as a bad idea. Since the formation of modern

political parties in the nineteenth century, Britain has had a total of only 21 years

of coalition governments (1915-1922 and 1931-1945). Even when, for brief

periods in the 1970s, no single party had a majority of seats in the House of

Commons, no coalition was formed. There was a 'minority government' instead.

The habit of single-party government has helped to establish the tradition known as

collective responsibility. That is, every member of the government, however

junior, shares in responsibility for every policy of the government - even if he or

she did not take any part in making it. Of course, individual government members

hold different opinions but they are expected to keep these private. By convention,

no member of the government can criticize government policy in public. Any

member who does so must resign.

The cabinet

Obviously, no government wants an important member of its party to start

criticizing it. This would lead to divisions in the party. Therefore, the leading

politicians in the governing party usually become members of the cabinet, where

they are tied to government policy by the convention of collective responsibility.

Once a week, the cabinet meets and takes decisions about new policies, the

implementation of existing policies and the running of the various government

departments. Because all government members must be seen to agree, exactly who

says what at these meetings is a closely guarded secret. The reports of the

meetings, which are circulated to government departments, summarize the topics

discussed and the decisions taken but they never refer to individuals.

To help run the complexities of a modern government, there is an organization

called the cabinet office. It runs a busy communications network, keeping

ministers in touch with each other and drawing up the agenda for cabinet meetings.

It also does the same things for the many cabinet committees. These committees

are appointed by the cabinet to look into various matters in more detail than the

cabinet has the time (or knowledge) for. Unlike ‘the government’ itself, the people

on these committees are not necessarily politicians.

The Prime Minister

The position of a British Prime Minister (PM) is in direct contrast to that of the

monarch. While the Queen appears to have a lot of power but in reality has very

little, the PM appears not to have much power but in reality has a very great deal.

The Queen is, in practice, obliged to give the job of PM to the person who can

command a majority in the House of Commons. This normally means the leader of

the party with the largest number of MPs.

The traditional phrase describes the position of the PM within the cabinet as

primus inter pares (Latin for 'first among equals'). But in fact the other ministers

are not nearly as powerful. There are several reasons for this. First, the monarch's

powers of patronage (the power to appoint people to all kinds of jobs and to confer

honours on people) are, by convention, actually the PM's powers of patronage. The

fiction is that the Queen appoints people to government jobs 'on the advice of the

Prime Minister'. But what actually happens is that the PM simply decides.

The strength of the PM's power of patronage is apparent from the modern

phenomenon known as the ‘cabinet reshuffle’. It is the habit of the PM to change

his or her cabinet quite frequently (at least once every two years). A few cabinet

members are dropped, and a few new members are brought in, but mostly the

existing members are shuffled around, like a pack of cards, each getting a new

department to look after.

The second reason for a modern PM's dominance over other ministers is the power

of the public image. In the age of modern media, politics is a matter of

personalities. The details of policies are hard to understand. A single person whose

face appears constantly on the television and in the newspapers is much easier to