tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/prime-ministers-12787/articlesPrime Ministers – The Conversation2022-10-21T12:02:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1930312022-10-21T12:02:00Z2022-10-21T12:02:00ZLiz Truss is now the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister – how does she stack up against George Canning, who previously held the record?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491043/original/file-20221021-17-m4mvdw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C107%2C1004%2C683&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George Canning, now the second-shortest-serving prime minister of the United Kingdom.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_Canning,_Prime_Minister_of_The_United_Kingdom.jpg">Thomas Lawrence, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Liz Truss announced her resignation on October 20 2022, 44 days after taking office. The departure makes her the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister. But who did she replace to earn this undesirable accolade?</p>
<p>The previous holder of this title was George Canning, who lasted more than twice as long as Truss. He died in office after a premiership of 119 days. Known by many as the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/george-canning">“lost leader” because of his short tenure</a>, Canning still left his mark on British political history. He is one of only <a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/iain-dale-2/the-prime-ministers/9781529312171/">four prime ministers</a> to have a statue in Parliament Square, the others being Benjamin Disraeli, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. While Canning’s time as prime minister was short, his distinguished political career spanned 34 years, from securing a seat in the Commons in 1793 to his death in 1827.</p>
<p>Canning was a marmite character, beloved by his political inner circle but viewed with suspicion and distrust by many outside of it. He was seen as overly ambitious, arrogant and not at ease – as suspicious of others as they were of him. Some think this was partly due to his humble upbringing. He was the only prime minister to sit in the House of Commons in the first half of the 19th century, as most others came from the Lords. </p>
<p>Brought up in a Whig family, Canning was elected for the Tories in 1793 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/george-canning">under the guidance</a> of Tory prime minister William Pitt the Younger. Both historians and his contemporaries described their relationship as <a href="https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/william-pitt-the-younger-a-biography-william-hague?variant=32723113705550">like father and son</a>.</p>
<p>After his own ambitious but economically unsuccessful father died on young George’s first birthday, Canning was adopted at the age of six by his aunt and uncle. His mother, Mary Ann, became an actress after his father’s death to provide for the family, and from then on was a constant source of shame for Canning. He kept their relationship private, even his own wife and children only saw her once or twice in her lifetime. </p>
<p>She was the focus of many political jibes aimed at Canning during his career. In an 1827 parliamentary debate following the resignation of Lord Liverpool as prime minister, Lord Grey (of Earl Grey tea fame) said that the son of an actress is “<a href="https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/canning-george-1770-1827">incapacitated de facto</a> for the premiership of England”. The detailed <a href="https://unbound.com/books/george-canning-is-my-son/">correspondence</a> between Canning and his mother highly suggest that this relationship is the source of Canning’s guarded nature and ambitious drive.</p>
<h2>Were Canning and Truss similar?</h2>
<p>Beyond its brevity, Canning’s political career shows many similarities to that of Truss. Like Truss, Canning was foreign secretary, holding the position from 1807-1809 and again from 1822-1827, a role in which many believed he excelled. He had a particularly notable triumph in September 1807, when he arranged the confiscation of the <a href="https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/iain-dale-2/the-prime-ministers/9781529312171/">Danish fleet at Copenhagen</a>, thus disrupting Napoleon’s plans for expansion during the Napoleonic Wars.</p>
<p>Canning similarly came into power under a period of Tory infighting. By 1827, the Tory party was largely split into two factions. The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel led the more right-wing side of the party, known as the “Ultras”, while Canning and his followers were known as the more moderate Canningites. When Canning was asked to form a government in April 1827, he struggled to form a cabinet after the immediate resignations in protest of Wellington, Peel and other Tory Ultras. Canning did manage to form a shaky government in April 1827, turning to some Whig colleagues to fill the vacancies.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/liz-truss-resigns-who-is-in-and-who-is-out-in-the-race-to-replace-her-192981">Liz Truss resigns: who is in and who is out in the race to replace her?</a>
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<p>However, unlike Truss, Canning had a reputation of being a skilled orator, with his “<a href="https://archive.org/stream/privatelettersof001315mbp/privatelettersof001315mbp_djvu.txt">quicksilver brilliance</a> in public debate” well regarded across both Houses. His death, 119 days into his premiership, was put down to stress, worry and anxiety by his contemporaries. But it was inflammation of the lungs (regarded as pneumonia or sometimes tuberculosis) that was registered as the cause of death. His popularity was demonstrated by the crowds that turned up to his funeral on August 16 1827 at Westminster Abbey, where he was buried and a statue to his memory was erected in 1832.</p>
<p>Reactions to his death were as mixed as those about him when he was alive. Contemporary comments ranged from Whig Sir James Mackintosh’s view that a lost statesman who had yet to reach his greatest heights. Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich said that Canning was “a whole revolution in himself alone”. The most spiteful appears to have been the Duke of Bedford’s delight at the death of someone capable of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9780203041970/foreign-policy-canning-cb-temperley">“infinite evil”</a>. Exactly what prompted Bedford’s comment is unclear, other than his great dislike of Canning. Even in death, Canning still had his bitter opponents.</p>
<p>Whether or not Canning would have transformed British politics as prime minister is still a source of debate among political historians. So, when you are asked the inevitable trivia question “Who did Liz Truss replace as the shortest serving prime minister?”, know that she beat a statesman <a href="https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/canning-george-1770-1827">remembered as</a> “one of the most singular and remarkable” of the first half of the 19th century, by fans and critics alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Bynoth received funding from SWWDTP, which is a doctoral training partnership funded by the AHRC. She thanks the SWWDTP for funding the research from which this information originates. </span></em></p>Many still speculate about what George Canning would have achieved had he not died 119 days into his premiership.Rachel Bynoth, Lecturer in Design (Historical and Critical Studies) and PhD Researcher, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1866012022-07-07T23:13:04Z2022-07-07T23:13:04ZBoris Johnson’s messy political legacy of lies, scandals and delivering Brexit to his base<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473018/original/file-20220707-24-1vup09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C89%2C4600%2C2967&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will Boris Johnson be back? The chances may be slim.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/prime-minister-boris-johnson-returns-inside-after-news-photo/1407301546?adppopup=true">Carl Court/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Boris Johnson, the now outgoing prime minister of the United Kingdom, had wanted to follow in the footsteps of his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/boris-johnson-reached-the-top-but-was-felled-by-his-flaws/2022/07/07/96ca34f0-fdd8-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html">idol Winston Churchill</a> and be remembered as a leader of consequence. He aspired to greatness and desired to stay in office longer than the 11 years <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2022/06/26/boris-johnson-says-he-wants-to-still-be-prime-minister-in-the-2030s-16892594/">enjoyed by Conservative icon Margaret Thatcher</a>.</p>
<p>It wasn’t to be.</p>
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<p>Instead, on July 7, 2022, Johnson announced that less than three years after becoming prime minister, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62081380">he was resigning</a> and would remain in office only until a successor emerged. It marks a stunning repudiation of a leader who had delivered Brexit to his supporters and scored a major electoral mandate a mere two and half years previously.</p>
<p>The scandal that brought his downfall wasn’t Johnson’s first. Indeed, throughout his career – and time in office – Johnson has been regarded as <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-manner-keep-character/">a political Houdini</a>, skilled at political survival and endlessly able to rebound from mishaps. </p>
<p>But even he could not overcome the succession of scandals in recent months, not least “<a href="https://theconversation.com/order-order-a-guide-to-partygate-and-the-uks-rambunctious-parliament-176206">Partygate</a>,” which involved revelations around his government’s repeated and brazen ignoring of its own COVID-19 lockdown rules. In the end it was his handling of a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/62048687">tawdry affair involving the promotion</a> of a member of parliament accused of serious sexual wrongdoing that proved the final straw. That scandal precipitated a <a href="https://theconversation.com/boris-johnsons-nightmare-day-how-to-read-between-the-lines-in-resignation-letters-from-government-ministers-186510">rash of cabinet resignations</a> that made clear Johnson could no longer rely on the support of his own party. </p>
<p>Yet, Johnson’s legacy will not be confined to the scandals. His tenure coincided with major challenges in the U.K. Some, like the COVID-19 pandemic and the outbreak of war in Europe, were not of his making. Others, notably Brexit, were of his own hand.</p>
<h2>First came Brexit</h2>
<p>Boris Johnson and Brexit will forever be inextricably bound. </p>
<p>Johnson had long been a prominent political figure before Britain’s exit from Europe came to dominate U.K. politics. Aside from serving as a member of parliament, he was also the mayor of London as well as a well-known media personality. Throughout, Johnson, a fiscal conservative by nature, developed a reputation <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/apps-johnson/boris-johnson-inspired-appointment-or-diplomatic-disaster-idINKCN0ZU2L6">for being polarizing</a> – witty and charming to some, but dishonest and untrustworthy to others.</p>
<p>He was long talked of as a future prime minister. But it was the 2016 Brexit referendum on whether the U.K. should remain in the European Union that eventually propelled Johnson to power. He became the face of the Leave campaign, <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-send-350m-week-brussels">at times taking liberties with the truth</a> to make his case for exiting the EU. While he did not become prime minister immediately after the U.K. public opted to exit the EU, his time would come three years later. </p>
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<img alt="A tabby cat is seen sitting in the foreground in front of the front door of 10 Downing Street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473093/original/file-20220707-14-wmzwme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473093/original/file-20220707-14-wmzwme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473093/original/file-20220707-14-wmzwme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473093/original/file-20220707-14-wmzwme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473093/original/file-20220707-14-wmzwme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473093/original/file-20220707-14-wmzwme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473093/original/file-20220707-14-wmzwme.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prime ministers come and go, but Larry the Downing Street cat remains in place.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/larry-the-downing-street-cat-sits-on-the-pavement-in-front-news-photo/1241721664?adppopup=true">Leon Neal/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>When Prime Minister Theresa May resigned in summer 2019, weakened by major divisions over how to implement Brexit within the Conservative Party, Johnson seized his chance. </p>
<p>He promised to “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/07/toxic-spell-broken-boris-johnson-trips-over-own-lies">Get Brexit Done</a>” and to end the major deadlock in British politics over what sort of relationship the country would have with the EU. </p>
<p>On that front, he delivered. The December 2019 election was a resounding success for Johnson, <a href="https://theconversation.com/boris-johnsons-big-election-victory-academics-on-what-it-means-for-the-uk-and-brexit-128850">earning a substantial majority for the Conservative Party</a> and enabling him to force through his vision of Brexit. His brand of populism, charm, disregard for rules and effective communication not only shored up the Conservative base in that election, but also helped attract many traditional left-wing Labour voters, securing a clear mandate for his party.</p>
<p>With that victory in hand, Johnson was free to complete the formal departure of the U.K. from the EU on Jan. 31, 2020. Later that year, after tumultuous talks, his government negotiated the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/relations-non-eu-countries/relations-united-kingdom/eu-uk-trade-and-cooperation-agreement_en">Trade and Cooperation Agreement</a> with the EU – defining the future relations between the U.K. and its European partners.</p>
<p>Brexit was and remains very divisive in the U.K. But neither supporters nor opponents would deny how consequential that decision was, and it could not have happened without Johnson’s involvement.</p>
<h2>… then the pandemic</h2>
<p>Any hopes that Johnson could bask in the glory of Brexit came quickly crashing down within weeks of it becoming a reality. </p>
<p>The start of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the situation for the U.K. Johnson and his government fumbled its initial pandemic response, acting slowly and in a lackluster manner – Johnson himself <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/19/michael-gove-fails-to-deny-pm-missed-five-coronavirus-cobra-meetings">was absent for some of the crucial meetings</a> called to discuss the pandemic in its early days. </p>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/10/12/1045219737/the-u-k-s-early-approach-to-pandemic-cost-thousands-of-lives-a-new-report-says">government report</a> released in October 2021, the government’s decision to delay a strict lockdown allowed the virus to circulate widely and caused many thousands of additional deaths. And it nearly killed Johnson himself, who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/boris-johnson-and-coronavirus-inside-story-illness">spent a week in the hospital</a> in April 2020.</p>
