8th June 2022
Just a short post today, as I have not yet finished the longer post I had intended to publish here.
Over at Prospect magazine I have done a post about something I knew about our recent political history, but had not really thought about until this week’s political excitement.
This is the fact very few Prime Ministers follow what one might have assumed to be the classic model of taking power at one general election and losing power at another.
Indeed, since 1974 no Prime Minister has done both.
Every single Prime Minister has either taken power without a general election – Callaghan, Major, Brown, Johnson – or left office without a general election – Wilson, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron.
May – remarkably – did both, taking and losing office without a general election, and also managing to lose a general election in the middle.
Going further back, it is still rare – and ever since the extension of the franchise, few Prime Ministers have taken power at one general election and lost power at another – the obvious examples are Gladstone, Disraeli, Attlee and Wilson (1964-70), but it is difficult to think of others.
This demonstrates, I think, that we do not have a presidential system either in substance or in form, despite what some hubristic politicians think.
I also aver – but I may be wrong – that it shows a strength of our uncodified constitution.
Because the office of Prime Minister has little formal definition, it is what its occupant makes of it and what their colleagues allow them to make of it.
And so when a Prime Minister becomes weak, they become correspondingly politically exposed.
Of course, other parliamentary democracies have Prime Ministers come and go between general elections while having a codified constitution.
But I wonder if it is more marked in the United Kingdom.
Perhaps the explanation is mundane:
What that really comes down to is every second PM from Wilson on leaving between GEs. Once you have that, each of their successors has to come to power between GEs as well.
— Not Called John (@notcalledjohn) June 7, 2022
I am 51 – born in 1971 – and in my lifetime no Prime Minister has both taken office/lost office with a general election victory/defeat.
That must be explained by something.
What do you think?
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It is a very striking pattern.
Among other things, I think it shows the power of our political parties. As the PM will be the leader of his or her party, then the election that really counts is the election to be party leader. In addition, those PMs who hadn’t been deposed within their own party, but chose to resign ahead of an election – Cameron, , Wilson, Blair possibly – did so to avoid a fight within their party.
Maybe, given our effectively two party system, with the FPTP system boosting the leading party even if it only has minority report, and with no tradition of coalitions, the battles within parties is inevitably more important than winning the public vote.
Maybe we should be asking the opposite question. What changed in mid 1960’s and 1970’s lead to fewer leadership at the top of Labour and Tory parties, as post 1974 has reverted back to the previous late 19th/20th century trend.
Pessimistic Cynic here.
History tells us that political discourse in this country has been vigorous for as long as we’ve had politics. We also know that politics concentrates power around things like spending and taxation policies, which makes politicians obvious targets for those trying to wield influence for their own advantage.
I’m not old enough to remember back past the later Thatcher years in terms of political history, but although there were certainly scandals of which I’m aware (Profumo affair, for example), it just feels as though politics has become progressively more corrupt and sleazy over time.
This implies – but doesn’t prove – that cabinet ministers and the PM in particular might in fact either be “in on it”, or having to fight against it, as part of their normal daily life. Cash for questions; expenses scandals; etc.; etc.
It also implies that behind elected officials today there lurk moneyed, influential individuals and groups who prefer to work out of the public eye and yet who wield considerable power. I’m not suggesting some deeply nefarious conspiracy, just observing that this happens.
Of the entire government, the one who can wield the most power is of course the Prime Minister. In recent history, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron have all become considerably more wealthy since leaving office than they were before taking it, strongly hinting that the office “opened doors” for them. The experiences of post-office former PMs tends to completely eclipse that of any other former British politician.
So maybe – just maybe – what we’re witnessing is a consequence of the hidden but nonetheless brutal fight for supremacy in the corridors of power?
Of course, the correct response to the above is “correlation does not imply causation” – even if my observations are true, it does not mean that one follows as a consequence of the other. But it definitely feels – subjectively – as though the fact that we no longer hold politicians with the respect that we once did might have an impact on the candidates themselves.
My theory – either PMs “stretch the democratic elastic” (never thought I would quote John Major, but there you go) by staying on too long. Or they are really bad, in terms of competency itself, or meeting the challenges that are thrown at them. Either way, they get dumped. Add in the changes to the media landscape and our backward FPTP system, and no wonder we are starting to burn through them at a faster rate.
