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Presidential Attribution as an Agency of Prime Ministerial Critique in a Parliamentary Democracy: The Case of Tony Blair
Michael Foley
The allusion to presidentialism in relation to the status, role and meaning of a prime ministers position is almost invariably skewed towards positive, purposive and expansive interpretations of strong executive authority. This study examines the negative and critical dimensions of the presidential attribution, and analyses the nature of its appeal as a device for organising and rationalising political dissent. The incidence and conditions of its usage in political argument during Tony Blairs premiership are reviewed. As a consequence, seven strands of usage are identied in the selection of presidentialism as a focus of opposition. In assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the presidential critique, the analysis not only shows its utility in drawing upon other sources of complaint, but also demonstrates its limitations in the delegitimation of executive authority.

In Britain a deepening debate exists over the extent to which the premiership has acquiredor is in the process of acquiringa presidential character. The term presidential is increasingly employed to portray the position of the prime minister in modern British politics (Foley 1993 and 2000; Hargrove 2001; Allen 2001). The use of the term has become conspicuously central in the depiction of a rapid and deep-seated change in the status, identity and expectations attached to the ofce. And yet, even though the presidential allusion is widely regarded as a useful and often compulsive point of analytical reference, the term is rarely used in a neutrally descriptive sense. In fact, the distinguishing feature of this attribution lies in its close relationship between the usage of the term and the intentions motivating its conspicuous application to the premiership. In essence, it is almost invariably used, and seen, as both an implicit and explicit indictment of prime ministerial behaviour. The analysis that follows concentrates upon this connection between usage and critical intent. The aim is neither to assess the empirical merits of the cases for and against the presence of a presidential dimension in Britain, nor to determine the validity of their respective premises and conclusions in relation to an identied point of comparison. It is accepted that in strict formal terms, a British prime minister possesses a different constitutional position to that of a president in terms of institutional independence, electoral authority and executive resources (Lijphart 1992). It is precisely the substantive content between the generic characteristics of
Political Studies Association, 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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the two ofces that incites such controversy when references to presidentialism are made in connection with a prime minister like Tony Blair. The purpose of this inquiry is, rstly, to study the usage of the presidential allusion in British politics; and, secondly, to inquire into its appeal as an instrument of dissent and disapproval. By examining the circumstances and conditions of its usage, it will be possible to reach an improved understanding of its substantial role and critical value in structuring and rationalising political opposition. The analysis is, therefore, concerned with the ways in which the claims of a presidential existence service wider political complaints, and it draws on traditions and attitudes that nd an outlet in the indictment of executive power in the form of a presidential gure. Given that the primary locus of critical discourse lies in the public sphere of opinion exchange and formation, the analysis will draw on the contributions made by public gures and political commentators in establishing and developing the theme of presidentialism within the medium of British political debate. In reviewing the incidence and conditions of the presidential critique in relationship to Tony Blair, seven discernible strands become evident in the pattern of usage.

Strand 1: Personal Hostility

Under Blair, the phenomenon of leadership stretch has been extended to new lengths. Recent leaders have experienced pressures to become progressively differentiated from their organisational bases in terms of media attention, public recognition and political identity (Foley 1993, ch. 5). The level of expectations and the scale of outreach associated with Blair, however, have advanced the stretch effect to an unprecedented degree (Foley 2000, ch. 7). The Prime Minister has achieved a ubiquitous presence in the coverage of news events and in the portrayal of political developments. He is constantly seen and heard as the authoritative voice of government intentions and reactions. Just as the Prime Minister dominates news agendas and political commentary, so in turn the media increasingly gravitate towards him as the chief source of news and explanation. The ination of personal projection and the intensity of public consumption have the effect of displacing cabinet ministers into relative obscurity and of marginalising other political institutions to the periphery of public attention (Foley 2000, 301314, 317323; Hennessy 2000a, 476483; Kavanagh 2001, 320; P. Riddell, The Times, 5 January 1998). In addition Tony Blair has elevated the role of individual leadership into a dening value of New Labour. Blairs project and his personal vision have been given a central signicance in the partys electoral strategies and in its governing priorities. The Prime Minister has pursued an uninhibited process of claiming a contractual relationship between himself and his administration on the one side and the interests of the British people on the other. In doing so, he has conspicuously established himself at the centre of government responsibility and accountability: that is my covenant with the British people. Judge me upon it. The buck stops here (Blair 1996b). An explicit connection is made within the party, and particularly within the inner group of senior party and government strategists, between the

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person of the Prime Minister and a corporate reputation for trust, competence and coherence. Given Blairs ability to give a guiding vision and an operational identity for his party, and given the resources that are directed to maintaining the leader-centred nature of New Labours appeal, the attribution of a presidential style has become commonplace. More often than not this characterisation is made and received, as a form of critique relating to the degree of personal pre-eminence on the part of the prime minister. Its usage implies a development that is inappropriate and out of context in the British political system. In the contemporary sphere of individual appearance and association, the usage of the presidential term can be strongly suggestive of personal disapprobation. Blairs reputation for arrogance on a personal level, for example, can be extrapolated to infer a presidential level of political arrogation and self-advancement. Both claims can serve to lend validity to each other. The usage of the presidential term in these circumstances can be derived from a personal dislike of the Prime Minister and also from distaste over the way that his personality is promoted as a political resource. References to a presidential style, therefore, can act as both a euphemism and a repository for complaints fuelled by personal animosity and enmity. The presidential epithet lends itself very well to a device for the expression of personal hostility. The magnied presence of Blair draws to it an antagonism that develops a premise of presidentialism, which in turn helps to validate a personal critique encased in references to a presidential level of manifest individualism. In this context, it is pertinent to acknowledge the rivalry between Tony Blair and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. The friction between them has a history that stretches back to the Labour leadership contest following John Smiths death in 1994. It is not simply that Browns supporters continue to believe that Blair usurped the leadership by displacing his senior colleague to the position. It is that Brown, and those who sympathise with him, are resentful over the way that Blair has enhanced his formal prime ministerial powers with an authority drawn from his persistent penetration into the consciousness of contemporary Britain. Blair has exerted strains upon the New Labour leadership in other ways: namely, the prime ministers celebrity status in government; the importance he attaches to the diffuse constituency of Middle Britain; his instinctive and ideological distance from his own party; and his usage of personal values, life experiences and declarations of individual destiny as political instruments (Naughtie 2001; Routledge 1998). The original emphasis upon the utility of leadership in the quest to establish public condence in the Labour party has in its turn fostered a technique of encoded critique. The accusation of presidentialism can be seen as a subsequent corollary to Blairs breakthrough as leader. It infers a leadership that has surpassed its prospectus and that, in doing so, has revealed the presence of a awed personality.

