The general powers exercised by a British Prime Minister include:
the power to appoint, reshuffle or dismiss cabinet ministers
the power to create new peers to the House of Lords
the power to give out honours
the power to appoint top civil servants, ambassadors, bishops and judges
the power to determine government business and Cabinet discussions/agendas
the power to withhold information from the Houses of Parliament if deemed necessary
the power to use the media via a lobby system
the power to terminate the life of a government and call a general election
The Prime Minister clearly has an abundance of powers at his disposal. Sir Richard Crossman wrote that :
<span>(The PM) is now the apex not only of a highly centralised political machine but also of a highly centralised and vastly more powerful administrative machine.</span>
The PM’s position as leader of the majority party in the House of Commons together with his position as head of government, thus combining legislative and executive powers, amounts to an “immense accretion of power.”
Many of the PM’s powers derive from the prerogative powers of the Monarch. These extensive powers are wielded independently of Parliament and effectively give every PM the power of a Head of State. These powers include the right to appoint ministers, to dissolve Parliament and so set the timing for a general election, to be in charge of the armed forces and the security services, to negotiate treaties and other diplomatic agreements and to summon and chair Cabinet meetings. The proponents of Prime Ministerial government postulate that the Cabinet is effectively the tool of the PM and that, in practice, government policy has long ceased to be decided at Cabinet meetings. PM’s use Cabinet Committees (the PM chairs several of these), bilateral meetings with individual ministers, the No. 10 Policy Unit, the Cabinet Office, Think Tanks and ‘kitchen cabinets’ of personal aides and advisers, to shape policy and present it to the Cabinet. The Cabinet as a collective body, it has been argued, has been reduced to a clearing house and ratifier of decisions already taken.
<span>Unlike their ministerial colleagues, the PM is not tied up with a particular department and is ultimately responsible for co-ordinating government policy across the board. The PM’s potential impact on policy-making is therefore enormous and a pro-active PM like Mrs. Thatcher intervened extensively in departments and left her personal imprint on an array of policies from local government, education to privitisation.</span>