<p>While Johnson recovered from his own bout with the virus, his government also managed to steady the ship. It introduced a series of stringent lockdowns and restrictions in the following year and presided over a <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n421">successful vaccination rollout</a>. But these same COVID-19 restrictions would also ironically highlight one of Johnson’s main character traits: a disregard for rules that would eventually lead to his political undoing.</p>
<h2>… and on to the lies</h2>
<p>Prior to becoming prime minister, Johnson was no stranger to controversy and to a delicate relationship with the truth. </p>
<p>The Times newspaper, where he once worked as a reporter, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/boris-johnson-reached-the-top-but-was-felled-by-his-flaws/2022/07/07/96ca34f0-fdd8-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html">sacked him for inventing a quote</a>. And in 2001 he lost his senior position in the Conservative Party <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/boris-johnson-reached-the-top-but-was-felled-by-his-flaws/2022/07/07/96ca34f0-fdd8-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html">for lying about an affair</a>.</p>
<p>Yet despite many setbacks usually of his own doing, Johnson had an uncanny ability to rebound, leading former prime minister David Cameron <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/20/boris-johnson-survival-superpower-last-tory-angry-partygate">to liken him</a> to a “greased piglet” who could not be caught.</p>
<p>His time in office was in keeping with precedent, littered by multiple scandals that continually led to questions about Johnson’s credibility. That included, among other unfavorable stories, that Johnson had received <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56878663">a secret undisclosed loan</a> to pay for the costs of the renovation of his private quarters at 11 Downing Street, beyond his public allowance; or the reports of a close ally in parliament <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/10/boris-johnson-sleaze-scandal/">breaking lobbying rules by accepting payments from companies he was promoting</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, those paled in comparison to the repercussions from “Partygate.”</p>
<p>The revelations in late 2021 and early 2022 that Johnson and his government had been <a href="https://theconversation.com/wine-time-friday-and-invites-for-200-five-of-the-most-interesting-findings-from-sue-grays-partygate-report-183866">repeatedly breaking COVID-19 restriction rules</a> over the course of a year – including many alcohol-fueled parties and accusations that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/23/partygate-photos-boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-lockdown-breaches-sue-gray-report">Johnson lied to Parliament</a> over his attendance at some gatherings – shocked the U.K. public. This scandal led to Johnson’s approval rating <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/07/07/he-resigns-boris-johnsons-favourability-drops-lowe">plummeting in 2022</a>. It also, slowly but surely, resulted in Johnson losing the support of his own party. </p>
<p>The war in Ukraine gave him temporary reprieve, and he narrowly survived a <a href="https://theconversation.com/boris-johnson-what-the-result-of-the-confidence-vote-means-for-the-pm-and-the-conservative-party-184500">vote of no-confidence in early June</a>. But he was now vulnerable. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62032329">His latest scandal</a>, which surfaced when it became apparent Johnson was lying about what he knew about the transgressions of another close ally in Parliament, Chris Pincher, was the final nail in his political coffin. </p>
<p>Deserted by most of his allies, Johnson had to accept the inevitable.</p>
<h2>A second act?</h2>
<p>Churchill famously <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-winston-churchill-and-the-conservative-party-lost-the-1945-election">lost the parliamentary elections in the summer of 1945</a>, shortly after leading the U.K. to victory in World War II.</p>
<p>Ousted by an electorate wanting a break with Churchill’s old-world policies, and a different post-war Britain, he was still able, six years later, to return to office. </p>
<p>Such a second act seems unlikely for Johnson. Yes, he delivered on Brexit, and his supporters will remember that. But his chaotic departure, leaving his country and party very divided, as well as the legacy of his scandals, will be extremely hard to shake off – even for a “greased piglet.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garret Martin receives funding from the European Union for the Transatlantic Policy Center that he co-directs at American University. </span></em></p>The UK prime minister tendered his resignation after a slew of resignations by former allies in his government.Garret Martin, Senior Professorial Lecturer, Co-Director Transatlantic Policy Center, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1432022020-07-22T10:05:47Z2020-07-22T10:05:47ZPolitics with Michelle Grattan: Geoff Kitney on a life in journalism and the contemporary media landscape<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/348856/original/file-20200722-18-alfkgj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2991%2C1495&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Geoff Kitney fell into a career in journalism, and rose from reporting the local footy in Western Australia to covering many of federal politics’s biggest stories and serving as a foreign correspondent based in Berlin and London.</p>
<p>Arriving at parliament house in 1975, Kitney reported on the dramatic Dismissal. Later, the relative decorum of the Canberra press gallery contrasted with the danger and adventure of war reporting.</p>
<p>During the Kosovo war, he was sent to Belgrade, travelling there in a bus with a crowd of Serbians.</p>
<p>“It was very, very strange bus trip because we’d passed houses with MiG fighters parked in the driveways … [Slobodan Milošević] was trying to stop NATO destroying his airforce. So he put the MiG fighters next to people’s houses so that they wouldn’t hit them, which meant that he couldn’t use them, but at least he still had them.”</p>
<p>In Kitney’s new book, Beyond the Newsroom, based around his decades of reporting and analysis, he also has some sharp observations about what’s happened to the media.</p>
<p>“Advertising started shifting to social media. Newspaper budgets got tighter and tighter. Staff started being cut. We’ve now had years of redundancies.”</p>
<p>“We had specialist reporters covering all sorts of issues, digging down, getting out into the bureaucracy … finding what’s really going on. Now …there aren’t enough people to do that.”</p>
<p>“And the pressure, for Twitter for example, is to be noticed. And it seems to me that people think the best way to get noticed, and probably this is true, is to have strong opinions that people react to. And so opinion becomes more important than actual information.”</p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/politics-with-michelle-grattan/id703425900?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="268" height="68"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVjb252ZXJzYXRpb24uY29tL2F1L3BvZGNhc3RzL3BvbGl0aWNzLXdpdGgtbWljaGVsbGUtZ3JhdHRhbi5yc3M"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="268" height="68"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-conversation-4/politics-with-michelle-grattan"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="300" height="88"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/Politics-with-Michelle-Grattan-p227852/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="318" height="125"></a></p>
<p><a href="https://radiopublic.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-WRElBZ"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-152" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="268" height="87"></a> <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5NkaSQoUERalaLBQAqUOcC"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/237984/original/file-20180925-149976-1ks72uy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=268&fit=clip" width="268" height="82"></a> </p>
<h2>Additional audio</h2>
<p><a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lee_Rosevere/The_Big_Loop_-_FML_original_podcast_score/Lee_Rosevere_-_The_Big_Loop_-_FML_original_podcast_score_-_10_A_List_of_Ways_to_Die">A List of Ways to Die</a>, Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Michelle Grattan sits down with veteran journalist Geoff Kitney to discuss his career.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1367302020-04-21T20:03:36Z2020-04-21T20:03:36ZSecrets and scandals: where Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir fits in the rich history of prime ministerial books<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329396/original/file-20200421-82654-7totml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=532%2C0%2C3269%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wes Mountain/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Landing in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, it may seem strange former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s memoir has generated so much political controversy.</p>
<p>Turnbull has been accused of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js06JnyNQO4">hypocrisy</a> and championing <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/ben-fordham-full-show/former-speaker-of-the-house-of-representatives-bro">socialism</a>, and has been <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/liberal-party-conservatives-want-immediate-expulsion-of-turnbull-20200419-p54l7h.html">threatened with expulsion</a> from the Liberal Party.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-former-prime-minister-malcolm-turnbull-on-his-autobiography-a-bigger-picture-136746">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on his autobiography, 'A Bigger Picture'</a>
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<p>In A Bigger Picture, <a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-malcolm-turnbull-gives-his-very-on-the-record-account-of-scott-morrison-136693">Turnbull deals candidly with his antagonists</a> inside the Coalition, who fought him bitterly on the same-sex marriage reform and climate policy. Similarly, he names and shames those he blames for the leadership insurgency of August 2018. All of this was expected, but none of it must please the current government.</p>
<p>But is the book any more inflammatory than previous prime ministerial memoirs?</p>
<p>Political controversy is a trademark of political memoir publishing in Australia. A Bigger Picture is just another page in that story.</p>
<p>Until the 1960s, prime ministerial memoirs were the exception, not the rule. Between 1945 and 1990, just three former prime ministers chose to publish books about their political lives. Two of them – Billy Hughes and Robert Menzies – produced two books each, and both political veterans sought to avoid “telling tales out of school”. Both seemed more interested in foreign affairs, particularly our imperial relationship to the UK in the case of Menzies.</p>
<p>The dismissal of the Whitlam government provoked both Sir John Kerr and Gough Whitlam to publish their memoirs. After reading extracts of Kerr’s <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8961710?q&versionId=10375777">Matters for Judgement</a>, Whitlam decided to “set the record straight immediately” by writing <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/the-truth-of-the-matter-paperback-softback">The Truth of the Matter</a>. His second book, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8478914">The Whitlam Government</a>, was also designed to make a political splash. Promising to explain the “development and implementation” of his policy program, the book was timed for release on the tenth anniversary of the dismissal itself, ensuring maximum publicity.</p>
<p>Since then, political controversy has accompanied prime ministerial memoirs, in part because incumbent political parties and leaders have had a vested interest in how these books might affect their popularity.</p>
<p>In his 1994 <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11599888">political memoir</a>, Bob Hawke accused his rival and successor, Paul Keating, of calling Australia “the arse-end of the world” during an argument about the Labor leadership. Further, Hawke accused Keating of failing to support Australia’s involvement in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.</p>
<p>Keating, who was attacked in parliament in October 1994 over the claims, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/118291291?searchTerm=%22Button%22%20AND%20%22Flying%20a%20Rhetorical%20Kite%22&searchLimits=">called both allegations</a> “lies”. Hawke offered to take a lie-detector test to prove his sincerity. Senior ALP figures recorded their outrage at Hawke’s memoir. But Hawke hit back, describing them as “precious self-appointed guardians of proper behaviour”.</p>
<p>Hawke’s predecessor also damaged his relationship with his own party in the process of publishing his memoirs. Malcolm Fraser’s <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/malcolm-fraser-paperback-softback">Political Memoirs</a>, written with journalist Margaret Simons, was recognised as one of Australia’s <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/political-presses-20101226-197ul.html">top ten books of 2010</a>. His outspokenness – in the book and in his post-prime-ministerial life more generally – earned him many attacks from Coalition MPs.</p>
<p>John Howard handled the politics of his memoirs better than most politicians. Though the book was antagonistic toward his former treasurer, Peter Costello, Howard promised to “deal objectively” with events and relationships in <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780730499640/lazarus-rising/">Lazarus Rising</a>. Ever the party stalwart, Howard and his publishers re-issued the book after the 2013 election with a new chapter that touted Tony Abbott’s “high intelligence, discipline […] good people skills”.</p>
<p>Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard both publicly took aim at one another in their memoirs, which made for plenty of media fodder. In <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/my-story-9781760893330">My Story</a>, Gillard described Rudd’s leadership as a descent into “paralysis and misery”. Rudd returned fire, calling her book her <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-24/kevin-rudd-dismisses-julia-gillard27s-memoir-as-a-work-of-27f/5767096">“latest contribution to Australian fiction”</a>. However, he was unable to dent the book’s commercial success.</p>
<p>Four years later, Rudd in <a href="https://kevinrudd.com/books/">The PM Years</a> accused Gillard of plotting “with the faceless men” to become prime minister. In a bid to patch over the historic rifts, he subsequently promised the Labor Party’s 2018 National Conference that the “<a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/12/18/kevin-rudd-life-membership-alp/">time for healing</a>” had come.</p>
<p>Critics of Turnbull’s book – such as Sky News’ Andrew Bolt and 2GB’s Ben Fordham – have argued that he and his publishers, Hardie Grant, were wrong to “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js06JnyNQO4">betray confidences</a>” and divulge “<a href="https://omny.fm/shows/ben-fordham-full-show/former-speaker-of-the-house-of-representatives-bro">private conversations</a>”.</p>