Strand 2: Excessive Power

The second strand can be connected to the rst but the two categories are not necessarily mutually inclusive. If the rst strand is related to the claim that Blair has a presidential personality, the second is rooted in the perception of an emphatic

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power differential between the Prime Minister and other senior actors and elites in the political process. The premise here is that the Blair premiership has succeeded not only in being rst among equals, but also in extending the roles, responsibilities and presumptions of Number 10 to produce a pre-eminent centre of strategic direction and political management. Whether the process is seen more as an effect of new conditions devolving upon the premiership, or the Prime Minister actively seeking to maximise the potential of his position, the net effect is a widely held conviction that Blair has accumulated a level of personal inuence that is at variance with the normal conguration of the ofce (Hennessy 2000b; Heffernan 2003; Norton 2003). His leadership of the Labour party and his conduct as prime minister have provoked numerous references to Blairs attachment to a leader-centred ethos of organisational coherence (Blair, The Independent, 20 November 1998; Foley 2000, chs. 4, 7, 8, 9; Gould 1998, chs. 6, 7; Hennessy 2000a, 484502, 514520; Rawnsley 2001, ch. 4). According to Bernard Crick, for example, Blair has a clear and emulative understanding of the real nature of presidential government, as do most of his inner circle (The Times, 4 March 2003). The Prime Ministers evangelising calls for party discipline and governing competence have been accompanied by increasing assertions that even his high ambitions have been exceeded by achievement. The strong implication in these sentiments is one of abnormality and exceptionalism. Blair has developed a reputation not only for acquiring a pre-eminence in conventional prime ministerial power but also for drawing upon alternative resources of leadership in respect to organisational management, media cultivation, populist outreach, party cohesion and representational innovation. As a result, the Prime Ministers position no longer appears to be even nominally reducible to a construction of parliamentary accountability, nor to being a pure derivative of party democracy. This view is typied by the caustic observations made by trade union leader, Nigel De Gruchy, reecting upon ve years of the Blair premiership: People arent stupid. They ask themselves a simple question: why bother to join political parties, community associations and the like when no matter how hard I might work, Im going to be ignored when it comes to having a say on policy. They know it is decided by the presidentsorry, Prime Ministerand his little coterie of special advisers, friends and a few motley millionaires. Even cabinet government is being destroyed before our eyes ... and just as in any other dictatorship, the whole system depends upon the fawning ambitions of underlings all jostling to become the next presidentsorry Prime Minister (quoted in Wintour, The Guardian, 10 December 2001). In the second Blair administration, the presidential argument became common currency within the Labour movement at large. The allegation of presidentialism allowed dissenters like Andy Gilchrist, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, to criticise the premiership without mentioning Blair by name: The [New Labour] project created a presidential-style Prime Minister. It created a huge and remote policy-making power base in Downing Street. Labours conference is sidelined and cabinet government was, at times,

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abandoned. And the major current problemslike Iraq and Huttonlead back to all the presidents men (Tribune, 26 September 2003). Presidentialism had achieved the status of an encoded reference to an alleged systemic change in governance. The customary precepts of the British political tradition and the governing premises of the political system are usually characterised by a duality of outlooks. First, government is regarded as collective in nature and operation. Secondly, political divisions, disputes and challenges are assumed to be constant and interminable. The Blair premiership has given many indications of confounding these normally entrenched properties. Exceptionally powerful Prime Ministers have existed in the past but their pre-eminence has in the main been rationalised by the exceptionalism of wartime conditions (e.g. David Lloyd-George and Winston Churchill). For a leader to acquire such a widely acknowledged position of dominance during unexceptional times constitutes a further assault upon the codes and protocols of constitutional normality. In such circumstances, critical observers readily resort to the presidential epithet in order to depict and to dramatise such a leadership as being aberrational, and even exotic, in nature. This was true during Margaret Thatchers period as Prime Minister. Her force of personality and pervasive inuence in developing an individual agenda for reform within government generated a profusion of presidential accusations (Benn 1982; Holme 1987, 115; Jessop et al. 1988, 83; Jones 1987, 8; Vincent 1987, 288). The same ingredient of a perceived power shift to the centre under the auspices of an activist Prime Minister has brought with it a comparable set of indictments in respect of Tony Blairs premiership (Rees-Mogg, Sunday Times, 1 August 1999; ReesMogg, The Times, 17 July 2000; P. Riddell, The Times, 8 June 1998; P. Riddell, The Times, 22 February 1999). The attribution of a de facto presidency in such a parliamentary and cabinet-based context is designed to operate as a normative device to convey the disturbing prospect of a powerful and elusive presence insinuating itself within an unsuspecting body politic: President Blair has a suitably alien sound for British ears and captures his concentration of control (Cohen, New Statesman, 6 May 2002). Far from being simply a scale of measurement, the allegation of presidential properties becomes a critique both of prime ministerial power and of the political myopia that fails to recognise its nature and its preponderance (Allen 2001; Norton 2003).