1. There is a symmetrical aspect to the question, so if one PM leaves between elections, another must start.
2. The question is mainly about removal while in office, since this is the driving event. The best explanation is that the connection between the PM’s governing coalition within a party and the party’s overall electoral coalition has become more tenuous. The background trend has been the growth of minor parties, which raises the premium for a major party to maximize its vote at the forthcoming election. So those parties are strongly incentivised to ditch a failing or busted leader, which has happened in every case.
Your initial observation is of course entirely correct. But I must confess it hadn’t registered with me as being a key driver of the statistic.
Nonetheless it is still worth asking why parties in power change their leaders prior to an election. Perhaps a key factor is that the parties want to be in control, rather than wanting to be exposed to the vagaries of the electoral system. Added to which, the habit of the media of calling a government with a new PM a new government even when it is the same one with a new leader means that a party can present itself as cleansed and ready to deliver.
Truss managed to become PM without a general election, quit as PM without a general election, and never lead her party in a general election. Is that unique?
Indeed, I attribute this to the inevitability that, if one PM leaves without an election, then perforce another must start without an election.
The third factor I would suggest is that the Westminster arithmetic – and more particularly the party in power – has gone through periods of remarkable stability for most of the last 50 years: the ruling party has changed just four times – Con-Lab-Con-Lab-Con. Heath had just one term, and then despite the two elections in one year, Labour really had just one term from 1974 to 1979, including Wilson’s resignation; but then 18 years and four terms of Conservatives from 1979 to 1997, including Thatcher’s resignation; 13 years and three terms of Labour from 1997 to 2010, with Blair’s resignation, and then 12 more years of Conservatives in four terms since 2010 (including the Conservative-led coalition years), with resignations of Cameron and May (possibly more to come).
Since Thatcher, no party has won an election, then ruled for just five years, and then lost the next election. Why is that?
But was it ever really thus? The cases – Wilson’s first term, Attlee, Disraeli’s second term, Gladstone’s first term – really are the exception not the rule.
Most prime ministers serve too long, and then lose the confidence of their party and are forced to resign, or just retire. As Enoch Powell had it: “All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”
Your comments are becoming a must read
Your article on Prospect is also excellent
But the other messages on Prospect are a different kettle, eg $30k pw for WFH, and you may wish to mind the company your articles keep
That is the nature of commissioned journalism, I am afraid
Could it be explained in terms of the “broad church” model of the two main parties? PMs either become exhausted battling against half of their own party (Wilson, arguably Cameron) or are brought down by factions within their party. So a new PM has to step in between elections. None except Johnson have gone for an immediate mandate-seeking election (Major and May did within 12-18 months), and arguably Johnson did so due to the unique circumstances of Brexit gridlock. So the answer might lie in a change from FPTP, so the parties can split into their component left/right/centre parts and stand on different platforms, considering coalition arrangements later.
Well. As the renowned scientist, diplomat and inter-planetary constitutional expert Ambassador Spock would undoubtedly say, “Fascinating”.
Is it a striking pattern, or is the case that what is really striking is our failure to understand what a ‘Parliamentary Democracy’ means? It is Governments (or Administrations) that come and go with GE’s because a Government lasts in power only so long as it can sustain a majority in the Commons. With rare exceptions (the 1979 VoNC being one, arguably Johnson’s mass whip removal in 2019 being another), it takes a GE to change the Parliamentary arithmetic that radically. We should not be surprised by this pattern – it is what our system does, and I think it’s no bad thing – lame duck PM’s are less likely to overstay their welcome, but yield to political gravity. What this tells me is that we wrong-headedly view our system through ‘President-tinged’ spectacles.
There is something in what you say
“May – remarkably – did both, taking and losing office without a general election, and also managing to lose a general election in the middle.”
