How long to remain in a Cabinet

Gordon Brown, Jack Straw and Alastair Darling have been in the Cabinet continuously since 1997. But then there's a leap to find the next longest serving member: Hilary Benn who joined the Cabinet in 1993 (and parliament in 1999 - an ascent only matched or beaten by Balls and the two Milibands). Somehow, everyone else from the original Labour 1997 Cabinet, plus everyone who joined in 1998-2002, fell by the wayside.

Looking at the Major Government, early in his career but 12 years after the Conservatives came to office in May 1979, not a single member of that Cabinet had served continuously since 1979. Tom King and John Wakeham (since 1983), Douglas Hurd (since 1984) and John MacGregor and Kenneth Baker (since 1985) were the longest continuously serving (Heseltine, of course, had clocked up 7 years under Thatcher before his high profile departure and then return).

Towards the end of Major's years, in 1997, the number who'd lasted from the start of his premiership in 1990 (conveniently for these purposes, between 6 and 7 years previously), was quite substantial: Lang, Heseltine, Lilley, MacKay, Clarke, Rifkind, Howard, Waldegrave. Why this greater stability under Major than under Thatcher or the Labour era?

Major didn’t have any of the clear-outs and mass sackings that Brown found himself faced with dealing with in June 09 (4 was the largest number of Cabinet level departures under Major) which, again, lessened the opportunity for a quick turnover in Cabinet places.

Is it that Major was weaker/more consensual than either Blair or Thatcher, so didn’t have the clout to sack (and therefore make enemies) as many?

Or that a generational change occurred within the Cabinet from about 89-92 (with some of the older generation such as Wakeham, Lawson, Howe, Thatcher etc leaving), so that there was less need or potential to refresh the Cabinet?

Or that there were fewer people deemed promotion worthy into Cabinet, as the Conservative government came to an end?

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.