Strand 3: Dysfunctional Government

A third strand pertains to the issue of governance. The usage of presidentialism has been instrumental in drawing critical attention to the issue of government performance and the machinery of administration. The deployment of the term imputes causality and culpability to the abnormality of an alleged presidential presence. A case is built up through an aggregate of points ranging from the establishment of an array of action agencies in Number 10 to Blairs attachment to bilateral meetings with ministers, and from an explicitly reduced emphasis upon the cabinet to the established priority of holistic government in which civil servants are encouraged to work collectively across Whitehall departments, thereby giving emphasis

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to interdependence, not independence (Bogdanor, Financial Times, 5 March 2002). In seeking greater integration, co-ordination and responsiveness within government, the Blair team has challenged established hierarchies, processes and conventions. In doing so, he has raised the stakes of the premiership in the allocation of responsibility and accountability (Kavanagh and Seldon 1999, ch. 10). One feature in particular exemplies the spirit of the command and control premiership (Hennessy 1999; Hennessy, Daily Telegraph, 13 July 1999). This is Blairs strategy of conspicuously adopting issues for special prime ministerial attention and, as a consequence, directly intervening in departments with the purpose of pursuing Number 10s stated priorities. Such levels of prime ministerial interest can be effective in injecting a greater degree of urgency and focus within administrative structures. However, the drama of prime ministerial intervention can also signify a lack of progress and underline serious problems in the timetabling and pace of government delivery. Moreover, the need for Blair to become personally involved in issues has tended to lead to further instances of prime ministerial incursion. By setting such a pattern of precedents, Blair has created the impression that where no intervention is planned, or threatened, no prime ministerial interest exists with the result that the momentum for action in such an area is proportionately reduced. As one senior observer commented: things happen only when Mr Blair takes personal charge (Stephens, Financial Times, 16 November 2001). As a consequence, the prime minister has been closely involved in an extraordinary profusion of issues (e.g. Northern Ireland, welfare reform, family policy, juvenile delinquency, education, planning, the foot and mouth crisis, the NHS, child poverty, street crime, the future of Europe, the Sierra Leone crisis, Kosovo, the Middle East, the plight of Africa and the war on terrorism). As a further consequence, Blair has been accused of eclecticism and an inevitable lack of follow through. Typical among them are claims that Blair picks up reforms and crusades, then drops them again ... leaving only the faintest trace behind (McElvoy, The Independent, 5 December 2001); that it is extremely difcult to interest the prime minister in the aftermath of anything because hes off on the next crusade (McElvoy, The Independent, 6 March 2002); and that he is habitually jumping from subject to subject as they become more or less pressing rather than applying himself to pushing through strategies to a conclusion (Rawnsley, The Observer, 11 November 2001). To John Rentoul, Blairs energy and desire for control leads to an excessively managerial approach to government that risks a lack of clear direction and a tendency to strain for rhetorical effect (Rentoul 2001, 552, 546). Reecting upon her period in ofce, Mo Mowlam takes issue with the impatience, short-termism [and] knee-jerk reaction on the part of Number 10 that manifested itself in sudden and unheralded interventions: we didnt question the right of the PM to act as he did ... but we didnt like the cavalier way it was done with complete disregard to what was already going on in the department to tackle the problem (Mowlam 2002a, 361, 317). A familiar theme of the administration, therefore, has been that it suffers from prime ministerial micromanagement and overstretch: Every area of government comes back to his, already overcrowded, desk ... its bad for his ministers because it undermines their authority. Every

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time Blair parachutes in, the not-so-subtle message is that the minister alone is not up to the job. And its bad news for governance itself ... [T]he press understands that really important initiatives are announced by the Prime Minister. Ideas unveiled by a humble minister are instantly seen as not that serious: if it really mattered, Tony would be doing it. Moreover, Blair risks debasing his currency through overuse (The Guardian, 24 July 1999). In addition to subverting and demoralising ministers, it is alleged that prime ministerial activity on such a scale also compromises the functional integrity of policy formulation and implementation. The assertions are that Blairs intrusions have no organising theme or strategy; that they reect organisational weakness and administrative underperformance; that they are designed to provide evidence of governmental activity rather than achievement; that they represent solutions only in the form of media management; and that they militate against a considered and coordinated response to identied problems (Franklin 2001; Jones 1999; Oborne 1999; Rawnsley 2001; Toynbee and Walker 2001, ch. 11). The absence of an ofcial prime ministerial department gives additional force to these complaints. It strengthens the impression not only of prime ministerial overreach but of a pretext on the part of Number 10 to extend its leverage through other channels (e.g. news management) and other institutions of government (e.g. the Cabinet Ofce). In these conditions, the presidential epithet is a highly appealing form of critique. It not only rationalises ministerial discomfort and frustration, but gives focus to the more generalised complaint over the strains caused by an aspiring chief executive trying to operate within a compartmentalised structure of political and departmental hierarchies. As a consequence, the accusations of presidentialism invest political debate with notions of individual assertion and unwarranted power undermining the administrative and professional integrity of government. This formulaic indictment structured the rationale of Clare Shorts resignation from the government in May 2003. To Short, the policy failure of the Iraq war was symptomatic of the governments general style of decision-making in which policy initiatives were being driven through by individuals who were not accountable to parliament. She summed up the position as a systemic problem: In the second term, the problem is centralisation of power into the hands of the Prime Minister and an increasingly small number of advisers who make decisions in private without proper discussion ... there is no real collective responsibility because there is no collective, just diktats in favour of increasingly badly thought through policy initiatives that come from on high ... we have the powers of a presidential-type system with the automatic majority of a parliamentary system (Short 2003).