Well, this is true. But in her defense, Teresa May was, quite possibly, the worst post-war Prime Minister, if not of all time. And no, not “just saying that…”:
https://theconversation.com/theresa-may-joint-worst-post-war-prime-minister-say-historians-and-politics-professors-in-new-survey-163912
Although if you prefer wikifacts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom
although you’ll note that she does manage to out-rank (back as far as 1901 at least) Anthony Eden (Conservative, 1955-1957), Neville Chamberlain (Conservative, 1937-1940), and Gordon Brown (2007-2010).
August company, I’m sure.
For May, it is too early to say, but she was dealt a bad hand as PM and played it badly. Her continued presence in the Commons might make a difference in years to come.
Chamberlain does not deserve his bad reputation – not least, he gave the UK time to rearm, but then he died conveniently, so could be blamed for all of our ills – and I expect Brown’s reputation will improve in the next decade or two as sharp memories of 2007/8 fade and we recognise the good he did or tried to do, compared to the horrors of austerity that followed from 2010.
Eden’s reputation will remain bad, alongside Lord North. Not altogether all his fault – the UK thought it was still a world power until Suez, but the writing was on the wall at least a decade earlier.
I dare say that we all take away different memories and views of our PMs down the years. My memories of Brown were that for the first 2-3 years he followed the previous Conservative budgetary strategy, with the national debt shrinking slightly each year.
Then he got over-confident and started spending beyond our means. In the years up to 2007/8, the debt ballooned until it hit (IIRC) £166 billion. Brown kept telling everyone how “Prudent” he was being. In the year of the meltdown, having suddenly realised that he had been caught completely flat-footed, he had to borrow massively, taking the debt up to £322 billion – doubling it in a year. We all remember the “painful decade” of living through Gideon Osborne’s austerity, but we need to remember that it was Brown that dropped us in it.
His other claim to fame? Oh yes: he decided that he would move Sterling away from the Gold Standard and use our gold reserves to buy “a basket of currencies”. With a hubris that knew no bounds, he actually thought he could out-play the currency market players in the big banks? What happened? He announced a sale of 417 metric tonnes of gold in 4 tranches. Before each sale the price of gold dipped, only to miraculously recover once the British people had been properly fleeced.
His third-act finale? He declared that he would have to sign the contract for the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers. He signed a deal that forced construction to take place in a yard in his constituency – which he thought was clever – but in the small print the contractors put a clause that if the government pulled out or scaled back the order (like to one carrier, for example, the tax-payer would still have to pay the same invoice, even if nothing was delivered).
Yes, brilliant Chancellor. Utterly brilliant PM. Snort.
Britain came off the gold standard in 1971. Just one of many errors in that piece.
Wasn’t it 1917 that Britain first left the gold standard? The younger Winston Churchill was most exercised about it.
Major Blair Brown
Cameron May Johnson
Rejected deposed denied
Resigned deposed survived
(This can probably be improved upon.)
Parties in power rise, electorally, under a bright shiny new leader and are in phase whilst the going and the leading are good. As the going gets tough, the party itself works out, before the leader (possibly excluding Wilson for his own good reasons) that they might maintain power with a different leader. Sometimes this works, but often not. The change of state to a different party, with its shiny leader, is inevitable except in exceptional circumstances. The disaster of Brexit is one such, since the electoral disaffection was deliberately diverted away from the Austerity Tories to the EU and the class of Remainers first by Cameron, and after the Referendum by May and Johnson, enabled by Corbyn. The Tories are now desperate but the sensible ones were mostly fired or are kept under wraps by no 10. Since they are desperate they will remove Johnson, whether he is now marching like a Columbian or not, as soon as they can put together a team. Watch Gove. Vote for Sharma or Starmer.
Amongst the booted-out and the jumped-before-they-were-pushed, there is a significant difference between the parties, namely, that this is an overwhelmingly Tory thing – although time will tell if the failed coup against Corbyn has set any kind of precedent – and however much Labour MPs might grumble about their leader, they tend to give them a chance. Correct me if I’m wrong, but after McDonald was forced out of the leadership – and indeed the party – in 1931, I don’t think any other Labour leader has faced a serious revolt until Corbyn. Maybe George Lansbury would’ve faced one had he not stepped down pre-emptively, but other than that, I don’t think there were any coups. Hints of an uprising, general moaning, sure, lots of that. But no serious organised putsch.
