How many Privy Counsellors can be needed? The devaluing of 'Rt Hon'

The Privy Council (members without other titles gain the prefix 'Rt Hon') is one of the many historic but still faintly functional parts of our constitution.

Excluding those people who have to be, or by convention are, made a member of the Privy Council (Cabinet members, senior Legal and Church appointments, opposition party leaders and the odd other senior opposition member, 'Speakers' of the various legislatures etc), Brown's record of creating members of the Council far outstrips that of his predecessor (which in turn exceeded that of his predecessor as Labour members appear to prefer 'Rt Hon' to 'Sir' in front of their names).

In Brown's (just under) 2 years, 13 MPs have been created a member of the PC without reaching Cabinet. For some of them it appears to have been a post-sacking making up (Ryan, Morley, McGuire for example). For others, maybe those who've hung around just outside the Cabinet for some time, compensation for not even making it to the phalanx of ministers 'invited' or 'entitled' to attend Cabinet.

By contrast, in Blairs (just over) 10 years, 39 MPs were made members, 3 times as many in 5 times as long. A fair few of these were in advance of being promoted to Cabinet (none of Browns 13 have yet), though the remainder were also post sacking making up, or recongition to long serving ministers of state that they were never going to quite make it to Cabinet.

Does any of this matter? Well, in one sense, no. The day-to-day work of the PC is done by the Lord President (usually Leader of the Commons or Lords, now parts of Lord Mandelsons bauble-set) and most members do little. The concept of discussions on 'Privy Council' terms may matter (hence some of the opposition members appointments) but there are any number of examples of being taken into confidence without the honorific title.

So, for the most part, it seems to have become just another part of the Prime Ministerial patronage machine.

Why the next government won't be the most inexperienced parliamentarians

Assuming the Tories win the next election, their front bench will be the most inexperienced parliamentarians to take up post after an election (there are plenty of reasons to think that those presently shadowing the Cabinet won't form, person-for-person, the next Cabinet. But assumptions have to start from somewhere, and I've started from an assumption of counting those who shadow present cabinet members).

This graph shows the average time served in the Commons by the first Cabinet after a general election every election year since 1970.



Even with Ken Clarke, who alone provides more than one year of the 13-and-a-bit average years that the present opposition front bench have served, they're still one year more inexperienced that the Labour Cabinet after the last General Election.

But, and the reason for the 'won't' in the title, is that Gordon Brown's first Cabinet, was almost a year less experienced (12.96 years in parliament against 13.86 as the Tories will be next year) than Camerons will be in 2010.

Having two Cabinet members (Ball and E Miliband) who'd served in the Commons for only just over 2 years drags down the average from the likes of Straw (28 years in the Commons) Harman (25 years).

This is a drop of more than a full parliament from the start of Blairs government (remarkably close in experience to Thatchers first), and perhaps yet another of the indicators of the growth of the professional politician and the divide between them and those MPs more experienced in the real world. There were barely a handful of MPs from the 79 intake who got beyond the whips office before the 83 election - similar to the number from the 05 intake who'll find themselves in the Cabinet before the 2010 election.