Strand 4: International Intoxication

Blairs cultivated identity with the national interest and with the course of British foreign policy accounts for the fourth strand in this process of presidential critique. Within this sphere, Blair is not substantively different to his predecessors. Prime Ministers are distinguished by their prerogative powers in the eld of foreign policy

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and national security. A Prime Minister remains the chief agency of the crown in relation to the defence of Britain and its security interests. The charge normally lodged against Blair in this area is that he has exploited the premierships discretionary licence in the international sphere to pursue a specic policy agenda and to enhance a political power base peculiar to himself and his agenda. Through his leadership, Blair has set out to revive and to recalibrate a national identity based upon the theme of modernisation and upon his vision of national ideals and moral responsibilities. He has taken it upon himself to act both as an expositor of British values and as an exemplar of social solidarity through national appeal. Far from conning himself to advancing his leadership as an expression of national community, Blair has widened the remit to apply British traditions to the development of a new internationalism of humanitarian intervention and security assistance (Kampfner 2003). For a Labour prime minister, this outlook has little grounding in the partys classic themes of socialist construction, working-class struggle and class division. Critics within his own party complain that Blairs foreign policy adventures demonstrate the presence of a moral compass far removed from Labours traditional priorities. It can be claimed that Blairs conspicuous presence in the sphere of foreign affairs is the result of a leader necessarily having to gravitate to an area rich in political and symbolic resources. International crises and major foreign policy decisions provide enormous potential for public mobilisation around a selected theme or campaign. American presidents are persistently drawn to their international responsibilities in order to recover some of the authority lost to internal political turmoil and to the tightening gridlock of checks and balances in respect to domestic policy budgetary issues (Fisher 1995; Kernell 1997). A Prime Minister like Tony Blair is also aware of the way that appeals to national mission and security imperatives can transcend normal political activity and raise the leader above the fray of centrifugal pluralismalbeit on a temporary basis (Rawnsley, The Observer, 7 October 2001; Young, The Tablet, 13 October 2001). This kind of statecraft leads to evident irritation on the part of other political players in both the Labour party and the opposition. It also generates criticism that Blair is exercising a level of personal autonomy that far exceeds the appropriate limits of an executive within a democratic polity (Glover, Daily Mail, 8 January 2002; Harris, Daily Telegraph, 2 October 2001; Jenkins, The Times, 7 November 2001; dAncona, Sunday Telegraph, 17 February 2002; Hughes, Daily Mail, 21 March 2002). In some respects, this criticism is unwarranted; rstly, because Blair is simply exercising the same prerogative powers of the crown that Prime Ministers have traditionally used in areas related to national security (Hennessy 2000a, ch. 6; Lee 1995; Vincenzi 1998, chs. 3, 5, 6, 10); and, secondly, because such condemnation is in part prompted by the Prime Ministers preferred strategy of popular outreach and public presentation. In other respects, the criticisms can seem more understandable because of the way Blairs self-promoting dimensions of public leadership can give the impression that prerogative powers are being ingested into the personal sphere of Blairs premiership, or at the very least that they are being used to dramatise and legitimise the prime ministers claims for constituting the authoritative source of national will, moral authority and political direction. In raising the prole of the normally concealed ambiguities and immunities surrounding prerogative

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powers, Blair has diminished their mystique and in doing so made himself more vulnerable to the charges of power maximisation and of fusing the national interest with his own political self-interest and policy priorities. In addition, considerable evidence exists to suggest that on a personal basis, Blair has a marked preference for foreign affairs and that this reects the subject areas rich potential for leadership discretion and assertion: he is in undisputed command and does not have to share the limelight (Groom, Financial Times, 28 September 2001). If the premiership can be characterised as a highly personalised ofce incorporating claims and requirements of individual leadership, then it is the area of foreign affairs that tends to reveal to their fullest extent the personal drives, interests and priorities of a Prime Minister like Tony Blair. The Prime Ministers evident disposition to the pre-eminently presidential arena of foreign policy decision-making has given rise to considerable speculation regarding the discernible differences in Blairs behaviour and leadership philosophy. When relating to international affairs, the Prime Minister slips more easily than most into the role. It plays to his natural political strengths. He understands the interplays (Stephens, Financial Times, 31 May 2002). While cautious and indecisive in domestic politics, he presents himself as an audacious risk-taker in foreign policy: [H]e seems to be at his boldest when the outcome is most dangerous, most in doubt and most outside his power to direct (Sieghart, The Times, 26 September 2001). These inclinations elicit criticisms that he has a presidential preoccupation with foreign affairs; that he is too often absent from the country pursuing international agendas; that his new presidential style of government ... simply does not work when he is out of the country (Brown, The Independent, 11 January 2002); and that he allows domestic policy to be displaced in a zero-sum manner by international priorities. In effect, he is accused of being too remote and too hierarchical to be engaged in domestic policy: he does not give a damn about transport in Britain, complained Barbara Castle in December 2001. [H]es too busy looking at the world panorama (quoted in Wintour, The Guardian, 10 December 2001). This theme is given added impetus by Blairs conspicuous association with the United States and by his belief in its status as a model society and as a source of world leadership. An equally intimate association with George W. Bush has seamlessly replaced his long-standing political relationship with Bill Clinton. In underlining the existence of a close commonality of interests and in using his position to give emphatic support to both presidents, Blair has often given the impression of possessing a comparable leadership status to that of the presidency itself. For example, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, Blair was the most decisive leader outside the United States in aligning himself to the American cause. His was the quickest, deepest and most visible commitment and, as a result, the British Prime Minister became closely identied with Washingtons policy of forming an international coalition against terrorism. In the Iraq War, Britain became the United States main coalition partner as a result of Blairs personal and moral commitment to the cause of combating terrorism. Britains isolation within the international community reected the combative