<p>In reality, political memoirs have always pushed against conventions of political secrecy. In the 1970s, British cabinet minister Richard Crossman <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/february/1485867600/mark-mckenna/character-business">published his Diaries</a>, which included detailed descriptions of how cabinet functioned. The British establishment subsequently conducted the <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmpubadm/689/68905.htm">Radcliffe review</a> into political memoirs and diaries. It found such material should be kept secret for 15 years, but that civil servants could do little to stop their political masters from publishing.</p>
<p>In 1999, Australia’s Neal Blewett was warned that publishing his <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/32639152?q&versionId=45870443">A Cabinet Diary</a>, recorded seven years earlier, could lead to prosecution under the Crimes Act because it revealed confidential cabinet discussions. Calling the public service’s bluff, Blewett published anyway. He explained in the book that “a few egos will be bruised, but cabinet ministers are a robust lot”. His diary shed significant light on the trials and tribulations of a ministerial life.</p>
<p>Since then, countless MPs and ministers have published books that claim to accurately represent personal conversations, some based on private notes (as Costello claimed in his memoirs), others on diary entries (as is the case in Turnbull’s book). In recent years, politicians have reproduced text messages and email exchanges in their books, as <a href="https://theconversation.com/gareth-evans-bob-learned-early-self-deprecation-is-for-dummies-25579">Bob Carr did</a> in his 2014 book, Diary of a Foreign Minister. In each version of history, the author is the essential policymaker.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-malcolm-turnbull-gives-his-very-on-the-record-account-of-scott-morrison-136693">View from The Hill: Malcolm Turnbull gives his very on-the-record account of Scott Morrison</a>
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<p>In his book, Turnbull reveals private conversations and WhatsApp exchanges with colleagues, world leaders, public servants and more. His accounts of cabinet discussions are hardly ground-breaking: cabinet debates about the economy and national security under the Abbott government, for instance, were thoroughly detailed in Niki Savva’s <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/the-road-to-ruin1">The Road to Ruin</a>, while the acrimonious debates about energy policy, same-sex marriage and home affairs inside the Turnbull government were laid bare in David Crowe’s <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460757963/venom-vendettas-betrayals-and-the-price-of-power/">Venom</a>. Similarly, Turnbull’s criticisms of News Corporation’s biased reporting have been aired elsewhere, and stop short of Rudd’s argument in The PM Years that Rupert Murdoch should be the subject of a royal commission.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s book is another addition to the history of incendiary political memoir publishing in Australia. Political parties and their media associates have confirmed once again that a successful parliamentary memoir requires deft political management.</p>
<p>Ultimately, A Bigger Picture is not the compendium of revelations that some may perceive. Instead, it is another picture of politics in which “character” and “leadership” reign supreme at the expense of all other political forces.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Black receives an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) scholarship for doctoral research.</span></em></p>Australia has a rich modern history of former prime ministers writing memoirs, partly to exact revenge and partly to secure their legacy as they see it. A Bigger Picture fits into that tradition.Joshua Black, PhD Candidate, School of History, National Centre of Biography, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1358732020-04-07T16:57:30Z2020-04-07T16:57:30ZWith Boris Johnson in intensive care, who runs the UK?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326119/original/file-20200407-36391-519hnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C4800%2C3197&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson in mid-March, before he tested positive for the coronavirus.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/file-photo-dated-on-march-18-2020-shows-british-prime-news-photo/1208351535">Ray Tang/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Boris Johnson – who was admitted to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52192604">intensive care on April 6 with worsening symptoms</a> of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus – is not the first British prime minister to experience a life-threatening bout of ill health. </p>
<p>Winston Churchill suffered a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076817745506">mild heart attack in 1941</a> and a much <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0141076818784544">more serious stroke in 1953</a>. In both cases, he successfully <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/philly/health/medical-mystery-winston-churchills-most-secret-battle-20171124.html">kept his illnesses secret</a> from Parliament, the press and the public. </p>
<p>Prime ministers have even died in office, although the last to do so was Henry John Temple, <a href="https://history.blog.gov.uk/2016/04/07/lord-palmerston/">Viscount Palmerston</a>, in 1865. In response, the Liberal Party simply selected Lord John Russell, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/lord-john-russell-1st-earl-russell">Earl Russell</a>, to succeed Palmerston. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326145/original/file-20200407-85423-1o9x8h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326145/original/file-20200407-85423-1o9x8h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326145/original/file-20200407-85423-1o9x8h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326145/original/file-20200407-85423-1o9x8h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326145/original/file-20200407-85423-1o9x8h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326145/original/file-20200407-85423-1o9x8h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326145/original/file-20200407-85423-1o9x8h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326145/original/file-20200407-85423-1o9x8h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Henry John Temple III, Viscount Palmerston, c. 1857.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_John_Temple,_3rd_Viscount_Palmerston.jpg">Herbert Watkins</a></span>
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<p>Unlike Churchill and the unfortunate Palmerston, Johnson has fallen ill in an era of social media and 24-hour news. In the U.S., the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv">25th Amendment to the Constitution</a> details what to do if the president is incapacitated or dies. In the U.K., there is no official guidance from Parliament and little precedent to fall back on. Johnson’s situation makes the U.K.’s lack of a formal plan more pressing.</p>
<p>Modern-day prime ministers are normally the leader of the Labour or, as in Johnson’s case, <a href="https://www.conservatives.com/sharethefacts/2019/07/boris-johnson-new-conservative-leader">the Conservative Party</a>. The prime minister is appointed by the monarch as the member of Parliament most likely to command support from a majority of the House of Commons, Parliament’s lower house.</p>
<p>Prime ministers enjoy great legislative and executive authority. The British prime minister is <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/prime-minister">head of the U.K. government</a>. Johnson sits atop a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/how-government-works">cabinet system of government</a> and directs the civil service, appoints ministers and is responsible to the monarch, Parliament and the electorate for the actions of the government. </p>
<p>Unlike American presidents, British prime ministers have no constitutional standing. Britain has no written constitution, relying on a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-written-constitution-for-the-uk-would-not-have-resolved-recent-brexit-arguments-heres-why-125597">piecemeal system of precedent and legal rulings</a>. The office of prime minister is a reflection of this process. It has <a href="https://history.blog.gov.uk/2012/01/01/the-institution-of-prime-minister/">evolved over three centuries</a>, accruing greater power as circumstances like war, economic crises or social turmoil dictated.</p>
<p>The problem is that the British past offers no clear guidance about what to do if a prime minister falls ill in an age of mass media.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326140/original/file-20200407-85423-e2vpig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326140/original/file-20200407-85423-e2vpig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/326140/original/file-20200407-85423-e2vpig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326140/original/file-20200407-85423-e2vpig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326140/original/file-20200407-85423-e2vpig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326140/original/file-20200407-85423-e2vpig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326140/original/file-20200407-85423-e2vpig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/326140/original/file-20200407-85423-e2vpig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=619&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is standing in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, at least for now.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/britains-foreign-secretary-dominic-raab-leaves-from-10-news-photo/1209325734">Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Although there is no deputy prime minister or deputy leader of the Conservative Party, Britain is not leaderless. Johnson has asked Dominic Raab, foreign secretary and first secretary of state, to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52192604">serve as his deputy</a> while he remains in the hospital. </p>
<p>There is no precedent for this situation, though. Some journalists worry that the temporary appointment of Raab will <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/06/dominic-raab-set-to-lead-uk-through-covid-19-hurdles">lose legitimacy</a> if Johnson remains ill for a longer period of time. </p>
<p>Johnson is still technically prime minister. Raab is simply <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-52193461">acting in his name</a>. Raab will not undertake the acts typically performed by a new prime minister, such as reshuffling the cabinet or writing <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/13/every-new-british-prime-minister-pens-a-hand-written-letter-of-last-resort-outlining-nuclear-retaliaton/">letters of last resort</a> to the commanders of Britain’s fleet of nuclear-armed submarines.</p>
<p>If Johnson remains ill for an extended period of time or succumbs to the coronoavirus, the queen would have to <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/conservative-party-leadership-contests">select an acting prime minister</a>. That person would then govern the country until the 190,000 members of the Conservative Party could elect a new leader, who would then be formally appointed prime minister by the queen.</p>
<p>[<em>You need to understand the coronavirus pandemic, and we can help.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=upper-coronavirus-help">Read The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135873/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Reader does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The United Kingdom does not have a written constitution or a specific plan for what to do if the prime minister is too ill to perform official duties.Luke Reader, Teaching Fellow, History Department, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1302792020-01-24T01:23:17Z2020-01-24T01:23:17ZWhite, male and straight – how 30 years of Australia Day speeches leave most Australians out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311265/original/file-20200121-117962-1m8trgm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Scott Morrison emphasised national unity in his Australia Day address last year, but this is not the message that everyone wants to hear.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=651526615267631">Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last year on Australia Day, Prime Minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=651526615267631">used Facebook to describe Australia</a> as a place “made up of so many peoples”. But he also stressed the importance of January 26 as the day Australia “did change forever” and said all Australians “must come together” on this day. </p>
<p>He didn’t mention the calls by many Indigenous people to <a href="https://indigenousx.com.au/why-i-no-longer-support-changethedate/">change the date and change the nation</a>.</p>
<p>Australia Day provides prime ministers with a platform to talk about national identity. Our leaders typically seize the opportunity to communicate their personal understanding of what “Australianness” is. They do so by mobilising the history of the nation, the politics of the moment and the ideology of their party.</p>
<p>But Australia Day also provokes fierce public debate over Indigenous dispossession, disenfranchisement and discrimination. The holiday doesn’t mean the same thing to all people, just as national identity doesn’t mean the same thing.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10361146.2019.1706720">new research project</a>, we used content analysis to examine all prime ministerial speeches on Australia Day from 1990-2017. This allowed us to quantitatively see how prime ministers represent Australian national identity through language over time.</p>
<p>Our study found that prime ministers have consistently described Australianness as being male, heterosexual, white and having few class divisions. We found this pattern across both time and party.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311524/original/file-20200123-162216-1b81wqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311524/original/file-20200123-162216-1b81wqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311524/original/file-20200123-162216-1b81wqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311524/original/file-20200123-162216-1b81wqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311524/original/file-20200123-162216-1b81wqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311524/original/file-20200123-162216-1b81wqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311524/original/file-20200123-162216-1b81wqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia Day has typically been a time for leaders to stress unity and traditional Australian values.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Let’s not talk about class</h2>
<p>Australia is a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10361146.2017.1364342">class-divided society</a>. But prime ministers do not acknowledge this fact on Australia Day, regardless of their party. </p>
<p>John Howard is the only prime minister to <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-15152">explicitly mention class on Australia Day</a>. But he did so by claiming that social mobility was attainable for everyone: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We believe very deeply that a person’s worth is determined by their character and by the effort they put into being a good citizen, not according to their social class.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The tendency of leaders to avoid class can be partly explained by <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/books/academic-professional/communication-studies/Being-Australian-Catriona-Elder-9781741149289">Australia’s culture of egalitarianism and the “fair go”</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-australia-day-survives-despite-revealing-a-nations-rifts-and-wounds-89768">Why Australia Day survives, despite revealing a nation's rifts and wounds</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But prime ministers also avoid class as it hampers the myth-making of a unified Australian society. This undermines their rhetorical attempts to bring the nation together.</p>
