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Through information gained from interviews with key political actors, archival research and close examination of biographical material, this article aims to provide the first detailed account of what it means to be the British First Secretary of State. Sometimes regarded simply as a synonym for Deputy Prime Minister, it will be demonstrated that the reality is far more complicated. Not all First Secretaries have been regarded as the Prime Minister’s second-in-command, indeed there have been many years where the post has ceased to exist. Yet, at other times, First Secretaries have led the country, albeit briefly. The main argument to be made is that the office of First Secretary of State is only as important as the person holding that office is perceived to be important, but there is potential for that to change.

This study of leaders’ exchanges in Prime Minister’s Questions considers the potential for foreign policy debate to be associated with uncharacteristic personal respect between political opponents. Using an existing dataset coded for a specific form of verbal aggression—personal attacks—questions to the Prime Minister spanning a 37-year period were further analysed for policy topic. Compared to questions and responses focused on domestic policies, foreign policy exchanges were significantly lower in personal attacks. Discussion includes the possibility of this being a British example of the old US adage politics stops at the water’s edge. Credible theoretical explanations include intergroup theories, and one linked to another US political science phenomenon (the rally ‘round the flag effect), specifically, patriotism.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether typologies devised for the analy-sis of equivocation in broadcast political interviews could be usefully extended tothe analysis of equivocation in Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs). The study wasbased on the 23 sessions of PMQs held during Theresa May’s first term of office(July 2016 to April 2017). Results showed that May’s mean reply rate to questionsfrom Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn was just 11%, and that her distinctive equiv-ocation style was essentially covert, characterised primarily by ignoring questions,modifying questions, stating or implying that she had already answered ques-tions and acknowledging questions without answering them

In heading up a coalition David Cameron has had to confront two unusual constraints that prevent him from being a dominant prime minister. The first constraint, something unfamiliar to previous prime ministers, is his having to work with and through a coalition partner firmly placed to the Conservatives’ left. The second constraint, equally problematic but more familiar, is that Cameron has faced a restive Conservative parliamentary party in which a sizable minority of Tory MPs remained unreconciled to his political agenda. These two interrelated constraints mean Cameron has lacked the freedom of manoeuvre enjoyed by most past prime ministers. Two aspects of Cameron’s premiership help cast light on his predicament: first, his relations with Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats and second, the nature of his dependency upon Conservative MPs. We look at these in turn and conclude by assessing Cameron’s effectiveness as prime minister.

In the autumn of 2011, there was significant discussion in the British press about the level of support among women for the Conservatives and for Prime Minister David Cameron, arguing that he had a ‘problem with women’ and suggesting that this had arisen since the general election the previous year. We examine the opinion polls over the period, and find that they mostly point towards an opposite conclusion. Further, there seems little to suggest that attitudes to David Cameron personally were damaging Conservative standing among women, as much of the coverage implied. We consider how the reporting came to give a misleading impression, and why it matters.

The notion that the British prime minister had outgrown the parliamentary system enabled some scholars to theorise that the prime minister had become more ‘powerful’ over time and allowed critics to lambast Tony Blair for being unnecessarily and unreasonably powerful. Keith Dowding (2012) suggests it is time to ‘finally put an end to the presidentialisation argument’ (p. 2), but the notion— in both its uses—had fallen from favour long before his recent attempt to administer a coup de grâce. For one thing presidentialisation was forever undone by proof Blair was often hamstrung politically by his chancellor, Gordon Brown. By itself this illustrates that Blair, harried by Brown for the entirety of his premiership, was no president, even if at times a very powerful prime minister. No member, say, of any US president’s executive (not even the vice president, the only person who can succeed the president) could ever engineer the president’s ousting in the way Brown and his followers in Labour’s parliamentary party obliged Blair to step aside in June 2007. No US Treasury secretary (nor any other cabinet member) could ever have been as obstructive, insubordinate or disloyal to the president they serve as Brown was to Blair. Presidentialisation fell further from favour when Brown proved a weaker and less effective prime minister. Few suggested Brown was so empowered a prime minister he had become a president. And fewer still, given the realities of coalition government, refer to David Cameron in such fashion when he has presently to share some degree of power—over both the choice of policy and of ministerial personnel—with the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg (Bennister and Heffernan, 2012).

The presidentialisation of the prime minister thesis should be expunged from political science vocabulary. To the extent that the forces identified by those who pursue the thesis exist, they do not make the British prime minister more like the US president. Quite the reverse: they enhance the different and already stronger powers of the prime minister. The prime ministers offices serve a different function from that of the White House. The roles of the prime minister and the president as leaders of their parties are entirely different. The personalisation of politics is an analytically separate process, and affects parliamentary and presidential systems alike. Media representation of prime ministers as ‘presidential’ is entirely superficial; political science needs to plunge deeper into the institutional forces of presidential and prime ministerial power. The institutions of presidential and parliamentary systems are so different that any global force acting upon them are as likely to drive them further apart as lead them to converge. Prime ministers are more powerful within their systems than presidents; strengthening their powers makes them less, not more, like presidents.