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detachment that Blair has often experienced in his own government and party. The fulsome praise that was directed towards Blair by the Bush administration was implicitly presidential in its references to personal courage, political determination and visionary leadership. The celebration of Blair by the American media was more explicitly presidential in tone, recognising as it did the Prime Ministers public eloquence in defence of the United States own legal and moral position. Blair was widely viewed not only as one of President Bushs strategic advisers, but as a force within Washington that could act as a counterweight to those urging a strongly unilateralist approach to the crisis. When Blairs reputed inuence was combined with the prime ministers articulate grasp of global issues, and a public persona that drew 17 standing ovations in a keynote speech to a joint session of Congress in July 2003, the worlds press was drawn to the facility of presidential comparisons. Timothy Garton Ash concluded that Blairs exposition of a common Anglo/ American political discourse was masterly in its design: small wonder many Americans think that Blair is the best president theyll never have (The Guardian, 24 July 2003). In Britain, this kind of association of ofces can easily be construed as a sign of misplaced pretension on the part of the Prime Minister. In effect, Tony Blairs proximity to President Bush and his war on terrorism could be interpreted as representing the extent to which the Prime Minister would go in order to inate his leadership to the point of a de facto presidential status. The rhetorical value of the presidential allusion attracted many on the left in particular. They saw in it an opportunity to conate opposition to the war on terror with the assertion of an excessive American inuence upon British foreign policy through the agency of a leadership duality comprising President George W. Bush and would-be president Tony Blair (Wainwright 2002). To his critics in Britain, therefore, Blairs symbolic and substantive attachment to such self-evidently presidential gures as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush further enhanced the appeal of the president critique. Tony Blairs inclination for taking strong leadership positions in the area of policy-making most closely related with presidential discretion allowed himself to be characterised as a gure intent upon using foreign policy opportunities to enhance his leadership status beyond the normal boundaries of prime ministerial responsibility.

Strand 5: Constitutional Imbalance

A number of features associated with the preceding strands contribute to, and nd another outlet in, a fth theme. Here the implication is that the scale of Blairs inuence, presumption and ambition indicates the existence of an imbalance in the British constitution. Given that the dening principle and litmus test of a constitution is the control achieved over executive power, Blairs accumulation of leverage and his projected centrality to government suggest a signicant constitutional development. The British constitution has a reputation for assimilating change within a largely static framework of structural continuity, normative prescription and internalised restraint. It is distinguished for its spontaneous exibility, its adaptive capacity and its reliance upon tradition and convention. As a

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consequence, it is also vulnerable to substantial yet unacknowledged change. In a constitutional culture normally suffused in benign ambiguity, corporate negligence and operational pragmatism, there is a corresponding inattentiveness within the public towards the distribution of institutional power. Against such a background, Prime Ministers can be accused of exploiting the lack of constitutional fundamentalism for personal and political gain. Blair, more than most, has been criticised on these grounds. Peter Hennessy, for example, asserts that Blairs excessive prime ministerial centralism ... cuts against the collective grain; that the prime minister has a ruthless disdain for traditional governmental practices; and that his view of the premiership does not accord with traditional notions of the constitutional limits of the job (Hennessy 2000a, 477, 515, 507). It is the reputed sweep of Blairs executive command that has in turn evoked complaints couched in terms of constitutional strain and even dysfunction. For example, William Rees-Mogg refers to the Downing Street presidency ... prefer[ring] to have two weak and ineffective Houses of Parliament (The Times, 12 November 2001), while Tam Dalyell expresses the wish that Blair would realise that we live in a parliamentary democracy ... and not a presidential system (Macleod, The Times, 7 June 2002). Bernard Crick concludes that [t]here is a constitutional crisis. We go forward to a de facto presidential system or we must go back (The Times, 4 March 2003). The usage of presidential terminology in this context serves several purposes. In a system of constitutional imprecision, references to an ofce which is palpably outside the British tradition can give focus to generalised concerns over the development of the premiership under Tony Blair. References to presidentialism suggest not only an empirical measurement of pre-eminence, but also an actual constitutional condition. Following on from these premises, a de facto presidential frame of reference can provide an organising rationale in which individual complaints relating to Blair can be given an aggregate identity centring upon the notion of an unheralded and concealed constitutional transformation. Given that the presidential allusion is often used to denote a scale of change that is exceptional, exotic and even alien, the references to Blairs presidentialism normally carry heavy inferences of a constitution being subverted and of its checks and balances having failed to constrain the executive. These assertions can be highly circular in nature with constitutional disarray being cited as both the cause and the effect of advancing presidential prominence. Nevertheless, the circular properties of these arguments do not diminish their rhetorical effect of conveying constitutional development as a form of constitutional corruption and, therefore, as an inversion of evolutionary progression. The presidential aphorism has an immediate accessibility in the sphere of constitutional development. It has a catch-all facility that offers a form of systemic explanation mixed with an implied ethical componenti.e. a map for interpretation and disapproval at one and the same time. Various phenomena such as the marginalisation of the Cabinet, the reduced signicance of Parliament, the onset of monthly prime ministerial press conferences, the enhancement of the Prime Ministers resources in policy advice and managerial co-ordination (e.g. Policy Directorate, Strategy Unit) as well as the increased usage of special advisers,

