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What is the relationship between backbenchers and the government?
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Interview with David Blunkett
This course takes the form of a series of questions put to Lord David Blunkett, a senior politician (and the UK’s first blind cabinet minister) who has served as both Education Secretary and as Home Secretary and who now sits in the House of Lords. In the first three modules, we ask Lord Blunkett how the relationship between senior government politicians and backbenchers, politicians and the media, and politicians and the electorate has changed during his time in politics. Then, in the fourth module, we ask “What are some of the different factors that influence an MP when voting in the House of Commons?” as well as “Should the House of Lords be reformed, abolished, or left alone?”. In the fifth module, we cover Blunkett’s views on the greatest challenges facing the current Prime Minister, before in the sixth module asking whether the UK should have its own Bill of Rights. In the seventh module, we cover political participation and the quality of UK democracy. Then, in the eighth module, we ask Lord Blunkett: “During your career as a politician, what have you done that made the biggest impact or difference?”, before following this up in the ninth module with an exploration of the key challenges currently facing the Education Secretary, based on Lord Blunkett’s own experiences in the role and recent Learning and Skills report. In the tenth module, we cover the subject of pressure groups, before in the eleventh module exploding the subject of parliamentary sovereignty. In the twelfth module, we cover the subject of electoral reform, asking: “Should the UK move to a proportional representation system for general elections?”. Then, in the thirteenth and final module, we ask “How important is the individual personality of a Prime Minister to the character of UK politics?”, illustrating the subject with examples both historical and recent.
What is the relationship between backbenchers and the government?
In this module David Blunkett answers the question: “How would you characterise the relationship between backbenchers and the government, and how has this changed during your time in politics?”, focusing in particular on: (i) his own experiences in Cabinet under New Labour from 1997; (ii) the importance of backbench support, and how this is affected by majority versus minority or coalition governments; (iii) the parliamentary whip system; (iv) Theresa May’s government defeats; (v) the ultimate importance of events.
I think the relationship between backbenchers and government changes determined
00:00:05in very much by how much majority the government has,
00:00:11whether there's a coalition.
00:00:16So if you if you take 97 to 2010.
00:00:18When the Labour government was in 88 of those years, I was in cabinet.
00:00:22The relationship was one of persuasion,
00:00:26but a certainty that you had the majority to
00:00:31be able to carry a vote in most circumstances.
00:00:33So if there was a real upsurge of feeling from the backbenches,
00:00:37you'd have to take that into account.
00:00:42But you wouldn't necessarily need to be too worried. There were exceptions.
00:00:44There were issues around tuition fees for university students.
00:00:49There were issues around civil liberties and
00:00:55how much time someone could be held before the time was up for
00:00:58releasing them without charge that those kind of issues were quite seminal.
00:01:05But on the whole, it was a relationship of respect, but not necessarily worry.
00:01:11Whereas when you've got a coalition,
00:01:17you've actually got two parties who have agreed
00:01:20to whip, and this is the crucial element to whip their members
00:01:23through the division lobbies,
00:01:27and they can only be certain of getting their legislation through
00:01:29and winning the vote.
00:01:34If both parties have signed up to doing that,
00:01:35whereas, of course,
00:01:39when you've got no overall majority and an example of that would be between 2017
00:01:41and late 2019,
00:01:48then backbenchers and the government have a very different relationship.
00:01:51The government are constantly having to if you like,
00:01:54look over their shoulder to persuade people to go with them to get the whips, too.
00:01:58Either twist arms or offer some incentive for
00:02:03members to actually be prepared to play ball.
00:02:09And because the main issue in those two years was the
00:02:11question of the implementation of the referendum on withdrawal from Europe,
00:02:16it was so contentious that no one on the government
00:02:20benches could be sure of carrying a particular proposition.
00:02:25And in fact, on several occasions, of course,
00:02:29Theresa May's government were defeated.
00:02:32So the top and the bottom of this is it's all about circumstance.
00:02:34It's all about the moment in time, and it's all about an understanding
00:02:40that whilst the executive is embedded in Parliament,
00:02:45I Cabinet is from the parliament, rather than appointed by president,
00:02:50as in France or the United States.
00:02:58It is absolutely fundamental that there is respect from government for those
00:03:00backbenchers who might never have the opportunity of being in government or
00:03:06may want to play ball because they, of course, do want preferment.
00:03:12They do want to become a minister
00:03:16and therefore they're prepared sometimes to go along
00:03:18with things that would otherwise have worried them.
00:03:22
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Blunkett, D. (2023, February 28). Interview with David Blunkett - What is the relationship between backbenchers and the government? [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/interview-with-david-blunkett
MLA style
Blunkett, D. "Interview with David Blunkett – What is the relationship between backbenchers and the government?." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 28 Feb 2023, https://massolit.io/courses/interview-with-david-blunkett