<h2>A bloke’s Australia</h2>
<p>The overall tone of leaders’ speeches on Australia Day consistently refers to a patriarchal and heteronormative view of Australian identity. </p>
<p>For instance, we found male Australia Day award winners are mentioned in prime minister speeches at a rate of 3:2 compared to female recipients. </p>
<p>Howard dedicated large parts or whole Australia Day addresses to the achievements of Australian male cricketers such as Don Bradman (<a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-10216">1997</a>), Mark Taylor (<a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-11381">1999</a>), and Steve Waugh (<a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-21080">2004</a>). But he only managed two sentences when female sprinter <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-10947">Cathy Freeman won Australian of Year in 1998</a>. </p>
<p>We also found men are consistently portrayed as strong and brave nation builders. In contrast, women are described as passive carers and mothers serving the nation.</p>
<p>In 2011, Julia Gillard described Queensland Premier Anna Bligh as having “steel in her backbone” yet also “occasional tears in her eyes” in her response to devastating floods. </p>
<p>Gillard also emphasised the <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-17614">protective masculinity</a> of the Defence Forces, describing the “brave man […] who waded through chest high water to rescue an elderly lady” in the floods, as well as the diggers in Afghanistan who were “protecting the weak and allowing little girls to learn to read”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-day-invasion-day-survival-day-a-long-history-of-celebration-and-contestation-70278">Australia Day, Invasion Day, Survival Day: a long history of celebration and contestation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Malcolm Turnbull frequently portrayed the <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-41424">stereotype of women as carers of the nation</a>, such as in 2018: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Here in this country […] we are as new as the little baby in the arms of her migrant mother. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s important to note, too, there has only been a single mention of queer identity on Australia Day since 1990. This was when LGBTI+ rights advocate <a href="https://twitter.com/RodneyCroome">Rodney Croome</a> was nominated for Australian of the Year in 2015. </p>
<p><a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-24144">Tony Abbott described Croome’s nomination</a> in a single sentence, noting he was an:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>activist who more than anyone else ended legal sanctions against gay people in this country.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311528/original/file-20200123-162210-1j9leac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311528/original/file-20200123-162210-1j9leac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311528/original/file-20200123-162210-1j9leac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311528/original/file-20200123-162210-1j9leac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311528/original/file-20200123-162210-1j9leac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311528/original/file-20200123-162210-1j9leac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311528/original/file-20200123-162210-1j9leac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Julia Gillard emphasised the masculine bravery of the Defence Forces on Australia Day, while her successors also employed gendered language.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lukas Coch/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Minimising Indigenous viewpoints and violent history</h2>
<p>When it comes to Indigenous people, prime ministers have been largely silent in their speeches. They have either minimised the racial violence in Australia’s history and the dispossession many Indigenous people feel – or haven’t mentioned it at all.</p>
<p>Paul Keating famously <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09512740802457344">tried to reconceptualise Australian identity</a> by offering symbolic reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. But he was the exception to the rule.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-reconciliation-then-a-republic-starting-with-changing-the-date-of-australia-day-89955">First reconciliation, then a republic – starting with changing the date of Australia Day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Prime ministers may well now conduct Acknowledgements of Country. But they have also have legitimised <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-white-possessive">white possession</a> through their descriptions of the importance of the day. <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-23213">In 2014, Tony Abbott said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are the grateful inheritors of two rich strands of history: a British heritage and an Aboriginal one […] we have become one people sharing the one land. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Abbott’s “one people” ignored colonial violence and contested sovereignties in favour of promoting national unity and white possession. </p>
<p>Morrison used similar rhetoric last year when <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/national-flag-raising-and-citizenship-ceremony">speaking to an audience of new citizens</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>While our beginnings were marked with the cruelties and dispossession of empire, they were also accompanied by the idealism of the Enlightenment age. Australia was to be a great project. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Morrison acknowledged dispossession of Aboriginal land, but the dovetailing reference to Western Enlightenment undermined any potential recognition of colonialism’s brutal legacy.</p>
<h2>Reproducing dominant Australian identities</h2>
<p>Prime ministers do not challenge these <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137318367">rhetorical patterns</a> on Australia Day because nationalism is seen as a non-partisan way to emphasise unity. </p>
<p>Further, those who see themselves reflected in prime ministers’ Australia Day speeches <a href="https://www.srcentre.com.au/bbqsandblackarmbands">continue to support</a> the day. This, too, draws boundaries around what is safe territory for prime ministers when highlighting national unity around Australianness.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-research-reveals-our-complex-attitudes-to-australia-day-110035">New research reveals our complex attitudes to Australia Day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Indigenous people continue to challenge these patterns by reconceptualising the celebration of Australia Day as a day of <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=341995259289589;res=IELAPA">invasion and continuing dispossession</a>. </p>
<p>But without a radical restructuring of the values, traditions and practices surrounding Australia Day, we can expect to see a continuation of these dominant conceptions of Australianness and the marginalisation of identities and peoples that fall outside these parameters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130279/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows how prime ministers typically frame national identity on Australia day: it’s largely male, heterosexual, white and lacking class distinctions.Nicholas Bromfield, Lecturer, University of SydneyAlexander Page, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1060812018-11-05T10:24:10Z2018-11-05T10:24:10ZDavid Lloyd George: the Welshman who won World War I<p>In November 1918, David Lloyd George’s name was on everyone’s lips. He was the wartime prime minister who <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-28685319">led the nation to eventual victory</a> after four long years of bitter and bloody conflict. Yet despite this fact, a century later, as the war’s end is being commemorated worldwide, it would appear that there is very little recognition of the man. Compared to how Winston Churchill is praised the world over for his role in World War II, Lloyd George has a much lower profile.</p>
<p>A proud Welshman, Lloyd George originally made his name as a politician for his anti-war stance as an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637758509376096?journalCode=rcmm20">arch opponent of the Boer War</a>. But by late 1914 he was acting as a human dynamo in transforming Britain and its empire into a modern state of industrialised warfare. He ensured that the war was financed and avoided economic ruin in <a href="https://rgshistory.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/the-chancellors-2-david-lloyd-george/">his role</a> as chancellor of the exchequer. Then, <a href="https://www.illustratedfirstworldwar.com/learning/timeline/1915-2/munitions-ministry-created/">as minister of munitions</a>, he helped supply the guns, tanks, aircraft and ammunition that kept Britain in the war. His introduction of <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/convoy-controversy-success.htm">the naval convoy system</a> in April 1917 – which enabled ships to travel across the Atlantic protected by naval escort – helped win the war at sea and avoid a nation starving. </p>
<h2>The Welsh wizard</h2>
<p>As prime minister after 1916, his fire and zeal were central to leading a coalition government that not only held the nation together but, in the process, modernised the core executive in Britain, and brought in a system of Whitehall government <a href="https://history.blog.gov.uk/2016/12/09/9-december-1916-david-lloyd-george-introduces-minuted-cabinet-meetings-and-instigates-the-cabinet-office/">that is still used today</a>. </p>
<p>Known as the “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-24852971">Welsh wizard</a>”, because of this ability to keep the country unified, Lloyd George’s magic touch became apparent almost on a daily basis. He managed to balance domestic problems and the war with an almost unparalleled political mastery. Against a backdrop of <a href="https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/news-opinion/david-lloyd-george-deacon-essay-12272924">developing civil war in Ireland</a> and <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/alevelstudies/1920-industrial-relations.htm">industrial and labour disputes</a> on the home front, Lloyd George kept Britain fighting long enough for the arrival of the Americans, who were key to victory on the Western Front. While other nations faltered or buckled – including Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire on the opposing side – he kept Britain and its empire steadfast and in the game.</p>
<p>The key to Lloyd George’s success was that he could be so adjustable and accommodating in what he set out to achieve. He sought to <a href="https://liberalhistory.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/87-Toye-Lloyd-George-and-Churchill-as-war-leaders.pdf">put the best people in charge</a>, whether they be military or civilian, such as the secretary to the war cabinet <a href="https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/sir-maurice-hankey-birth-modern-government/">Maurice Hankey</a>, avoiding static hierarchies and burdensome bureaucracy, such as in his redevelopment and expansion of Britain’s armaments industry. This was something which contrasted him sharply with the military generals running the German War machine, where Erich Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenberg avoided wider engagement as both sought to dominate the war effort.</p>
<p>By the 1918 election, Lloyd George very much felt that it was even more important for the post-war nation to come together under him as prime minister in one united coalition. He also passionately supported a customs-free Europe and wanted Britain to play a central role in shaping Europe’s future, ensuring peace and prosperity. This he did – alongside US president Woodrow Wilson, Italian prime minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando and French prime minister Georges Clemenceau – with the <a href="http://en.chateauversailles.fr/discover/history/key-dates/treaty-versailles-1919">Treaty of Versailles</a> the following year. It was at this peace summit that Lloyd George created a realistic rather than punitive peace with Germany – which was desired by France – or the distancing of themselves from an active role in Europe like the USA. </p>
<p>Not all of his ventures were so successful, however. Some of his work on new territories (protectorates) – <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lloyd-george-aims-to-restore-british-honour-in-the-middle-east-nb7nwbhq9">Palestine and Iraq</a>, for example – only worked to store up future problems. The same was true of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/easterrising/aftermath/af06.shtml">his attempts to solve the Irish question</a>, which were often done in a brutal and controversial fashion and have led to a century of conflict and division. It has also recently been uncovered that he met with Hitler in 1936 before going on to call him the “<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/by-george-who-s-that-at-a-party-with-hitler-2wbz66mxg">greatest living German</a>”.</p>
<p>But whether you love him or loathe him, Lloyd George’s key role in fighting – and winning – World War I cannot easily be underestimated.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Listen to The Anthill podcast on remembering World War I <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-31-world-war-i-remembered-podcast-106498">here</a>, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.</strong></em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Russell Deacon is chair of the Lloyd George Society but makes no financial gain from this article. </span></em></p>100 years ago David Lloyd George was the name on everyone’s lips – so why has he largely been forgotten?Russell Deacon, Visiting Professor in Governance and Political History, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/994282018-07-05T18:18:47Z2018-07-05T18:18:47ZA Chequers history: the country palace of British prime ministers<p>In a mansion set in 1,000 acres of English countryside, the British prime minister Theresa May will chair a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44672879">crisis meeting of her cabinet</a> on July 6 in the latest attempt to reach agreement on Brexit. It will take at least all day and its consequences may be felt much longer.</p>
<p>The venue, a two-hour drive from Downing Street in the county of Buckinghamshire, has been the country residence of every prime minister since <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/david-lloyd-george">David Lloyd George</a> in the early 20th century. Despite being at the centre of British government and its dramas for a century, very few members of the public have ever seen it. Rather like the office of prime minister itself, as one former premier, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/herbert-henry-asquith">Herbert Asquith</a>, put it, Chequers “is what the holder chooses and is able to make of it”. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/margaret-thatcher">Margaret Thatcher</a> in her 11-year term from 1979 to 1990: “Downing Street and <a href="https://www.margaretthatcher.org/search?dt=0&w=chequers&searchtype=and&t=0&&ps=500">Chequers</a> were the twin centres of my personal and professional life.”</p>
