A fresh look at the importance of PMQs

There’s a really good feature on prime minister’s questions in today’s Observer.

PMQs are seen by many as the high point of the parliamentary week, allowing the opposition a chance to try and catch the PM out with surprise questions, and have often led to heated debate.Margaret Thatcher as PM in the 1980s was known to prepare fastidiously for PMQs, spending as much as eight hours getting ready for what was then a fifteen minute slot. She put this work to good effect, managing to see off the Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, in 1986 when she could have been vulnerable at the time of the Westland affair.

I would argue, however, that whilst PMQs may not serve as an especially useful mechanism for scrutinising the actions of the executive (select committees are much more effective), they can help colour our perceptions of the party leaders. And if the party leaders don’t perform confidently during the contest, and there are whispers throughout Whitehall about their leadership skills, then poor displays on a regular basis can make them extremely vulnerable. Someone once described David Cameron’s attacks when in opposition against Gordon Brown as having the effect of making the PM look like a wounded bear. And I would argue that this didn’t help protect him from the internal challenges he faced during the fag end days of his government - as revelations in the run up to the general election and afterwards would corroborate.

Read on for the link, and a couple of related exercises.

Here is the link.

To go with this blog, have a look at completing the following exercises.

1) Identify what exactly PMQs are, e.g. explain how long they last, how who gets to ask questions is decided etc.

2) Research other ways the work of the government is scrutinised by MPs.

3) Use the internet to search for clips of past PMQs. Look for Brown v Cameron, Blair v Hague.

4) Explain whether you agree with my assertion that PMQs has more to do with politics than good government.

As an added thought if you are doing US politics and perhaps also if you are planning on looking at a resit of the government paper in January, think about power relations between the executive and the legislature in the USA and analyse where PMQs fit into discussion of relative effectiveness.