Prime Ministers and their Chancellors
Nick Bourne looks at the special relationship between a Prime Minister and their Chancellor.
29 Sep 2011, 11:30
PM and Chancellor at war
History shows that unity and harmony in the upper reaches of government is appreciated by the electorate. Unity at the top is vital to the chances of re-election and especially important is the relationship between a Prime Minister and his or her Chancellor of the Exchequer. Relations are not always as good as they are between David Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne.
Harold Wilson always suspected plots and was never really comfortable with Jim Callaghan, his first Chancellor and even less so with Roy Jenkins.
His successor Ted Heath was robbed by untimely death of his first Chancellor Iain Macleod who unfortunately died after just one month in office. Harold Wilson once said that the person he feared most as an opponent in the Conservative party was Iain Macleod but that the Conservatives would never have the sense to pick him. Harold Wilson was right on that. Macleod was succeeded by Tony Barber. Possibly the most exotic things about Tony Barber were his middle names, Perrinott Lysberg; the former gained from his French grandmother and the latter from his Danish mother, though also interestingly his brother, Noel, was a famous novelist who wrote family sagas based in the Far East. Relations were good enough between the two men though the relationship was dominated by Ted Heath.
Wilson became Premier again and from February 1974 to 1979 Denis Healey was Chancellor despite Wilson's dictum that a Chancellor should only serve for about two and a half years. Admittedly for the last three years of that period Jim Callaghan had taken over as Prime Minister on the resignation of Harold Wilson. Relations were generally harmonious and despite tight majorities and reliance on a Lib Lab pact, the parliament ran its full course.
Margaret Thatcher's first parliamentary term saw Sir Geoffrey Howe as her Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was not a cigarette paper between the two of them on economic policy despite the later well documented differences between them and the famous resignation statement of Sir Geoffrey in the House of Commons. For the duration of Mrs. Thatcher's second parliament, Nigel Lawson was her Chancellor and was technically very strong. Throughout this period again, despite later difficulties, the two worked well together. It was only in her third term that fractious relations broke out. The policy of shadowing the Deutschmark by the Chancellor was opposed by the Prime Minister who relied on her personal economic advisor, Sir Alan Walters. In the end both the Chancellor and her economic adviser resigned. For a short period John Major then served as her last Chancellor before he took over as Prime Minister when she herself resigned.
John Major had just two Chancellors; Norman Lamont and Ken Clarke. The former had been his campaign manager to become leader. Discord followed after the country's exit from the ERM and Norman Lamont was replaced by the ebullient and robust Ken Clarke. Norman Lamont had his own brand of ebullience too and he developed a surprising new interest in retirement taking up tap dancing. The two (Major and Clarke) got on well.
There then followed that enduring (and endearing) partnership, that became increasingly fraught over time, between Premier Tony Blair and his Chancellor throughout his time as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown was the longest serving Chancellor of recent times. Strains and stresses between the two were always apparent but the rift became deeper and relations more strained as time wore on.
Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as Prime Minister in 2007 and Alistair Darling became Chancellor. Mr. Darling had been a long term ally of the new Prime Minister but difficulties blew up between them well documented in Mr Darling's memoirs.
The present relationship between friends and neighbours, David Cameron and George Osborne seems to be a very strong one. It augurs well for the present government.
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Nick Bourne
Nick Bourne is the former leader of the Welsh Assembly Conservative Group.
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Comments (8)
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What a rubbish article!
Barely more than a list of past PMs and their Chancellors.
29/09/2011 11:47If any conclusions can be drawn from the above examples it is that Prime Ministers and Chancellors tend to start off by being (necessarily) very close before being steadily blown apart by events and the pssage of time. Thatcher/Lawson, Major/Lamont, Blair/Brown and Brown/Darling were all once reckoned to be as close if not closer as are Cameron and Osborne now. My hunch is that the Cameron/Osborne relationship will eventually go the same way, particularly when Osborne starts positioning himself to the right of the Prime Minister in readiness for his inevitable leadership battle with Boris Johnson.
29/09/2011 11:48Something to consider about the Cameron-Osborne relationship is that it goes slightly beyond that of Prime Minister-Chancellor.
It has been well documented that Osborne's major strength within the leadership of the party was (at least before taking power) regarding electoral strategy. Being aware of the importance of Osborne as a strategist, Cameron would, I am sure, not wish to lose him.
In this sense, looking at the list of previous PMs and their chancellors, the clearest parallel would be with Blair-Brown. The question, therefore, would be whether there is any way that Cameron-Osborne could end up going the same way.
29/09/2011 12:28Yes Rocco, I think it is a similar relationship to that of Blair and Brown in that respect, and also in that Osborne expects to succeed Cameron. Part of the problem Blair had with Brown was that Brown always had one eye on the eventual leadership battle, and knew that in order to win he would have to maintain his support among the centre and left of the party. This led him on many occasions to take positions to the left of Blair, eg in seeking to frustrate Blair's plans for the marketisation of public services. This became an increasing frustration to Blair and led ultimately to the breakdown of their relationship in 2004, when Blair decided he needed a third term in order to cement his 'legacy.'
My guess is that Osborne simiilarly knows he cannot win a leadership election, particularly against BoJo, without significant support from the Tory right. In time, this will lead to exactly the same sort of policy tensions between PM and Chancellor that Blair and Brown endured.
29/09/2011 12:42That will always be a problem other members of a government will have if they have ambitions to be leader - you win the party leadership by appealing only to your own party members really, yet you win an election by appealing to supporters of other parties too. Your own party members will vote for you in an election anyway.
So it is possible that at some stage Osborne will, on one hand, have to convince party members that he shares their views (and its a given that party members will not agree with everything the government does, especially a coalition one) whilst at the same time being a prominent member of a government that has to try to appeal to a wider audience. Very difficult thing to do.
Another factor that applies to both Brown and Osborne is the fact that they were/are so close to the leadership. If Blair failed, Brown would fail. If Cameron fails, Osborne will fail. So if Osborne does have leadership ambitions he will not want Cameron hanging around for long. He'll want him gone before things turn stale. If he hangs on too long then tensions will rise, just like they did between Brown and Blair.
29/09/2011 13:07Yes, quite so. But the other difficulty Osborne has is that if the Tories lose the next election, it will be the end of his leadership ambitions as he will get the blame for not turning the economy around faster. So for the time being, Osborne's and Cameron's fortunes are inextricably intertwined. If they do fall out, it will be in a second Cameron term rather than the current one, ie once Osborne starts to worry that if Cameron goes 'on and on and on' his own chances may pass him by.
29/09/2011 14:34There are two key diference's between Osborne and Brown though.
Firstly, Brown had always been tipped as a future leader of Labour. He was thought to be John Smith's sucessor before Blair began to shine as Shadow Home Secretary, and under Blair he was always going to be the heir apparent. When Cameron was in a spot of difficulty over the Phone-hacking scandal, Osborne's name was some way down the list after Theresa May's name.
The second diference is that Brown had always put himself into positions where he could be heard and listened to, where his "intelect" could be put in the shop window. He was a high profile student leader, and as Shadow Trade & Industry secretary began penning a weekly column for the Daily Record. As far as I'm aware, Osborne was pretty annonymous when he became Shadow Chancellor in 2005.
29/09/2011 19:17Osborne was definitely talked about as a possible successor to Michael Howard. He chose to step aside for the more voter-friendly David Cameron, just as Brown did for Blair.
30/09/2011 08:04