<p>Chequers was given to the nation by <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp19577/arthur-hamilton-lee-1st-viscount-lee-of-fareham">Sir Arthur Lee</a>, an MP and minister during and after World War I. The <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/7-8/55/contents">Chequers Estate Act 1917</a> created a trust allowing prime ministers use of the mansion on the ironically egalitarian assumption that they would not necessarily have their own country estate. It states: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is not possible to foresee or foretell from what classes or conditions of life the future wielders of power in this country will be drawn.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lee renovated Chequers and filled it with fine art, furniture, and relics including Napoleon’s dispatch case, Elizabeth I’s ring, and Nelson’s pocket watch, as well as providing an endowment of £100,000 for its upkeep. <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/7-8/55/schedule">The Act</a> believed – or hoped – that “the better the health of our rulers the more sanely will they rule”.</p>
<p>One of three “<a href="http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN03367/SN03367.pdf">grace-and-favour</a>” country homes of senior British ministers, Chequers provides one of the conventions of the British system: a new prime minister ensures it remains available to his or her predecessor immediately after their loss of office, and their departure from 10 Downing Street. The solicitude of the gesture is perhaps counteracted by the fact that it also provides a final reminder of what else they have lost. “I do not think,” Thatcher wrote, “anyone has stayed long at Chequers without falling in love with it.”</p>
<h2>A place for reflection</h2>
<p>It was at Chequers in December 1923 that one of May’s predecessors, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/stanley-baldwin">Stanley Baldwin</a>, decided to stay on after he had lost the Conservatives’ majority in his own unnecessary general election. It was also there exactly two years later that he fashioned a solution – as it was thought – to the Northern Ireland border question.</p>
<p>It was walking in the grounds in September 1939 that <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/neville-chamberlain">Neville Chamberlain</a> felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the aftermath of the <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinet-office-100/the-munich-pact/">Munich Pact</a>. During the war that Munich failed to prevent, Winston Churchill regularly broadcast from there. Anthony Eden was at Chequers as foreign secretary in June 1941 when news arrived of Germany invading Russia, and was there as prime minister in October 1956 when he had the bright idea of inviting <a href="http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinet-office-100/the-suez-crisis/">Israel to invade Egypt</a>.</p>
<p>It was at Chequers in March 1970 that Labour prime minister <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/harold-wilson">Harold Wilson’s</a> inner cabinet decided to call an early general election; the outcome meant that it was the Conservative leader, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33772016">Edward Heath</a>, who got to show US president Richard Nixon around <a href="https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/virtuallibrary/photo-gallery-images/37-whpo-4655-27a-a.jpg">with the Queen</a>. (Nixon visited twice, and had his own, infamous, affinity with the name, if not the <a href="http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/richardnixoncheckers.html">spelling</a>.) </p>
<p>Both the Bush presidents, senior and junior, and Bill Clinton also visited, as it’s likely will the incumbent US president, Donald Trump, later in July – when the remoteness and security of the house will be of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-britain-trump/theresa-may-to-urge-trump-to-avoid-london-protests-during-uk-visit-the-sun-idUSKCN1IS0VG">particular appeal</a>.</p>
<h2>Necessary tranquillity</h2>
<p>The beginning of the end of the Cold War might be said to have begun at Chequers in <a href="https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/109181">December 1984</a> when Thatcher welcomed Mikhail Gorbachev. Ten years later, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/john-major">John Major</a> entertained Gorbachev’s successor, Boris Yeltsin, who proceeded to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/may/20/3">drink the place dry</a>. It was at Chequers, the month before her death, that Princess Diana met <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/tony-blair">Tony Blair</a>, secretly, as Prince William swam with Blair’s children in the pool which had been built by Heath in 1973.</p>
<p>Love of this stately home was held to be an example of one reason for the “<a href="https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2015/11/labourslonghistoryofrebellionandbetrayal/">great betrayal</a>” perpetrated by the first Labour prime minister, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/james-ramsay-macdonald">Ramsay MacDonald</a>. The illegitimate son of a Scottish ploughman was deemed by critics to be preoccupied with gaining the approval – or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/nov/03/past.patrickbarkham">more</a> – of English high society. </p>
<p>Baldwin spent every weekend he could there during his three terms in the 1920s and 30s. Despite having his own <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/chartwell">country house</a>, Churchill was fond of it. Heath was, too – and in time acquired one of his <a href="https://www.arundells.org/">own</a>. Wilson liked it much more than did his wife, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009y18k">Mary</a>, whereas Major’s wife, Norma, was so affected that she wrote a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00949ws">book</a> about it.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/clement-attlee">Clement Attlee</a> hosted children’s parties in the house; <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/james-callaghan">James Callaghan</a> and Thatcher spent their Christmases there (separately). In September 1998 Blair’s official spokesman <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007swm3">Alistair Campbell</a> saw the appeal of the residence for his boss: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He spent most of the day just sitting out in the garden, surrounded by papers, taking an occasional phone call, the <a href="http://www.wrens.org.uk/">Wrens</a> who work there serving him tea whenever he wanted it. The food was good and the atmosphere relaxed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One witness <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?redir_esc=y&id=03QOu3FZBXsC&q=Gordon+would+greet+you+in+a+full#v=snippet&q=Gordon%20would%20greet%20you%20in%20a%20full&f=false">noted</a> how Chequers revealed the tonal shift from the premierships of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/gordon-brown">Gordon Brown</a> to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/adacde38-a367-11e1-988e-00144feabdc0">David Cameron</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gordon would greet you in a full carriage-built suit and then go round the children’s table asking them what they were reading. Dave wore jeans and a casual shirt and looked as if he’d lived there all his life.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The July summit is not the first time a prime minister has convened an all-day meeting “<a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/7-8/55/schedule">in the high and pure air of the Chiltern hills</a>” to try to determine an unsettled Britain’s place in the world. On another summer’s day in June 1959, just over two years after a divisive national event – Suez – provoked existential angst about decline, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/harold-macmillan">Harold Macmillan</a> held a top-secret summit at the house. It produced what it hoped would be a blueprint for a Britain trying to find a way of balancing the US and Europe. It <a href="https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1991/jan/28/cabinet-papers-1960-future-policy-study">concluded</a>: “Whatever happens we must not find ourselves in the position of having to make a final choice between the two sides of the Atlantic.” Chequers awaits another “conclusion”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Farr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Chequers places host to a crucial Brexit cabinet meeting, a look back at how British prime ministers repeatedly fell in love with their country home.Martin Farr, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary British History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/764232017-04-20T23:20:12Z2017-04-20T23:20:12ZTheresa May’s snap election gamble, explained<p>Theresa May, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, decided on April 18 to dissolve Parliament and hold snap elections on June 8. The motion easily secured the required two-thirds majority in the U.K.’s House of Commons.</p>
<p>The decision marks a stunning reversal and has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/18/snap-election-theresa-may-kept-cabinet-dark-left-chanting/">surprised many people</a> in her own government and abroad. May had repeatedly <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/08/theresa-may-means-what-she-says-which-why-there-will-be-no-early-general">denied</a> that she would make such a momentous decision.</p>
<p>In the U.S., we’re accustomed to a fixed electoral calendar. But, the power to dissolve Parliament is present in <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/18/snap-election-theresa-may-kept-cabinet-dark-left-chanting/">many political systems</a>, such as in the Republic of Ireland, Canada and Japan. </p>
<p>That power is used frequently in some countries like Italy and rarely in others such as Germany. It can reside in the Parliament itself, or be held by the head of state. And it is a power that can be used liberally, or only in specific circumstances.</p>
<p>In this case, May is betting that this move will result in a larger Conservative majority in Parliament and strengthen her hand for the upcoming Brexit negotiations. </p>
<p>It also means yet another crucial election in Western Europe in 2017, where France and Germany already have elections scheduled.</p>
<h2>A great power</h2>
<p>The power to dissolve Parliament dates back to the Middle Ages, and is deeply ingrained in U.K. politics. It granted the monarch the ability to dismiss the legislature at any time, limiting lawmakers’ influence. As authority shifted over time from monarchs to Parliament and the prime minister, this power remained.</p>
<p>For centuries, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/18/fixed-term-parliaments-act/">prime ministers had to ask the monarch</a> to dissolve Parliament. In the last century, they used that privilege to shore up their party’s majority in Parliament, or to receive a personal mandate.</p>
<p>On paper, that changed with the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2011/14/introduction/enacted?view=plain">Fixed-term Parliaments Act</a> of 2011, which seemed to curtail the power of the prime minister. The act set a clear schedule for elections and removed the ability of the monarch to formally dissolve the Parliament, following the decision taken by the prime minister. But it also included <a href="http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06111#fullreport">two exceptions</a>. Early elections could be held: </p>
<ol>
<li>if a motion for an early general election is agreed either by at least 434 Members of Parliament out of 650, as happened this week;</li>
<li>or, if a motion of no confidence is passed and no alternative government is confirmed by the House of Commons within 14 days. </li>
</ol>
<p>At the time, Conservative government officials led by Prime Minister David Cameron <a href="http://time.com/4744115/prime-minister-theresa-may-snap-election-problems/">argued</a> that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act would check the power of the prime minister, and prevent them from triggering elections to seek political gains. May’s successful push for a snap election shows how easily the bill can be circumvented. </p>
<p>It was essentially May, not Parliament, who <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/17eda04e-ea24-359a-8c7e-d0caed79cb5e">decided</a> to dissolve the legislature. Thus, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, as Professor of Comparative Politics <a href="https://constitution-unit.com/2017/04/18/the-fixed-term-parliaments-act-and-the-snap-election/">Alan Renwick</a> writes, “only changed the choreography, not the underlying pattern of power.”</p>
<p>May is making a calculated gamble. Despite the unpredictability of elections, she likely saw many potential rewards and few risks in an early vote. The main opposition, the Labour Party, is languishing far behind in the polls. May’s Conservative Party has an opportunity to significantly add to its slim majority of 17 votes.</p>
<p>Winning an election would provide May with a direct mandate from the U.K. public, since she was not elected and took over only after Cameron’s resignation last June. It would improve her hand with her EU counterparts but also the hardliners in her own party in the upcoming complicated Brexit talks. And, a larger majority could help stall a second referendum on Scottish independence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Garret Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Wondering how the U.K. government can just decide to dissolve itself and call for a general election? As our expert explains, it’s not uncommon.Garret Martin, Professorial Lecturer, American University School of International ServiceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/625762016-07-15T15:06:47Z2016-07-15T15:06:47ZBoris as foreign secretary: the good news for Africa is maybe it doesn’t matter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130720/original/image-20160715-2141-1x5w772.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Boris Johnson outside Whitehall in London.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Nicholls/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/25/who-is-boris-johnson-brexit-referendum-uk-prime-minister">Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson</a>, former mayor of London and a member of parliament, has just been appointed the foreign secretary in the new government of British Prime Minister Theresa May. Usually such an appointment would be unremarkable. Boris Johnson is a seasoned politician and has significant governing experience from his time as London’s mayor. He is a person, on paper, who is ripe for such a post.</p>
<p>But what makes this appointment so remarkable is that this is the person who spearheaded the successful campaign for the UK to leave the EU, or <a href="https://theconversation.com/search?q=Brexit">Brexit</a> – a campaign that was largely based on fear, xenophobia and misinformation. </p>
<p>It is a campaign that has caused significant damage to the British economy as well as other states, including countries in Africa. For example, 20% of <a href="http://agbiz.co.za/uploads/AgbizNews16/160624_BREXIT.pdf">South Africa’s</a> trade exports destined for the EU go through the UK. The decision to leave the EU will have significant financial implications for South Africa and will require a real shift away from a traditional partner.</p>