On the Conservative side, however, it happens all the time. Austen and Neville Chamberlain, Eden, Heath, Thatcher, Duncan Smith and May were all successfully overthrown; Baldwin (again) survived the coup launched after his catastrophic defeat in 1929, as Major survived his troubles in the 90s. Amongst other Tories in the past century, MacMillan and Home would probably have faced a revolt if they’d not resigned when they did; Howard was only ever intended as a short-term appointment; Cameron ran away at the first sign of trouble. I think that only leaves Churchill and Hague in a hundred years of Tory squabbling who have been able to get on with their jobs largely untroubled (although it’s probably fair to say Churchill hardly enjoyed universal adoration amongst his fellow Conservatives at the time).
I suppose, then, the question is: why are the Tories going about it so differently to Labour? Perhaps it’s pragmatism. Perhaps the Tories are simply more focused on who will win the next election, and any consequences beyond that don’t matter. After all, the plan can always be changed, and changed again. And maybe Labour are too concerned about long-term ‘battles for Labour’s soul’ and are willing to sacrifice several years in the interests of an unending ideological conflict.
Or then again, maybe the Tory party is just full of, well, bastards.
FYI, your link to Prospect magazine goes to an article by Dominic Grieve. I had to briefly hunt around to find the (excellent) article by your good self.
Whoops! And nobody noticed. Few people click on links anyway. but they like to see them.
Now corrected, with thanks.
In Canada, we’ve had a scant couple since 1974:
– Stephen Harper (2006-2015)
– Joe Clark (1979-1980)
I think it might be more common at the provincial premier level
I think the lack of term limits alongg with a flexibility in election timing make this situation inevitable. There is no effective way for a prime minister to hand over to a successor from the same party at an election; therefore, absent a change in the party of government, the prime minister must change between elections.
Major deposed Thatcher in to prevent the Tories losing next election. Blair handed over to Brown on the basis there was sufficient time for Brown to build a brand as a Prime Minister and retain power. Cameron resigned because the Tories needed to deliver Brexit to retain power. Ditto getting rid of May.
None of the incumbents could have called an election and said “vote for my successor” with any chance of success.
Would we really say that Teresa May ‘lost’ the 2017 election? She did win the most seats.
She lost her majority.
I find it intriguing that people are surprised when told this (as indeed I was when first told). It being a rare occurrence is counter to our instincts. Which begs the question of why that is. I wonder if there may be a hint in the identities of your two earliest examples, Gladstone and Disraeli? Those two are almost stereotypes of our political system, two powerful figures dominating politics, causing each other to get voted out. And they come from a period of history which is often taught in schools, and which features a lot on children’s TV. Perhaps we see Gladstone and Disraeli as somehow representing what it means to be a prime minister, with the result that we’re surprised that it’s not usual for things to happen like that?
I reckon it’s actually evidence of the increasing “presidentialifcation” of the role of the PM. The PM (both in the UK and Australia) is seen more and more as the embodiment of the government. More and more people vote based on who the leader is. An election victory is overwhelmingly seen as the PM’s victory. But with great power comes great responsibility – so when a government starts to get on the nose, it’s the PM’s responsibility more than anyone else, and his or her colleagues have a convenient scapegoat and the chance for a reset that might help save their seats at the next election.
One of the factors responsible for the trends you have noted is simply that ruling political parties have discovered that they can enhance their prospects of re-election through a change of leader. This calculation is plainly quite central to whether Johnson survives as PM until the next election. Even changing a leader just ahead of a general election can work wonders for a ruling party. There is an example of this from Australia. In fact, NOT capitalising quickly enough on a change of leader has been Labour’s mistake in the past (e.g. Callaghan and Brown).
Comments above rightly point to the symmetry and other structural facts that make the outcome seem less surprising than it does at first blush. Why the effect has become more common over the last 50 years is perhaps more interesting?