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business personnel, focus groups and task forces have all been cited as constituting evidence of a process of presidentialisation. Even though the premiership continues to have no formal base as a department of state, it nevertheless attracts close critical comment because of its public reputation as a pivotal centre of strategic overview and direction. The implication of such critiques is one of a qualitatively different constitutional order that has been introduced surreptitiously without a clear recognition of its importance or its impact. To this extent, it is tantamount to a form of constitutional corruption in terms of the conventional understanding of the British constitution. I think he is a presidential type, claimed Barbara Castle in 2001. He is not a democratic prime minister of the British type that were used to, having to work through Parliament and cabinet (quoted in Wintour, The Guardian, 10 December 2001). References to a presidential style or manner, or even to an actual presidency, therefore, are warnings dressed as observations. They suggest a centre of power that is developing beyond the remit of conventional constraints and which threatens to supersede the established constitutional arrangements (Forsyth, Sunday Telegraph, 26 April 1998). The allusions to presidentialism not only provide an operational anchorage for critiques of Blair and his government, but also suggest an expansionary development, the logic of which impels the premiership further and deeper into the core of the constitution. The position is further compounded by the structural disarray occasioned by the New Labour commitment to constitutional reform. Blairs advocacy of a new consensus-based politics is particularly salient in this context. When it is combined with New Labours projection of the premiership with an evocation of national symbolism, it opens up the interpretive possibility of an emergent prime ministerial rolenamely that of acting as a centre of cohesion and stability during an epoch of institutional change in which the structure of the state has been in the process of being recongured (Morrison 2001; Oliver 2003). During this period, it has even been possible to speculate on the premierships potential for representing an alternative focal point to that of the monarchy. In his rst administration, Blair occasionally appeared to constitute a counterpoint to the negative connotations of the House of Windsor. In the second administration, Blairs presidentialism has increasingly been viewed as a sign of overextension. It is widely argued that the prime minister is a presidentially minded leader longing to usurp the Queens function (M. Riddell, The Observer, 5 May 2002; see also dAncona, Sunday Telegraph, 16 June 2002; Glover, Daily Mail, 6 June 2002). While these claims may be exaggerated, they are representative of the anxiety and alarmism that often pervades the usage of the presidential term. In these circumstances, the accusation of presidentialism is used in an attempt to arouse a heightened sense of constitutional consciousness by inferring the presence of profound change with something substantial and valuable at stake. Its usage is designed to recongure governmental critique into a constitutional issue and to evoke a political reaction based upon an aroused sense that the constitution is in some way being undermined, or even transformed, by stealth. The implication is by denition one of executive usurpation and therefore of a constitution adapted out of recognition and without challenge.

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Strand 6: Americanised Politics

The inuence of the United States in the usage of a presidential medium of prime ministerial critique is not conned to the allusions that are habitually made to the American presidency. A sixth discernible strand takes the form of an alleged shift in the general disposition of British politics towards a style more readily associated with the United States. Whether this is rooted in voter de-alignment, postindustrial issues, regional integration, neo-liberal orthodoxies, post-cold war attitudes, globalisation, constitutional restructuring or post-ideological politics, the conduct of politics has undergone a notable shift towards the managerial centre. High-prole leaders with publicised claims to leadership are very often the chief means by which parties and their programmes attempt to differentiate themselves from one another and establish a recognisable brand identity within an increasingly volatile electorate (Mughan 2000). The symbolic and substantive properties connected to the persona of leaders have in many respects marginalised and even displaced the traditional interplay of party programmes and identities. To a growing extent, party leaders and especially Prime Ministers appear to be operating within a separate domain that is characterised by the value of and need for leadership, and also by an implicit acknowledgement that it operates under different political rules (Foley 2002). These are seen to confound traditional agendas, strategies and rules of engagement. As a result, they are widely perceived to be perplexing and mercurial in nature, allowing prime ministers to occupy such exceptional and exclusive spaces that they warrant the term presidential as a mark of their mystique. Tony Blairs leadership typies this kind of politics. The marketing of New Labour, combined with the cultivation of Blairs appeal across different sectors, reects a carefully crafted campaign to capitalise upon the uidity of political forms and processes. As a consequence, Blair is often portrayed as a leader who does not break rules so much as acts as if they are no longer in operation. Blairs ability to merge his identity into the shifting currents of public concern, and to both break traditions and disable opponents through the deployment of common-sense postures have been recurrent themes in the political comment surrounding his premiership. So procient has Blair been in maximising the possibility of a controlling coalition that he has been compared very closely to Bill Clinton. Both Blair and Clinton were instrumental in distancing themselves from the institutional bases and traditional agendas of their respective parties. The two leaders both sought to accommodate the centre left to the prevailing orthodoxy of low taxation levels, minimal ination and restricted budget decits. President Clintons policy of triangulation promoted an eclectic blend of attachments to both left and right. He also had an extensive interest in a third-way posture towards public policy. Both these elements found parallels in Blairs pragmatic synthesis of ideas and approaches that were designed to supersede the outmoded postures of the market economy and its socialist alternative (Blair 1996a, 1998; Buchanan and Waller 2002; Driver and Martell 1998, chs. 5, 6). Through the agency of his own leadership, Blair sought to imitate Clinton by adopting a nuanced political course that would avoid the conventional attachments of left and right, and create a radical alternative of new thinking divorced from prior orthodoxies (Gould 1998, chs. 57). The Labour