<p>It is also surprising that the UK’s chief diplomatic post be given to a person who has spent a large portion of his career <a href="http://qz.com/731695/britains-new-foreign-secretary-once-referred-to-africas-watermelon-smiles-and-piccanninies/">insulting foreign dignitaries</a> and extolling the virtues of the UK’s colonial past. When <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/boris-archive-africa-mess-cant-blame-colonialism/">talking</a> about a trip he had undertaken to Uganda as part of an official UK delegation in 2002, Johnson noted</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“[t]he problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it does not stop there. Johnson has also passed derisive comments about foreign dignitaries like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama. He <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/14/maybe-the-brits-are-just-having-us-on-the-world-reacts-to-boris-johnson-as-foreign-minister?CMP=fb_gu">suggested</a> Edogan had had sex with goats. And <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/africans-for-britain-group-quits-anti-eu-campaign-over-boris?utm_term=.rcp79ZBdkY#.ko5dm7AXZE">he referred</a> to Obama’s Kenyan heritage as reason for him to dislike Great Britain.</p>
<p>Such comments stands him in stark contrast to previous British foreign secretaries who appeared far more thoughtful and careful on matters of foreign policy. This includes people like fellow conservatives <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/10/geoffrey-howe-dies-88-margaret-thatcher-former-chancellor">Sir Geoffrey Howe</a>, who played an important role in bringing then Prime Minister <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zqp7tyc">Margaret Thatcher</a> and Soviet leader <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/mikhail-sergeyevich-gorbachev-9315721">Mikhail Gorbachev</a> closer together during difficult days of the Cold War, and his more recent contemporary, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-11158667">William Hague</a>, who at least was able to articulate the relationship between human rights and foreign policy.</p>
<p>Instead, the UK now has a foreign secretary who is more prone to <em>ad hominem</em> attacks than finding space for common interests. </p>
<p>What does all this mean for the UK’s relationship with the African continent? It is likely to be minimal in terms of substance. But damaging in perception and tone.</p>
<h2>Not-so-great Britain</h2>
<p>Sadly, it now means that the UK’s foreign policy direction and representation are led by a man who seemingly does not maintain a filter for appropriate comments. It has a man in charge who fundamentally believes that the "Great” in Great Britain stems from its imperial past – a past that has created a huge number of structural challenges and negative effects on African development. </p>
<p>Such an appointment clearly signals a step backward for the UK’s diplomacy on the continent, at least when it comes to the grand questions of international cooperation. It is easy to foresee challenges for the UK in bringing African states along with its position in United Nations decision-making if Johnson is leading efforts.</p>
<p>But his appointment and the potential implications for African states should not be overstated. While he has been given a high profile and important portfolio, a number of the key files that used to give the Foreign and Commonwealth Office much influence and power have been taken away.</p>
<p>For example, both international trade and EU relations were previously under that office. Now they are their own departments with their own ministers reporting to cabinet. Liam Fox has been made the minister of international trade and David Davis has been made the minister responsible for negotiating the UK out of the EU. </p>
<p>Even big international issues that are typically the domain of foreign secretaries, like climate change, have been moved to fall under the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. International aid continues to be its own department with its own minister at cabinet. </p>
<h2>Boris’s job spec</h2>
<p>So all of this invites the question – what will Johnson have to do given that a number of important files are no longer in his office?</p>
<p>Well, he will play an important role in setting the tone for how the UK is perceived and engages with partners on the international stage. In this sense, all the signs read that he will be an ardent advocate for “Britishness” and try to restore a sense of British nationalism into foreign policy through focusing on the UK’s past rather than where it needs to go.</p>
<p>Sadly, Johnson’s appointment, I fear, represents a turn to the exact thing that the liberal international order and institutions like the EU were set up to avoid – unabashed and unreflective nationalism. He will likely try to reinvigorate traditional institutions for doing this like the <a href="http://thecommonwealth.org/">Commonwealth of Nations</a>, which has largely been relegated to obscurity in recent years. </p>
<p>Once an important international institution, the Commonwealth could be an important vessel for promoting cooperation between the UK and African states, but it remains under-funded and under-prioritised by many of its members. But his impact on actual and important policy files – particularly those of relevance to African states will likely be limited. </p>
<p>Assuming that we can all move beyond “the grand old days where the sun never set on the British empire” type of rhetoric of yore, the implications for African states of “The Boris” is likely to be minimal in substance. In perception and tone – that is another question.</p>
<p>Let’s just hope that Prime Minister May has the sense to deploy her less offensive and more competent ministers on matters of import to African states.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David J Hornsby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Boris Johnson, the man who led the Brexit campaign, has been appointed as the UK’s chief diplomat. It has sent shudders down many spines, but does Africa need to worry?David J Hornsby, Associate Professor in International Relations & Assistant Dean of Humanities, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623962016-07-13T20:17:37Z2016-07-13T20:17:37ZOne Nation PM: Theresa May enters Downing Street promising unity<p>Having now started work as Britain’s second woman prime minister, Theresa May has the chance to carve out her own distinct variant of Conservatism. And outside the famous front door of 10 Downing Street, she confirmed that her top priority will be building a “one nation” government, pitched firmly in the “centre ground” of British politics.</p>
<p>Reminding the country that her party’s full title is the “Conservative and Unionist Party”, May spoke almost exclusively of unity before entering her new home. This was unity for the nations of the UK, in geographic terms, but also unity “between all of our citizens – every one of us – whoever we are and wherever we’re from”.</p>
<p>May has been associated with reformist and inclusive models of Conservatism, namely because of her famous warning that hers is seen as the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/08/uk.conservatives2002">“Nasty Party”</a>. And sure enough, as she took office, she made a point of directly addressing those facing “burning injustice” – women earning less, people suffering mental health problems and those finding it hard to buy a home. She also admitted that black people are treated more harshly by the criminal justice system. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few but by yours. We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives. When we take the big calls we’ll think not of the powerful but you. When we pass new laws we’ll listen not to the mighty, but you. When it comes to taxes, we’ll prioritise not the wealthy, but you. When it comes to opportunity we won’t entrench the advantages of the fortunate few. We’ll do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>May said that her predecessor’s true legacy is not the economy – and indeed, within minutes of taking office, she had replaced George Osborne, as chancellor, with Philip Hammond, who was foreign secretary under Cameron. Boris Johnson makes a remarkable comeback to be the new foreign secretary, while there appears to be no role for Osborne.</p>
<p>Rather, David Cameron should be remembered for his “social justice” agenda, but May is unlikely to revive Cameron’s nebulous and unconvincing “Big Society” narrative. That said, her emphasis on broadening contemporary Conservatism’s appeal to a wider range of social classes and geographical locations would represent a continuation of Cameron’s more inclusive socio-political rhetoric – although his record on social cohesion is questionable. Whether the new prime minister is more successfully inclusive in practical terms will be a key test of her administration.</p>
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<h2>What we didn’t hear</h2>
<p>As she took up office, we didn’t hear anything about the red mark in May’s otherwise impressive record as home secretary – her <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36382199">failure to curb immigration</a> to levels that would be acceptable to her party, despite initial promises to <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/687995/Nigel-Farage-theresa-may-immigration">tighten up British borders</a>. It’s a high-profile failure that could be said to have been a key factor in shaping the public mood to leave the EU. This fractious and contentious issue will be a further priority for May’s government to address.</p>
<p>Nor were we treated to a recital of May’s newest catchphrase: “Brexit means Brexit” – but it won’t be long before we hear it again. She will have to manage Britain’s departure from the European Union as smoothly and as painlessly as possible – former foreign secretary David Davis will lead on brokering that. May, an instinctive eurosceptic who pragmatically endorsed the Remain campaign, seems to enjoy the <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7a00067c-477e-11e6-b387-64ab0a67014c.html#axzz4EGfQMtVx">general trust</a> of Conservative MPs on this issue (at least for now). But this could sour if the practicalities of Brexit delay departure from the EU for too long. </p>
<p>An unspoken matter was of course when the country can expect an election. The appointment of this new prime minister was never put to the people – nor even members of her own party. Although May has said she won’t call an election, she could seek to consolidate Cameron’s exploitation of Labour divisions, and as part of this strategy of maximising her “honeymoon” period in office, she’ll weigh up the possibility, at least. </p>
<p>Given the extraordinary political events of recent weeks, there is scope for flexibility in the Fixed Term Parliament Act to hold a vote. And the ruthlessness of Conservative high politics gives reason to think that the party would relish the opportunity of taking on a paralysed Labour Party at its lowest ebb. </p>
<p>This “election call” dilemma fatally undermined the legitimacy of Britain’s last <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7031749.stm">“unelected” prime minister</a>, Gordon Brown. May must ensure that this strategic electoral calculation doesn’t similarly destabilise and blunt her ability to leave her political imprint on this most demanding of roles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62396/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Williams is an associate of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), a member of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>Brexit takes second billing as Britain’s new Prime Minister promises to put inclusivity first.Ben Williams, Tutor in Politics and Political Theory, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/624462016-07-13T11:12:38Z2016-07-13T11:12:38ZTheresa May has clout to last as PM – if she can contain Brexit economic fallout<p>It has become popular to assume that Theresa May, Britain’s new prime minister, has survived the wreckage of Brexit by virtue of <a href="https://next.ft.com/content/a54d870e-4752-11e6-b387-64ab0a67014c?ftcamp=published_links/rss/comment/feed//product">“not being a shambles”</a>. The thinking seems to be that May sat back while her rivals for the Conservative Party leadership eliminated themselves one-by-one.</p>
<p>George Osborne was too closely associated with losing the Remain campaign to take the job, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove destroyed each other with political treachery, and Andrea Leadsom ended her chances through pure self-immolation. It’s a persuasive argument, but it is far from the full picture.</p>
<p>May is, in reality, a far more formidable politician than these accounts suggest. To have survived six years at the Home Office, a post which claimed four high-profile ministerial casualties in the previous six years, is a significant achievement. To emerge from this graveyard for political careers to become PM is truly impressive, whatever one thinks of the policies May implemented as home secretary.</p>
<p>Her brief stint as chairman of the Conservative Party (2002-2003) will also have equipped her with a better than average knowledge of how the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-does-the-tory-grassroots-want-from-prime-minister-theresa-may-62305">party grassroots</a> functions. May appears to command respect from MPs on both sides of the referendum debate, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact she quietly supported Remain. Her campaign manager, Chris Grayling, was at the forefront of the Leave campaign.</p>
<h2>Economic turbulence ahead</h2>
<p>But the challenges facing May as prime minister are considerable. She has stated that she will respect the referendum result, insisting that <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-referendum-angela-merkel-article-50-leave-europe-negotiations-talks-a7132261.html">“Brexit means Brexit”</a> – although quite what “Brexit means Brexit” means is open to question.</p>
<p>The UK could leave the European Union in any number of ways. It could opt for a “soft Brexit”, remaining a member of the EEA and the single market (and, by extension, retaining freedom of movement) or it could choose a “hard Brexit”. That might see the UK withdrawing from most, if not all, European institutions.</p>
<p>Of the options available, none is likely to <a href="https://mbsbham.wordpress.com/2016/07/07/thatchers-alive/">satisfy the whole of May’s parliamentary party</a> and be acceptable to the 27 EU member states. To set out a credible negotiating position, and at the same time keep her parliamentary party on side, will take no small amount of skill.</p>
<p>May will also have to face the wider consequences of Brexit, and in particular the implications for the British economy. The potential impact of leaving the EU should not be underestimated: <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-economic-shock-equivalent-to-natural-disaster-says-oecd-a7130556.html">the OECD recently compared the referendum result to the Japanese earthquake of 2011</a>.</p>
<p>Even if the British economy escapes a recession in 2017 – <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/when-will-the-british-economy-fall-into-recession-following-the-brexit-vote-a7107931.html">and most forecasters are predicting a slowdown</a> – there are considerable challenges to overcome in the long term.</p>
<p>Withdrawal from the EU, be it hard or soft, is likely to lead to a drop in investment in the British economy. The new Prime Minister will need to think carefully about how to respond to that.</p>