Forming a coalition involves compromise, so a prime minister heading up a coalition government, even one as predominant a party leader as David Cameron, should not be as powerful as a prime minister leading a single-party government. Cameron has still to work with and through ministers from his own party, but has also to work with and through Liberal Democrat ministers; not least the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. The relationship between the prime minister and his deputy is unchartered territory for recent academic study of the British prime minister. This article explores how Cameron and Clegg operate within both Whitehall and Westminster: the cabinet arrangements, the prime minister's patronage, advisory resources and more informal mechanisms. Cameron and Clegg both possess institutional and personal resources, but Cameron remains the predominant resource-rich actor, so at this stage in the coalition government we can observe that no formal, substantial change in the role of prime minister has been enacted. Cameron's predominance, by leading a coalition, is partially constrained by Clegg, but he too constrains Clegg. This prime minister, then, can be predominant even when he is constrained in significant ways by the imperatives of coalition government. Cameron is presently no more constrained than a prime minister who is faced with a pre-eminent intra-party rival with a significant power base.

The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard was the first British television series production that featured a woman Prime Minister, backed by an all-women party and elected by the large majority of voters. This article investigates whether the series was an attempt to provide a feminist portrayal of women politicians. It addresses three main issues: whether and how the series inscribes gender frames to place expectations upon women leaders; if it constructs sex stereotypes with regard to political womens presentation and policies, which distort the roles that these women play in public life and finally it problematises the kind of visibility given to women politicians in the series.

The former Prime Minister's review of party-funding reforms, chaired by Sir Hayden Phillips, reported in March 2007. It was followed in June 2008 by a White Paper from the Ministry of Justice. This article considers these proposals in the context of both previous reforms in Britain and trends in party-funding reform across the rest of Europe. It seeks to establish whether these proposals represent continuity in the British case, and the extent to which Britain arguably remains ‘exceptional’ in terms of party funding. It concludes that the Phillips review represented a potential partial break from British exceptionalism, whilst the White Paper represents a continuation. Both, however, provide further evidence of the fragility of the cartel model in respect of Britain.

The news media interest in political celebrity, backed up by the phenomenon of process journalism, magnifies the modern prime minister, placing him or her centre stage in key political processes. Tony Blair’s communication strategy has had two objectives. First, whenever possible, to try to secure favourable media coverage of the government. Second, to keep the government and its supporters on message while defining what that message is. Prime ministers can significantly influence the news agenda through use of authoritative, self-referential communication. Such influence is not uncontested because senior ministers, opposition politicians and backbench critics also use the news media to promote themselves and their competing agendas. The news media itself will also spin the stories it is spun, create those stories and thereby probe- and sometimes help fashion- intra-governmental differences and prime ministerial challenges. Nonetheless, by dominating government-centric political communications- and therein significantly influencing the news agenda- the prime minister can thereby reinforce his or her ability to agenda set within government. The news media, always an obstacle as well as a resource, a permanent critic as well as an occasional friend, can therefore provide an additional power resource to an already powerful and predominant prime minister.

The notion of presidentialisation, applied to the British Prime Minister, usually focuses more on the personal style of the of the officeholder, less on the institutional substance of the office itself. The Prime Minister is the product of the British parliamentary system, and this system—and the institutional structures it imposes—provides for and circumscribes his or her powers. Comparing Britain with the US demonstrates that in executive-legislative terms a British Prime Minister is more commanding than any US President, while in intra-executive terms the President is more powerful. The presidentialisation notion fails to acknowledge that its legislative purchase makes the British parliamentary executive more authoritative than its US presidential counterpart. Should, as is often but not always the case, a Prime Minister be able to lead his or her executive, determine its key decisions, shape its agenda and guide the work of its ministers, he or she will be a more influential actor than the President. Systemic differences distinguish Prime Ministers from Presidents. Britain does not have a presidential system, so it cannot have a presidential chief executive.

The article considers the two countrywide political forces on the Spanish left, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and United Left (IU). A brief history of the parties is followed by an assessment of their current prospects. It is argued that several changes of leadership within the PSOE since former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez resigned in 1997 have been only one indication of the difficulties faced by the party as it seeks to establish itself as an effective opposition force. Attention is given to the key constraints impinging on the PSOE during its thirteen-year period in office, including European integration. Finally, the article considers whether the electoral decline suffered by IU is likely to be reversible in the post-Anguita era.

Shinzo Abe’s return to office as Japanese prime minister in December 2012 offers a rare opportunity to explore how past experience shapes decision-making when leaders are given a second chance at power. There is no doubt that Abe’s second term—ending with his re-election for a third term in December 2014—was more successful than his first premiership (2006–2007). What accounts for the differences between Abe’s two premierships? In answering this question, I employ an interactionist approach to analyse personal political leadership in institutional and situational contexts. Although previously used by scholars to compare different leaders, I utilise this approach to identify changes in Abe’s leadership between his first and second administrations. I conclude that changes in the institutional and situational contexts of his leadership better explain Abe’s second-term successes than developments in his leadership skills. I further conclude that Abe’s predominance in his second term calls into question the prevailing view of the Japanese prime minister as institutionally weak.