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?

Lack of experience for Defence?

A lot of interest has been made in the lowly status of the new Secretary of State for Defence. This is his first job in Cabinet, and therefore bound to be a but junior in Cabinet.

He’s not alone in being a defence secretary in his first cabinet job. Of his 18 predecessors, from Peter Thorneycroft to John Hutton, 4 of them have made their Cabinet debut in that position. An average ratio for a cabinet post. Denis Healey and George Robertson took the job after their party had been out of office for some time, and after being a ‘big beast’ on their front bench in opposition.

Ian Gilmour had climbed the ladder in defence, from Parliamentary Secretary at the start of Heath’s government to Secretary of State for the last few months of that government, via the MoS post at Defence. Geoff Hoon by contrast had no experience in the Defence department, and his most senior position prior to his first Cabinet post had been 6 months as a minister of State at the Foreign Office.

So Bob Ainsworth may be very inexperienced for the defence post, but he does have the odd rival to be the least experienced, and Geoff Hoon is probably the victor.

Work Experience?

How much help does a secretary of state’s climb up the ministerial ladder give them when they make it to the Cabinet? Much of it is gaining political skills and administrative skills. But its quite noticeable (perhaps exacerbated by the number of ministers who have sped into Cabinet without the previous tour around the lower reaches of government) how few of the existing Cabinet have served in that department previously.

2 of them, Mandelson and Hain, have been Secretary of State for their present department previously, as well as other posts.
1 of them, Straw, has only ever served as the ministerial heads of department, so hasn’t had the opportunity to gain experience lower down the government.
But of the remaining 16, only 5 have served lower down their present departmet, including the two deputies who were promoted to Cabinet at the last reshuffle:

• Darling, who was Chief Sec in the first NewLabour government in 1997
• Burnham, who’s last job before promotion to the Cabinet was as Minister of State in his present department
• Shaun Woodward, who only a Parliamentary Secretary in Northern Ireland before being leapfrogged into Cabinet
• Bob Ainsworth, Minister of State at Defence before promotion to Sec of State
• Andrew Adonis, Minister of State at Transport before promotion to Sec of State

This is an improvement on the previous position, before the last reshuffle, where only Woodward, Purnell and Darling amongst Cabinet member had served lower down in the department before landing a Cabinet job in it.

The South Eastern grip on the shadow cabinet

Its no surprise that the shadow cabinet represents constituencies within a small geographical area. The leading lights of the Labour party tend to represent constituencies from the North of England and Scotland; until recently the LibDems leading lights tended to come from their strongholds of the Celtic fringes.

But for the Tories, out of 28 (an extraordinary number given that the Cabinet has a maximum capacity in the low 20s) shadow cabinet members from the Commons:

* Only 2 represent North of England constituencies. That they are the shadow Chancellor and shadow Foreign Secretary; and that the next most northerly (English) member is Ken Clarke means that the North is numerically under-represented in the shadow cabinet (by a huge margin) but has 3 of the 4 senior members of it.

* 4 of the 28 (twice as many as the contingent from the North) represent Surrey, a county of 11 constituencies.

* Every one of the standard regions of Great Britain are represented, except Wales and the North East. By contrast, in the (Labour) Cabinet I can't find anyone from the East Midlands, but every other region is represented. And the LibDems don't have anyone from the West Midlands, East Midlands, or North East, all of which regions they only have one (East Mids and North East) or two (West Mids) representatives

* Only one shadow cabinet member represents a London seat - the Conservatives have 21 of the 74 seats, but just the one representative at their top table - by contrast Labour have 2 and the LibDems 4

* 12 of the 28 are from the most populous region, the South East. This makes the Scottish grip on the Cabinet (4 from 20) seem almost weak.

The ultimate hokey-cokey cabinet post?

Most people get just the once chance at any one job in government. It's very unusual (Mandelson with the DTI aside, and Mandelson seems to be an exception to most political rules) for someone to go back to a job a second time.

At Cabinet level, Mandelson has done it, Roy Jenkins with the Home Office has, and I think that's it, post war. There's been the odd time of someone going to back to a job they'd previously done when their party had been out of office but picking up where you left off but for the intervention of the electorate is slightly different.

So why has the SoS for Wales post (perhaps the post with the least responsibility in all government) had this retread effect twice, with both Murphy and Hain?

Secretary of State for Wales
July 2009: Paul Murphy
October 2002: Peter Hain
January 2008: Paul Murphy
June 2009: Peter Hain

Last time Hain did this job, he doubled it with the DWP job (replaced by Mr Purnell) but suddenly, in the intervening 18 months the job must have grown in importance and Hain no longer doubles-up.

Presumably, this reshuffle has been made for the same reason that Jim Murphy is in Scotland - to run campaigns for the Labour party. By any stretch of the imagination Hain is a better campaigner than (Paul) Murphy (Paul Murphy wouldn't recognise a campaign if it introduced itself) and Wales has the 2nd highest proportion of Labour seats of any UK region (and it's a bit tricky to justify a full-time Secretary of State for the North East).

Fresh Blood and the Chief Secretary

Prime Ministers normally reshuffle Cabinets and declare that they've brought in fresh blood and new ideas. This one bucked that very clear trend and the average experience of Cabinet rises after the reshuffle. The outgoing Cabinet members have been, on average, in the Commons for 14 years. The incoming, for 16 years. In contrast to the first Brown Cabinet which brought in two people in their first parliament (the Ed's), the least experienced this time is Ben Bradshaw, having been around in Parliament since 1997 (the most experienced newcomer to Cabinet since at least 1986)

The post of Chief Secretary is virtually always filled by a newcomer to the Cabinet. Since 1970, only two people have moved from inside the Cabinet to the Chief Sec post. Liam Byrne becomes only the second such mover after William Waldegrave, in 95 (John Major's and the Conservatives last Chief Secretary).

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.