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leaders emphasis upon unifying language and perception brought in its wake not only the usage of capacious norms and mobilising themes, but also the assertions that through his approach it was possible to have radical reform, social cohesion and stable government. Political and parliamentary traditionalists complained that Blair was offering a prospectus that was both false and unsustainable. New Labours detractors often sealed their arguments with what they believed to be the clinching conclusion namely that the Blair team had engaged in the effective Clintonisation of the Labour party. In relation to Clinton and Blair, there were striking similarities in themes, in arguments, in particular policies, and in language (Fairclough 2000, 70). David Marquand had no doubts over the identity of New Labours political lineage: [T]he Blair government looks across the Atlantic for inspiration ... its rhetoric is American; the intellectual inuences which have shaped its project are American; its political style is American (Marquand 1998). Like Clinton, Blair operated on the understanding that it was possible to have freedom and fairness, ambition and compassion, market dynamism and social justice, cohesion and exibility, individual opportunity and community solidarity. The impression generated was that opposing themes could be fused together through goodwill and the kind of imaginative leadership that could elicit a binding social consensus. This is also a signicant reason why Blairs leadership has been so sensitive to the requirements of the mass media and why spin doctors have been so evident in the Labour government (Jones 1999). It reects the debt to Clintonised politics in its reliance upon the medias power of image and information to construct political reality (Rustin, The Guardian, 18 November 1996). The parallels between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair led the British Prime Minister to be accused of presidentialism through association and technique. But as Blair has become further established in the premiership, the characterisation has deepened to one of presidentialism in political effect. The conditions in which Blair operates as Prime Minister give impetus to the presidential designation because no other term seems more consistent with the extraordinary prole of political behaviour that has accompanied Blairs premiership. For example, in contrast to cabinets in the past, Blairs cabinets have in the main been distinguished by the palpable absence of conspicuous divisions. Labour cabinets in the past had been notorious for their levels of factionalism. A Prime Minister like Harold Wilson had to expend considerable political resources in accommodating the segmented nature of the cabinet through intricate exercises in balance, negotiation and multilateral deal-making with rivals and their respective power bases. Under Blair the old rules of political engagement within the Labour party appear to have been superseded by a Prime Minister who has effectively combined personal ascendancy with policy consensus. Public disagreements, once acknowledged as an integral condition of Labour governments, have not been tolerated within the Blair premiership. Symptomatic of the change has been the onset of minimal cabinet meetings and a commensurate rise in bilateral discussions between the Prime Minister and individual ministers, or small groups of ministers and ofcials. The gravitational force of the prime ministerial orbit has engendered mostly coded references to an alleged diminution of the decision-making core

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of the government. The reference with most purchase has been that of an Americanisation in form and essence. Given Mr Blairs avowed attachment to American principles and achievements, the presidential analogy has become a critique of rst resort as it effectively correlates the suggestion of American means with the inference of a policy agenda prioritising American ends. In this context, the references to presidentialism serve two purposes. They provide a frame of reference, which offers some measure of intelligibility to an altered political context. At the same time, they are also strongly suggestive of a process of mutation and even of a bizarre deviation from political normality. The close relationship of the presidential ofce with Americas national identity offers a set of enriched inferences over the strength of Blairs attachment to a British identity.

Strand 7: Political Pathology

A seventh and nal strand of presidential attribution in the structure of political argument is that which is used to suggest that a premiership is in a state of terminal decline. This reects the theme that presidentialism can be a two-way process of individual pre-eminence and personalised decline. The erosion of leadership within a presidential system is marked both by a continuity of political prominence and formal authority on the one hand, and a concurrent discontinuity of declining leverage and legitimacy on the other. The presidential analogy in the British context has also been used to imply a growing disjunction between a superstructure of prime ministerial status and an emergent substructure of diminished momentum and individual isolation. Argument and controversy turn towards the costs of such a disjunction between form and essence. As a consequence, presidentialism becomes associated more with political pathology than with executive vitality and administrative empowerment. This element of presidential rhetoric places reliance upon a sense of hard realism in which the nature of prime ministerial predominance becomes subjected to a more sceptical assessment. The generic complexity and compartmentalisation of government, together with its power to resist or confound prime ministerial attempts to achieve central co-ordination (Norton 2000; Kavanagh and Richards 2001; Flinders 2002) are given greater recognition as a corollary of a more realistic perspective of a prime ministers capacity to exert control over the machinery of government. Presidentialism in this guise becomes more analogous to the limitations of a Prime Minister set within a differentiated polity of multiple agencies, policy communities and issue networks intersected by a profusion of decentralised contingency relationships (Marsh and Rhodes 1992; Marsh, Richards and Smith 2001; Rhodes 1997; Smith 1999). It is against such a background that a Prime Minister like Blair is increasingly seen as a crisis manager in the international sphere. This in turn underlines a presidential interpretation that correlates foreign policy initiatives with a deep frustration over the inertial properties of domestic policy. During his second term, Blair has been depicted to a growing extent as a high prole international leader. Nevertheless, his perceived presidential style has increasingly acted as a counterpoint in order to highlight the disarray of other agendas. Blairs alleged presidentialism in this respect acts as a preface for com-

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plaints on the grounds of a disengagement from the domestic agenda, an excessive detachment from his political base and a diminishing cadre of close advisers and personal aides. Allusions to a form of presidentialism in such circumstances can, therefore, be used as both a reference, and a prescription, for decline. For example, it has become commonplace for the Blair and Brown relationship to be described as a duality in which the former is classied as occupying a presidential role, while the latter is said to possess a prime ministerial status within Whitehall (Naughtie 2001). In effect, Blairs presidentialism is used as a euphemism for distance and remoteness. Browns prime ministerial attribution on the other hand is associated with systemic Treasury power and a chief executives astuteness for controlling agendas (e.g. the timing of the decision on whether or not to enter the euro) and cultivating heartland constituencies (e.g., redistribution measures on poverty reduction and social fairness; middle-class stealth taxes). The political signicance of such a reputed bifurcation is reected in the fact that it is usually the supporters of the Chancellor who employ it as a thinly veiled critique of the Blair premiership. The characterisation draws effectively upon the notion of presidential entropy in which the disconnection between form and substance widens with time. The posited implication is one of a progressive deterioration that is as inevitable as it is almost invariably destructive in nature. The shift in the presidential analogy from a positive construction of strategic grandeur to a negative complaint over insularity and digression is encapsulated in Austin Mitchells public appeal to Tony Blair to resign the leadership. Mitchell paid tribute to Blairs achievements but concluded that the Prime Minister had run out of mates, policies and time ... youve nothing new to offer apart from your role as world crusader. In Mitchells view, the Labour party had now matured enough to withstand Blairs departure: the nal stage of its maturity can only be the dismantling of presidential leadership by clique ... and a return to team government (New Statesman, 22 September 2003).