Is it possible that Mrs Thatcher’s overt – and largely successful – modern effort to champion “self interest” as the principle font of collective economic success has something to answer for? Referring to Adam Grant’s excellent video about his work with organisations ( https://www.ted.com/talks/adam_grant_are_you_a_giver_or_a_taker ) it can be shown that self interest is contagious in a way that altruistic behaviour is not. Adam’s work makes it clear that wise organisations must actively seek to weed out “takers” because of way the majority of people “reflect” what they see as normal behaviour. The few who would give a spare kidney to a stranger for no other reason than they need it, are just as rare as the sociopathic narcissistic types like our current prime minister (who gives the impression he’d steal one from a child to save his own skin), and neither will ever swap their halos for horns or vice versa. Once the narcissistic charmers have normalised self serving behaviour by continuously exposing those around them to it, it becomes increasingly difficult for the altruistic to thrive.
That wouldn’t be a problem except that Mrs Thatcher’s philosophy – and by extension, the whole me first/greed is good aspect of conservatism – is actually poisonous to the success of organisations as a whole. The more they become infected with narcissism the more effort is wasted on self preservation at the expense of the organisation’s purpose. Furthermore, the fact that likability operates on an independent axis to altruism makes it almost impossible for the “unlikeable givers” (think Dr House) to be heard despite them being exceptional in placing a higher value on objective truth than their own success and popularity.
In essence we are run by a den of thieving duplicitous Judases because we elect people by popularity contest against the background of a culture that has stopped putting others first and fails to hold selfishness in contempt, preferring shallow Facebook likability over ethical substance. When there is a whiff of blood in the water these days, the officers rally to Caeser with knives concealed in their togas because that is what they deserve :)
Anyone for sortition? It looks more rational and it is a form of democracy that has only been a resounding success when used as a way of solving political deadlocks in the modern era of universal suffrage. It doesn’t fall foul of that old bore Churchill’s famous aphorism about forms of government that have been tried: We really haven’t tried it in a meaningful way …. yet.
This trend isn’t very unique to the UK. In Ireland, no Taoiseach has come to power and left via a General Election since 1987. Even then, most of the governments in the 80s were minorities/unstable coalitions which meant that governments fell regularly and never served their full terms. The last time we had a Taoiseach elected, serve a full term and then lose power in an election was 1977.
Unlike the UK, Ireland has a written constitution and the position of Taoiseach is codified in the constitution, but it is defined as position fully accountable to our parliament (Dáil Éireann) and they legally must resign if they lose the confidence of the Dáil.
Thank you for this comparative perspective
I think this may also reflect improvements in polling. If the polling makes it clear that a leader is a drag on the party, they will be deposed or forced to resign before the next election. Pre-1970, polls couldn’t be conducted across a large population with statistical rigour or reliability, and the results couldn’t be analysed as effectively without widespread computers. Now we can survey thousands of people, look at the results, and reliably say either “the current PM is likely to win the election, the party should keep them”, or “the current PM is not likely to win the election, let’s change leader”. There is very little middle ground between these two analyses, and political parties dislike gambling with their majorities – it’s hard to see a situation in which a leader who is likely to win is got rid of, or in which a leader who is unlikely to win is nevertheless allowed to continue. (Though we may see the latter imminently.)
So thanks to polling, a PM who’s going to win the election generally stays in power, and a PM who’s not going to win generally leaves power before the election (by choice or otherwise).
It happens because it can happen under our political system, no need for complex or lengthy impeachment procedures and processes It is relatively easy to remove an incumbent by either of the major parties.
It is simply about political accountability, if the Tories weren’t doing so badly in the polls this would not be an issue – they would support Johnson – as in effect they did the other night. Whether that remains the case after the two forthcoming by elections remains to be seen. If they lose both badly then the red wall and blue wall start to look vulnerable, I would hypothesise that there will be a rule change to allow no confidence votes if enough MP’s demand one during the 12 months – it maybe that the men in grey suits will arrive to usher him out of the door if it transpires that he misled parliament knowingly. So whilst for now Johnson seems safe, I wouldn’t bet on him still being PM in 12 months time – of course without a rule change we have a period of a year where he is likely to be attacked by his own backbench MP’s at every opportunity in a variety of ways – no one not even Johnson will survive that.
“If it transpires”?! Yore avin a larf!
I think they will get rid of him, but probably in a years time when it will be less than a year to the next election.
Yes I am and yes he did.