United Kingdom without a Prime Minister?

There is no such office known to the law as "Prime Minister' . And that point was formally made as late as the 19th century, and remains law today.

Nowadays the First Lord of the Treasury is usually the senior servant of the Crown, and commonly termed Prime Minister. That is , at best , a title of repute, not an office. In the past it was by no means universal for the First Treasury Lord to be head of government . (Lord Salisbury in the late 19th century held office as Foreign Secretary).

For most of the 18th century the term "Prime Minister" was regarded as derogatory, and an insinuation of unconstitutional behavior.

Since the use of the term is a mere social convention unknown to law, there is no question of preventing the _role_ of Prime Minister evolving. It never did. To make the use of the term remain unconstitutional would probably only require a few prominent figures to continue to use it as a pejorative.

Note that until very recent years, it was quite common for the head of the Government not to be a member of the House of Commons. Nor is there any requirement that he be one today. Normally, when the head of government was not in the Commons, he was a Peer and sat in the House of Lords. But even that is not a legal requirement. Her Majesty may, in law, appoint any of her subjects to the position of First Treasury Lord (or even, indeed, Lord Treasurer). Or to almost any other of the Great Offices of State, and to regard that person as head of Her government and principle servant.

It would be quite interesting to have a PM outside the commons these days, what with Prime Minister's Questions, etc (I'm guessing what would happen is that - assuming no-one was Deputy PM - that a cabinet office minister would answer the questions). The chances of it happening, for more than a few days at least, are minuscule though.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
To avoid a person who holds the effective power of "Prime Minister", you have to split the power. Now sure, the title could be changed easily, but getting rid of the Prime Minister roll is hard. So we have to look at some ways for us to have competing power centers that the King balances. So ideas.

-Maybe make the RN totally separate from the the House of Commons. Need its own tax base/system to pay for it, since the power to tax is how the Commons gained power. Can't give a POD.

- Go to true Imperial system. We don't have King of England. We have Emperor of British People with various governments under him. King of Scotland, King of England, King of Wales, Viceroy of British India, etc. Now you have many PM. I guess you could combine this with the idea above and have a military separated from these Kings, at least the Navy.

- Go Consul route. If you look to the Roman model, maybe you could have councils where one can veto the others appointments (recommendations to King)

- King could keep power. Then all these positions are really cabinet members to the Kings cabinet.
 
It would be quite interesting to have a PM outside the commons these days, what with Prime Minister's Questions, etc (I'm guessing what would happen is that - assuming no-one was Deputy PM - that a cabinet office minister would answer the questions). The chances of it happening, for more than a few days at least, are minuscule though.

The normal procedure was for each Minister to appoint a subordinate (perhaps in today's terms, a Parliamentary Undersecretary) to handle questions in the house where the Minister sat not. ie a Minister in the Commons would appoint a peer as spokesman in the Lords, a minister in the lords, vice versa. It worked well enough

I seem to recall that at one point Gladstone held office (as Minister? Prime Minster?) for a few days without being an MP. He had accepted an office which by the rules of the day required re-election, and had resigned from the Commons, but held the Office until re-election. It was commented on at the time as an oddity, but nothing more.
 
Sir Robert Walpole is often said to be the "first Prime Minister". I would, however, suggest that that claim most properly belongs to George Grenville , PM 1763-5 (he succeeded Lord Bute).

Although Walpole did in fact determine the appointments to the Offices of State , which I regard as the essential determinate feature of a Prime Minster, he apparently considered this a being a favour which he needed to supplicate from the King, rather than as a matter of right. Grenville was the first who genuinely believed that his position entitled him,. as of right, to appoint the other Ministers, without any more than a formal reference to the King. Walpole's position was "As your Majesty is aware, I am considered the leader of those of your Majesty's subjects called Whigs. It would greatly assist me in furthering Your Majesty's business if Your Majesty would see your way to appointing these people, who greatly support me in managing the House of Commons, to the offices I suggest"

Grenville's was to lecture the King on his (Grenville's) notions of constitutional propriety, and demand the appointment of his friends as his right.

King George absolutely loathed and detested Grenville. Grenville would never have gotten away with such behavior to old George II, who for all his limitations , was not a prince to be trifled with. But Geo III was young and unconfident.
 
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