<p>If the UK withdraws from the single market, the challenges will be great. Nick Crafts, professor of economic history at the University of Warwick, has estimated that <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.12261/abstract">EU membership has raised GDP by 10% each year</a>, most of which can be attributed to the benefits of single market membership. However, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36684452">the quiet abandonment of George Osborne’s surplus target</a> in the aftermath of the referendum will, in some senses, allow May rather more economic licence than her immediate predecessor enjoyed. She might do worse than to adopt Stephen Crabb and Sajid Javid’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36700080">proposal for a £100 billion infrastructure fund</a>, paid for by issuing new government bonds.</p>
<h2>Solid political ground</h2>
<p>If the diplomatic and economic challenges which May faces are rather daunting, the electoral environment appears (at first glance) rather less threatening. With the Labour Party sinking steadily in the polls, and presently engaged in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/12/corbyn-calls-for-calm-angela-eagle-office-attacked-labour-nec-meeting">another round of increasingly bitter internecine warfare</a> which may lead to the end of the party in its present form, there appears to be little immediate electoral threat to the present government.</p>
<p>While some Conservative MPs will undoubtedly be looking nervously over their shoulders at UKIP, every recent poll suggests that the Conservatives have a substantial (and growing) lead among voters. If May were to call a snap general election, she could expect to be returned with an increased majority, and see the Labour Party reduced to its lowest ebb since 1935.</p>
<p>May therefore moves into No 10 Downing Street as one of the most seasoned prime ministers of recent times, with her party in a relatively secure electoral position. But she is facing economic and political challenges on a scale which few British politicians (with the possible exceptions of Gordon Brown, as prime minister, and Alistair Darling, as chancellor) have faced in decades. May’s success in navigating these challenges will determine the shape of Britain for decades to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62446/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Francis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Britain’s new leader is on solid ground politically but she is going to need a very good Chancellor on her team.Matthew Francis, Teaching Fellow in Twentieth Century British History, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/472292016-07-11T15:16:09Z2016-07-11T15:16:09ZBritain’s next PM: Theresa May sank rival by painting a more convincing portrait of leadership<p>Though ultimately brief, the Conservative Party leadership contest offered fascinating insights into the nature of British politics today. Rhetoric, performance and gender replaced talk of policies and political priorities. </p>
<p>In the end, Theresa May showed that she had a much more powerful grip on the realities of wielding modern political power and will be the UK’s next prime minister. Andrea Leadsom’s inexperience, meanwhile, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/andrea-leadsom-told-to-apologise">was exposed</a> in the most public, and almost humiliating manner.</p>
<p>This election was not about the nature of the ship (the British state) nor its direction – because the ship is unstable and the course is uncharted waters – so it has had to be about who was better equipped to be captain. </p>
<p>The contest was therefore about character. And the captain must be a character who is steady, determined and reassuring. In the glare of the public spotlight Leadsom failed on all those fronts. May looked like she was already at the ship’s wheel.</p>
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<p>Inevitably the popular press obsessed over perceived parallels with another Tory leader. But when Margaret Thatcher stood, it was in order for the party’s right to oust Ted Heath, and many quietly believed she too would be dispensed with soon after. The debate over whether a woman could be prime minister was a live one then. Now, thankfully, it is not.</p>
<p>There was in fact a sense during this campaign that a woman prime minister might be better suited to these changed times. The boisterous Brexit boys all crashed into each other and fell down after having knocked all the Notting Hill boys over. The last Brexiter standing was a woman, who has now dropped out to leave May on a clear course for Number 10.</p>
<p>Theresa May is viewed to have served well in the tough post of Home Secretary. She has an image as being competent and hardworking – but not dour or unsmiling – and she clearly saw that she needed to perform to that character and build upon it. </p>
<p>At the launch of her campaign, May smiled, joked and laughed. She painted her own portrait according to both the received view (tough, no-nonsense, uninterested in flashy personality politics) and the new appeal to “compassion” and One Nation Conservatism that will be needed in the new Conservative leader. She expanded her character and presented herself as a leader who would also heal and reconcile.</p>
<p>It is clear – both within the party and the country – that the sense of a nation divided is acute. May is evidently aware that unity of some kind needs to be established. She was also transforming her quiet backing for remaining in the EU into Cassandra-like foresight of the impending division – the irony being that the best person now to lead Britain towards leaving is a “remainer”.</p>
<p>May also presents as the serious-minded and dutiful daughter of a modest English Clergyman. This is a strong myth in British society, with its Brontë undertones. And in terms of image it is worth pointing out that this is a much more powerful and intricate myth than being a Clergyman’s son. </p>
<h2>Rookie error</h2>
<p>Andrea Leadsom, meanwhile, stumbled soon after her campaign took off. It had started well. She seemed more personable than other Brexiteers and May. Her supporters immediately underlined her “steel” and her “compassion” along the same lines as May. They tried to cover for her relative inexperience by referring to Tony Blair as having had no experience before 1997 (perhaps, with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/chilcots-verdict-the-iraq-war-was-a-failure-of-oversight-and-planning-62066">Chilcot report</a> just out though, that was not the best of defences). </p>
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<p>But the alleged “bigging up” of Leadsom’s CV (ironically, it is a generally held view that women don’t do this enough compared to men) was a first broadside into her image of representing a new way of doing politics – a widely-held assumption being that women bring honesty and integrity to the dark arts of politics. </p>
<p>The fatal shot, however, was self-inflicted. Leadsom revealed herself to be such a novice as to think that her greatest appeal was as a mother. Her bid was evidently to appeal to the party faithful but ultimately, she had to throw in the towel even before the Conservative party membership could have its say. </p>
<p>It was a catastrophic error to think being a mother would be enough to counter the perception of May as a politician of experience and skill. So, the way to Downing Street is now clear for May – and the days ahead will surely prove a greater test of her qualities than this very short-lived leadership campaign.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Between 2012 and 2014 John Gaffney received funding from the Leverhulme Trust for a study of political leadership</span></em></p>Leadsom thought voters would still identify with her as a mum first and a politician second. May knew everyone else has moved with the times.John Gaffney, Professor of Politics & Co-Director, Aston Centre for Europe, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/537412016-02-01T23:57:54Z2016-02-01T23:57:54ZLacking a script, individuals drove the evolution of prime ministerial power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109561/original/image-20160128-27180-11ia9d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Curtin and Ben Chifley were successful in expanding the power of the Commonwealth – and thus that of the prime minister.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian Federation was established to address issues that seemed best resolved collectively rather than by each of the colonies acting alone (such as in defence), to co-ordinate activities that would benefit from uniformity (such as immigration and postal services), and to break down barriers to national economic development (like border tariffs between colonies). </p>
<p>The constitution’s purpose was to define specific powers, to be exercised at federal level, with all residual powers to remain with the states. In deference to established ideas of states’ sovereignty, federal power was intentionally circumscribed. In effect the prime minister’s power was constrained.</p>
<p>The issue for each prime minister described in our new book, <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/items/163675">Settling the Office: The Australian Prime Ministership from Federation to Reconstruction</a>, was how to work effectively within those bounds. Almost all at some stage decided that the limitation of the prime minister’s remit was unequal to the challenge and tried to amend the Constitution. </p>
<p>Only four out of the 24 referenda they initiated were passed:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>one (second Deakin ministry, 1906) to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1906">enable concurrent elections</a> for both houses of parliament;</p></li>
<li><p>one (third Deakin ministry, 1910) allowing the Commonwealth to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1910_(State_Debts)">take over state debt</a>; </p></li>
<li><p>one (under Stanley Bruce, 1928) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1928">establishing the Loan Council</a>; and </p></li>
<li><p>one (under Ben Chifley, 1946) allowing the Commonwealth to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_referendum,_1946_(Social_Services)">legislate</a> for the provision of social services. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Despite these frustrations, prime ministers embraced <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajph.12084/abstract">the view</a> that their office was “the blue ribbon of the highest possible ambition”. Each would share something of Edmund Barton’s goal to create <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/antipodes.28.1.0141">“a nation for a continent”</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=926&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109735/original/image-20160131-3894-gkt3h5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1164&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Miegunyah Press</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The leadership task was to harness those twin drives, of personal ambition and national creation, to the resolution of concrete questions. How was a prime minister to identify “national” issues and to become the national voice for collective action? And how could he gain the authority to speak and act in the national interest?</p>
<h2>The prime ministership’s changing nature</h2>
<p>Alfred Deakin and his contemporaries invented the Australian prime ministership. But it was not settled as a platform for national leadership until John Curtin and Chifley managed to turn it into the pivot of government to which we have since become accustomed.</p>
<p>Its evolution from the early Federation years to the postwar nation-building years was not a matter of linear progression. There was no grand design to guide it, no “Canberra consensus” to drive it forward. The office was made up as its holders went along. They shaped what it meant to be prime minister through their personal leadership styles and their responses to the circumstances they encountered.</p>
<p>Precedent, procedure and public service support structures could not be leveraged to provide the prime minister with an institutional authority that could be wielded when other political powerhouses – state premiers, partyrooms and factions – flexed their muscles. They simply did not yet exist. </p>
<p>Neither were foreign examples, even obvious ones such as Britain or Canada, turned to in search for a script for the office.</p>
<p>The absence of such a script allowed for the great stylistic contrasts between Deakin, Andrew Fisher, Billy Hughes and Bruce in particular. Who leads a government matters – it always does – but in the early decades of the Australian Commonwealth it perhaps mattered most.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109562/original/image-20160129-27136-7bdwho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109562/original/image-20160129-27136-7bdwho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109562/original/image-20160129-27136-7bdwho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109562/original/image-20160129-27136-7bdwho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109562/original/image-20160129-27136-7bdwho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109562/original/image-20160129-27136-7bdwho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109562/original/image-20160129-27136-7bdwho.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As prime minister, Billy Hughes personalised every battle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the early prime ministers there was little else to fall back on but their personal skills, zest and wits. Much would depend on individual preferences: to capitalise on charisma (Deakin), to personalise every battle (Hughes), to insist on process (Bruce), to prioritise the cause (Fisher). There was little administrative support. Cabinet processes were informal and fluid.</p>
<p>Parliamentary majorities, delivered by a disciplined party system, were not yet assured. Some prime ministers, such as Fisher and Bruce, took an interest in building up institutional arrangements for the office. Others, particularly Hughes but also James Scullin and Joseph Lyons, ignored or abolished some of the fledgling support mechanisms their predecessors had put in place. </p>
<p>All had to learn the exercise of party management, cabinet discipline, proper administration and public communication as the preconditions for authority.</p>
<p>What the early prime ministers had in common, however, was that they lacked institutional clout. The initial federal settlement had delivered scant powers to the Commonwealth. All prime ministers from Barton to Chifley struggled to appropriate more, in protracted, sometimes intense and often frustrating clashes with the states, industry and the unions. </p>
<p>Bruce saw most clearly the need to develop the office as a public institution with the processes and resources to ensure control. But facing an extraneous challenge – economic decline – he would over-reach. His institution-building was subsequently eroded. The cleanest route for changing the balance of powers in favour of the Commonwealth government – by referendum – rarely delivered the desired outcomes.</p>
<p>Instead, prime ministers often depended upon critical moments created by unusual external events to provide them with a rationale to wage such battles. The two world wars in particular provided opportunities for increasing the power of the Commonwealth – and thus for the prime minister. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109564/original/image-20160129-27156-13ysw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=995&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Menzies didn’t have the political momentum to use the war to increase federal power.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1914, Fisher no longer had the stamina to try; Hughes seized the moment energetically but erratically. Twenty years later, Menzies lacked political momentum to exploit the advent of war to increase federal power.</p>