Conclusion
No discernible pattern of usage emerges from these seven strands. They are employed selectively rather than in any aggregate formation. On some occasions, a single strand will be used to support a critique. At other times, an indictment will be informed by several strands with no clear priority given to any one approach. This range of usage is consistent with the variation in the instrumental nature of the presidential attribution. The claim of presidentialism can, for example, be interpreted as a euphemism, or as a metaphor, to open up the British premiership to other forms of complaint. On other occasions, the discussion of presidentialism can be regarded as a direct and explicit accusation requiring responses in the terms in which the charges are made. References to presidentialism can also indicate a type of default position affording a channel for generalised dissent that in most other respects lacks any precision or clear agenda. What is common to all these strategies and to the eclectic combinations of supportive strands is an attempt to delegitimise the Blair premiership and, in doing so, to reduce the reach of its inuence. Whether the attacks are implicit or explicit, they serve the same purpose of calling into question the legitimacy of leadership within the system. In using presidential terms of

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reference to give emphasis to the question of the scale and nature of the Blair leadership, the objective is to make it into an issue and, thereby, into an object of disapproval. In explaining the utility of the presidentialism claim as a political and rhetorical device, it is evident that while it possesses several strengths, it is also characterised by signicant weaknesses. Its chief virtues are those of versatility and suggestiveness. In fact, its very ambiguity as a category makes it a potent rhetorical device. The portmanteau character of presidentialism in this context of usage allows it to become attached to a variety of political disquiet and dissent, while at the same time giving the appearance of possessing focus and rationality. Whether it is used to infer a temporary abnormality or a deepening condition, the presidential allusion succeeds in setting up the depiction of the prime minister as an object of inated prominence solely in order to generate an anxiety over the political and constitutional costs of such a process. Presidentialism offers a plausible framework of estimation through which the phenomenon of the evolving premiership can be both gauged and condemned. Under the guise of representing a precise constitutional condition, the presidential reference has a promiscuous property that provides access to anti-American prejudices; to notions of an alien presence or process; to resentment over new hierarchies; to concerns over governmental dysfunction; to irritation over the distractive elements of the grandiose and the trivial inherent in a personalised ofce; and to fears over the relationship between political leadership and democratic values. The claim of presidentialism can be highly effective in characterising the prominence of Tony Blairs premiership in terms of a constitutional coup secured by evading traditional constraints, by exploiting the open-textured nature of constitutional conventions and by utilising the publics ambivalence towards constitutional issues. The emphasis upon a different constitutional order decisively depicted by reference to a de facto presidential presence succeeds in drawing attention to its counterpointnamely the sense of something being lost rather than of something being gained. The form of the reputed change, together with the apparent process of its inception, implicates a concealed yet systemic shift in governing arrangements. This notion of a concealed shift both elicits populist suspicions over self-aggrandising elitism and draws upon public dissatisfaction and even cynicism over contemporary politics. The limitations of the presidential analogy or metaphor are equally noteworthy. For example, although the references to presidentialism rely for their effect upon a sense of realism, they tend to assume what they are required to prove. Presidentialism is used as if it were a clearly dened state of existence that constitutes a precise frame of reference for analysis. However, a presidency is far from being an objective entity susceptible to clear denition, or to a xed and bounded nature. In fact, the term presidential pertains to a variety of conditions. Even in the United States where the presidency is explicitly located within a historically established constitution founded upon a single documentary base, it is accepted that the ofce has an evolutionary character. It is seen as being dependent upon precedent, convention, contingency and an elusiveness that attends the possession of powers drawn from executive prerogative. Given its problematic nature, the value of

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presidentialism as an analytical and rhetorical instrument is limited by tautological aws. Just as premises and conclusions often appear to be indistinguishable from one another, so causes and effects can become interchangeable. An individual Prime Minister, for example, can be regarded as having introduced a presidential-style premiership to serve his or her own political interests, but for the charge of presidentialism to have any purchase it is necessary to extrapolate the effect into a systemic one. Nevertheless, in doing so, the individual ofceholder can be reduced to that of merely an effect rather than an agency of structural change. Other notable weaknesses include the indiscriminate way that presidentialism is used as a repository for almost any discernible change to the premiership; the confusion that is often evident over the extent to which presidentialism is seen as a sign of political strength or weakness; and the difculties of evoking a republican reaction to the executive power of a prime minister set against the continued presence of a constitutional monarchy. A limitation that warrants particular acknowledgement is the common disjunction that is made between, on the one hand, a claim of fundamental change justifying a presidential depiction, and, on the other hand, the assertion that a presidential premiership is necessarily a temporary aberration. While using the presidential reference to portray a deep and systemic transformation, the solution often couched is one of an inevitable return to a more conventional structure of collective decision-making and accountability. The inference is that because presidentialism is illegitimate it cannot persist. By the same token, because the condition cannot be sustained then it is necessarily conrmed as lacking legitimacy. This disjunction is representative of a wider ambivalence over the charges of presidentialism. Notwithstanding the general absence of any dened sense of prescribed or expected reactions to such allegations, the accusation of presidentialism can betray the presence of a mixed value judgement on the stated phenomena. For example, while the presidential allusion is customarily deployed as a device of condemnation, that indictment can be directed less to the features of presidentialism and more to the fact that they have not been given formal recognitioni.e. it is not so much presidentialism per se that is the issue, but rather the way its processes and reach have remained in the constitutional twilight (Mowlam 2002b). The thrust of such a proposition lies not in questioning the existence of a presidential dimension so much as in giving it appropriate recognition and attending openly to the challenges of having it legitimised and consciously curtailed (Allen 2001, 52). Responses like these may well be disguised critiques, but they underline the difculties of establishing a clear normative correlation to the empirical claims of presidentialism. In effect, presidentialism is not always construed as necessarily negative in nature and effect. As a consequence, its utility as an instrument of delegitimation is constrained by the ambivalence attached to its legitimacy as a political phenomenon.

About the Author

Professor Michael Foley, Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Penglais, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DA, email: mof@aber.ac.uk

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