LITMIR.BIZ

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In short, the unavoidable institutional considerations which create a distance between the Prime Minister and her or his parliamentary party were reinforced in Thatcher’s case by ideological ones. The default position was non-attendance: the Prime Minister would only make the short trip from Downing Street to the Palace of Westminster when there really was no alternative. Displays of Thatcher’s parliamentary pugilism were best reserved for occasions when the Government was under attack from the Opposition, and backbenchers were most strongly minded to rally behind their leader, whatever their real feelings. It was perhaps fortunate for Thatcher that her Labour opponents repeatedly called votes of no confidence in her government, providing regular opportunities for her to display her virtuosity. The Opposition even called such a vote on the day when she resigned as Prime Minister in 1990, as if they wanted her to depart in a blaze of glory. After her contribution the Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown congratulated Thatcher on ‘a bravura performance of the sort which she had made her own’; one of her backbenchers, Michael Carttiss, probably spoke for many of his colleagues in the emotionally charged chamber when he exclaimed, ‘You can wipe the floor with these people.’¹ Thus Thatcher’s infrequent attendance actually augmented her legendary status: it meant that she was never afflicted by the law of diminishing returns.

      Thatcher’s successor John Major was a much more gregarious individual, with consensual views to match. By the time of his departure from the Commons in 2001 Major had few reasons to thank his immediate predecessor, but he could at least feel some gratitude for her precedent of parliamentary truancy. While Thatcher had been fortunate to face ineffective Opposition leaders, in his second term (1992–7) Major was lumbered with John Smith and Tony Blair, who would have been difficult to master even without the numerous misfortunes which befell Major’s government. While Thatcher’s relish for verbal confrontation meant that she was at her best when at bay, Major’s speaking style reflected a preference for compromise which was increasingly ineffective as Conservative divisions over Europe deepened after 1992. In July 1993, at the height of the parliamentary crisis over the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, Major famously gave vent to his feelings about critics within his Cabinet. At the time, most media speculation focused on the identity of these disagreeable individuals. Yet Major was talking about the state of his parliamentary party, and the probability that the sacking of Eurosceptic ministers would only make things worse. As the Prime Minister put it, the Conservative benches were already full of ‘the dispossessed and the never-possessed … We don’t want three more of the Bastards out there’ (Seldon, 1997, 389–90).

Major’s outburst was more understandable because he had just experienced a thirty-six-hour ride on a parliamentary roller-coaster. In a debate on the Social Chapter of the Maastricht Treaty (22 July 1993), Tory Eurosceptics had made it no secret that they were exploiting the issue as their only realistic chance of preventing the ratification of the Treaty. Accordingly, they joined Opposition parties in voting to reject an ‘opt-out’ which Major had negotiated at Maastricht, in the hope of appeasing potential critics. Major – fresh from a somewhat premature ‘end-of-term’ party for MPs held at No. 10 – was judged by one of the attendees to have ‘opened the debate quite brilliantly. He has never been better. He was simple, direct, passionate … When he sat down at the finish, he looked so happy. And we roared our approval and waved our order papers in the air’ (Brandreth, 1999, 198–9). A Prime Minister with the ability to command a majority in the Commons, and who had presented a plausible argument with clarity and conviction, ought to have prevailed comfortably. However, the government lost the division by eight votes. Major promptly announced that the government’s motion would be brought back on the following day, this time as an issue of confidence which would precipitate a general election if the result was unchanged. When Major spoke in the confidence debate, the same observer thought that he ‘was tired and it showed. The speech was workmanlike, but lacklustre.’ In contrast, Labour’s John Smith was ebullient. In his memoirs, Major himself agreed with these appraisals. However, as Major put it, ‘The real action took place outside the Chamber. Conservative constituencies were livid with the rebels for risking the government’s survival in defence of a Labour policy’ (Brandreth, 1999, 201). MPs duly voted to reverse their decision of the previous day.

      If Major had delivered a lame speech on the original motion but followed up with a personal best in the confidence debate, the voting would almost certainly have been the same. He was left to wonder ‘Was there something I could have said … a speech, a broadcast, an argument which might have begun my party’s journey back to sanity?’ (Major, 1999, 384–5). On the evidence of July 1993, probably not; certainly, if there was such a verbal formula, Major never found it. It was not surprising that, after the defeat of his party in the 1997 general election, Major immediately sought refuge from politics at the Oval cricket ground, where his beloved Surrey gave the British Universities the kind of pasting which Labour had just administered to the Conservatives.

The Prime Minister versus Parliament

While one senses that Major would have spent more time in the Commons if circumstances had been different, Tony Blair’s absenteeism was more in keeping with his character and style of government. Between the elections of 2001 and 2005 he voted in only 7.5 per cent of Commons divisions.² These were years in which Labour enjoyed an overwhelming parliamentary majority, so the absence of the Prime Minister was hardly likely to lead to any shock government defeats. Yet the 2001–5 Parliament also saw revolts over the Iraq War which were ‘the largest rebellions by MPs of any governing party – Labour, Conservative or Liberal – on any type of policy for over 150 years’ (Cowley, 2005, 5). Iraq, of course, was a highly controversial foreign policy issue – and Blair had not only been present during the crucial debate of 18 March 2003, but had delivered an impassioned speech. However, Labour MPs also rebelled in significant numbers over elements of the government’s domestic programme – proposed reforms in education and the health service, and the attempted removal of two chairs of backbench Commons select committees (Gwyneth Dunwoody (Transport) and Donald Anderson (Foreign Affairs)). The latter rebellion, on 16 July 2001, led to government defeats.

      The idea that the physical presence – let alone the oratorical powers – of Prime Ministers is unnecessary except on rare occasions of dire need reflects the widespread view that the House of Commons has become a mere ‘rubber stamp’ thanks largely to the discipline imposed by party business managers (‘whips’), enhanced by the increased prevalence of ‘career politicians’ who realize that their prospects will be impaired by a record of rebellion. However, ample evidence suggests that the House of Commons has become increasingly whip-resistant over recent decades. In this context the votes in favour of Dunwoody and Anderson held particular significance, since these results reflected a desire to curb the power of party whips to interfere with the composition of Commons select committees. The idea of truly independent committee chairs was particularly unpalatable to Tony Blair, who had instituted a parliamentary Liaison Committee before which he would appear for lengthy, twice-yearly discussions. If he could no longer control the membership of this Committee his initiative would no longer look like a bright idea; he might even have to fend off some awkward questions.

The leading authority on parliamentary rebellions, Philip Cowley, has tried hard to dispel the laziest assumptions about the supine nature of MPs. In particular, even before the Iraq votes he stressed that rebellions can be highly significant whether or not the government wins the vote. In the 2001–5 Parliament, despite its crushing majority the Blair Government sometimes had to offer concessions to its critics during the passage of legislation; and even this was not enough to buy off the most determined opponents. While votes leading to government defeats provide great copy for reporters – and moments of high drama even for viewers and listeners with limited interest in political issues – serious students of British politics should pay at least equal attention to the votes which never take place, because the government has accepted the certainty of defeat and retires from the field to rethink its approach.

      However, while Cowley’s main purpose is to defend MPs from the allegation that the Commons is inhabited by rival flocks of sheep, developments over the last few decades suggest equally interesting conclusions in relation to the executive branch. From

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