<p>Curtin and Chifley did so more methodically and much more successfully. They took hold of the purse strings, laid the foundations of a national welfare state, and built a professional federal public service. They succeeded where their mentor Scullin had failed when he was confronted with that other great international crisis – the Depression.</p>
<p>Instead of being able to leverage it to strengthen the office, Menzies had been overwhelmed by the divisions that the challenge had created in his party and across the country. And he could not call on the emergency powers conferred by war.</p>
<p>But even a deft institution-builder like Chifley would experience the limits of prime-ministerial power when he tried to nationalise banking, even though, by 1949, the office had acquired institutional clout. His failure of judgement is a salutary reminder that while we need to understand the possibilities of the institution – and the historical contingencies in which it is enmeshed – we must never lose sight of the character of our leaders.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is an edited extract from <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/items/163675">Settling the Office: The Australian Prime Ministership from Federation to Reconstruction</a> by Paul Strangio, Paul ‘t Hart and James Walter (The Miegunyah Press).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Strangio's research for this study was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Walter receives ARC funding.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul 't Hart receives ARC funding.</span></em></p>Alfred Deakin and his contemporaries invented the Australian prime ministership. But it was not settled as a platform for national leadership until John Curtin and Ben Chifley’s time.Paul Strangio, Associate Professor of Politics, Monash UniversityJames Walter, Professor of Political Science, Monash UniversityPaul 't Hart, Professor of Public Administration, Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/383162015-03-04T06:27:21Z2015-03-04T06:27:21ZDon’t reform rowdy PMQs – we want backbenchers fighting our corner<p><a href="http://press.labour.org.uk/post/112557782059/labour-launches-plan-for-political-reform">A swathe</a> of parliamentary and electoral reforms are sought by the Labour Party, including measures to contain rowdy behaviour in the House of Commons. In particular, there are calls for the introduction of a “sin bin”, alongside new powers for the speaker to address the <a href="https://theconversation.com/shouty-politics-when-insults-and-invective-are-all-politicians-can-manage-25182">shouty politics</a> of Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs). </p>
<p>Labour has cited <a href="http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Tuned-in-or-Turned-off-Public-attitudes-to-PMQs.pdf">Hansard Society research</a> showing that people view PMQs as “noisy”, “childish” and “over the top”, raising concerns that the Punch and Judy show puts people off politics.</p>
<h2>Keeping it civil</h2>
<p>We must question the premise under which reform is proposed. While people do say the rowdy behaviour at PMQs turns them off, I wonder how many watch the whole half-hour (often longer because of Speaker John Bercow’s interventions). I suspect those theatrical, combative moments presented on the main news bulletins are among the few bits of PMQs which the general public get to see. </p>
<p>Not shown on the six o’clock news are the moments of consensus between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition when discussing issues of national importance such as war, security threats and floods. All of these matters are dealt with in a way that we would expect grown adults to speak to each other: calmly, in a considered manner, and – as <a href="http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ps.5.1.04mur">my research</a> shows – politely. </p>
<p>Certainly omitted from the news coverage are the interactions between backbenchers and the prime minister. The research here shows that politeness rules the day. Even opposition MPs often produce their questions with politeness, for example by eschewing criticism of the government, making unrelated supportive comments or asserting that any negative effects are unintended. </p>
<p>We can explain this in terms of getting things done – most constituency MPs asking questions at PMQs are looking for the prime minister’s support on a constituency matter; he is far less likely to oblige if the question is asked in a rude or aggressive manner.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G5qIgSKG_s4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A polite question from the member for Stoke-on-Trent North quickly descends into chaos.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A time for change</h2>
<p>A sensible reform, then, would be one which allows even more people to watch PMQs live and unedited. We have seen that there is public appetite for political programming. The <a href="http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/party-leaders-debates-whats-the-point/">popularity of the leaders’ debates</a> and the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10727810/Clegg-v-Farage-Crunching-the-numbers.html">EU debate between Farage and Clegg</a> demonstrate this. But as it stands, shown at noon on a Wednesday, PMQs is not watched in full, and a false impression of what goes on is generated by edited news broadcasts. </p>
<p>Moving PMQs to a more appropriate time could also have an impact on politicians, with the worst offenders modifying their behaviour because they know that more people are observing their clowning around. What’s more, the reliance on sound-bites that has developed at PMQs could also be reduced, since there would be far less pressure on politicians to say something pithy to make the 30-second summary on the main news bulletins.</p>
<h2>Boxing match mentality</h2>
<p>That said, it cannot be denied that the interactions between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition are fierce, and add another layer to the debate about PMQs. Aside from the harsh words they exchange, the sheer volume of heckling and insults despatched across the chamber do not give the impression of level-headed, cool, rational thinking. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I_tQtZCoYhE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Miliband and Cameron exchange verbal blows at PMQs - things really heat up around 02:45.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, it may hold that the person who shouts the loudest is often the one who is losing. But is it all that bad a thing? It certainly would be if we compare PMQs with a meeting at work. Indeed, one of the audience comments in the Hansard Society report says: “if I went off like that in my job I would be sacked”. </p>
<p>This may not be the right anaology: I think it is preferable to see the leader of the opposition and the prime minister’s exchanges in terms of a boxing match, where barbed comments are thrown instead of punches. In this light, we can view the backbenchers like supporters at a boxing match, cheering on their corner: the louder the cheers, the greater the support. </p>
<p>This aspect of PMQs is important because it acts as a political weather vane; when the backbenchers are quiet it can tell us something about the mood of the parliamentary party. That insight would be lost if we were to have a sedate chinwag every week. </p>
<p>So while reform seems inevitable, we need to ensure that it does not go too far. We need our politicians to be passionate, engaged, and even angry on our behalf. It seems that bit of rough and tumble is the price we have to pay to ensure that the green benches are filled with MPs fighting the corner for their constituents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Murphy received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for part of the research mentioned here.</span></em></p>Many are concerned that the public is turned off politics by combat in the Commons, but a parliamentary sin bin is not the answer.James Murphy, Lecturer in English Language and Linguistics, University of the West of EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/326032014-10-09T00:14:59Z2014-10-09T00:14:59ZWhy would anyone want to be PM? Understanding what it takes<p>Why would anyone want to be prime minister? Why indeed?</p>
<p>It is a job that will almost certainly end in failure. Only one prime minister in the last 100 years has left office at the time of his own choosing: and <a href="http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/menzies/">Robert Menzies</a> had been there for 16 years (and more than 18 years in all). </p>
<p>So my biography of Kevin Rudd had the same objective as my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Malcolm-Fraser-PM-Study-Ministerial/dp/014012974X">study of Malcolm Fraser</a> 25 years ago: what does it take to be a prime minister? How do they meet the challenges, what are their strengths and weaknesses, how do they organise their time and set priorities to meet the multiple roles?</p>
<p>Consider the negatives. Everything you have ever said or done, <a href="http://www.themonthly.com.au/making-tony-abbott-political-animal-admin-7881">back to student days</a> and beyond, will be uncovered, analysed and interpreted in as malign a way as possible. Every motive will be challenged and questioned.</p>
<p>Your enemies will seek to undermine you. The press will hound you. And then you have to deal with the Opposition.</p>
<p>Very few people have actually achieved the office. Australia has had 28 prime ministers, but <a href="http://primeministers.naa.gov.au/primeministers/role.aspx">three of them were caretakers</a>, in the position after a prime minister died while the party elected a new leader. Of the other 25, two won four terms, three had three terms and three had two terms. All the others had only the one. </p>
<p>They are remarkable just for getting there. Max Weber <a href="http://harpers.org/blog/2008/06/weber-on-the-political-vocation/">described politics</a> as “the strong and slow boring of hard boards”. So it is, for years. </p>
<p>Yet fortunately there are those who aspire and conspire to achieve that height. In every first-year politics class there will be someone, often more than one, who dreams of being PM. They want to make a difference; they see the potential in national leadership.</p>
<p>But few are prepared for the decades of effort. They must work through the party to build support to stand and win a seat. </p>
<p>Gaining party leadership means copping abuse, insinuations and accusations. After all that, <a href="http://www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/leader-of-the-opposition.html">opposition leaders</a> in a time of strong government are unlikely to become prime minister. They must have good timing and luck. </p>
<p>Only then can they try to lead, to meet the inevitably high expectations they have set themselves and that their supporters have of them. Nothing can really prepare a person for the pressures of the job.</p>
<h2>Balancing the demands of power</h2>
<p>Once in office, the demands on prime ministers are diverse and constant. Almost all struggle in their first term, as they shift from the opposition target, to pressure to get a positive daily headline to the government requirement to meet real challenges. </p>
<p>As one senior minister noted, as soon as he got into office, everything he said was taken seriously. Their worlds had changed.</p>
<p>Consider the expectations. Prime ministers must play a wide range of roles, every one of which can turn out to be crucial to their survival. They must fulfil many expectations or face excoriation and expulsion. </p>
<p>They must lead their party in parliament and in the electorate. They have to understand and balance the ambitions, stroke the egos, listen to complaints and thus retain their support. They cannot be ignored for ever. A prime minister needs a united party. If that requires compromise, then compromise will follow.</p>
<p>Despite being forced to compromise they must act as the principal advocate of government in the face of a constant news cycle and a media looking for stories about errors, disagreements, inadequate understandings of ambiguous circumstances, and on any topic the media chooses to raise. Prime ministers cannot say they don’t know too often. They are meant to know. </p>
<p>In addition, they must front the government in parliament. Question time is a daily cross-examination of the prime minister who gets the lion’s share of opposition questions. It is true they seldom answer them, but they still need to know what will come up. That takes time and briefing too. </p>
<p>Prime ministers and ministers take parliament very seriously. Besides prime ministers also have to worry about how to deal with the Senate, another story altogether. How blessed are New Zealand prime minsters who have to manage but a single house of parliament.</p>
<p>Because they are held responsible, they must oversee all government policy, whether presiding over cabinet or by taking the lead themselves in areas of strategic importance. Government policy needs to be coherent, practical and effective; it also needs to be timely. All policies will face opposition, be it climate change, education, pensions or budget cuts. </p>
<p>Prime ministers must also represent the nation in moments of national grief: floods, bushfires, military funerals. They must grieve and give condolences on behalf of the nation and be seen to be sincere.</p>
<p>This is part of the duty to manage crises, whether economic catastrophe or national threat. Decisions must be made fast on the basis of available information. Sometimes governments cannot wait until they have all the information; they need to act quickly and have to trust their judgement. The criticisms come later. Only oppositions have the benefit of hindsight.</p>
<p>This representation also requires their involvement in international forums: the UN, G20, ASEAN, APEC. PMs face pressure to attend because they have the power to
commit their countries on the spot if they think it necessary.</p>
<p>Somewhere within this maelstrom, a few attempt a family life.</p>
<p>To write about a prime minister all these roles need to be kept in balance. It is a glorious challenge that tests them all; not all cope. That is no surprise. </p>
<p>Their struggles need not be a cause for sympathy; they fought desperately for the role. But we can try to understand what they must do. </p>
<p>Rudd never reached the heights of which he dreamed, nor was he as muddled as his assassins have ought to portray him. So the book tries be the story of the man and the exploration of the position to which he rose, not once, but twice.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The author spent several years observing and talking to Rudd and the people around him in preparation for writing the biography, Kevin Rudd: Twice Prime Minister, <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/items/119437">published by MUP</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32603/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Weller is the author of the newly released biography, Kevin Rudd: Twice Prime Minister, published by MUP.</span></em></p>Why would anyone want to be prime minister? Why indeed? It is a job that will almost certainly end in failure. Only one prime minister in the last 100 years has left office at the time of his own choosing…Patrick Weller, Professor, School of Government and International Relations, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.