Who Gets to be Prime Minister?

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In this course, Dr Richard Heffernan (Open University) thinks about the office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. We begin in the first module by thinking about the three essential qualifications that the UK Prime Minister must hold. In the second module, we move on to think about the role and responsibilities of the Prime Minister. In the third module, we conceptualise the relationship between the Prime Minister and Parliament. In the fourth module, we consider how powerful the Prime Minister can be said to be, thinking in particularl about the ‘institutional’ and ‘personal’ power resources that together constitute the office’s authority. In the fifth module, we compare and contrast the office of the Prime Minister with that of the President of the United States. In the sixth and final module, we consider the circumstances under which an incumbent Prime Minister ceases to hold office.

Who Gets to be Prime Minister?

In this module, Dr Heffernan outlines the three essential ‘job criteria’ that every prime minister must have, namely: (i) they must be a Member of Parliament (MP), (ii) they must be the leader of a political party in the House of Commons and, (iii) they must be the leader of a party which holds either a single majority in parliament or a minority government in a hung parliament in which an agreement has been reached with another party.