The return of a former Prime Minister

An interesting day for constitutional history geeks

Today the prime minister Rishi Sunak appealed to the all-important constitutional history geek constituency.

Suddenly timelines were full of “actually, the last prime minister who…” comments, as constitutional history nerds competed to show off their knowledge of precedents.

*

(On that point, here is a question - who was the last foreign secretary not to be a member of parliament?)

*

The appointment of former Prime Minister David Cameron as Foreign Secretary has all been a lot of constitutional fun, and it is not without significance.

The governing party is in such a predicament that the sacking of the Home Secretary could not be followed by the appointment of another elected politician.

Perhaps that is because of the lack of quality in the parliamentary party; or it is perhaps the governing party is so split that only an outsider can be fitted in without toppling the leader.

Whatever the explanation, it does seem to be an indication not of prime minister strength, but of weakness. And, in part, the weakness was there when the now sacked Home Secretary was appointed by Sunak.

The United Kingdom appears to have a presidential system, but the marked feature of our politics over the last fifteen years is the weakness of the office of Prime Minister.

At the Cenotaph yesterday were two former Prime Ministers, John Major and Tony Blair, who between them had been in office from 1990 to 2007; next to them were six Prime Ministers who had been office in the sixteen years since.

Perhaps that is an accident; perhaps political circumstances have meant that, for a while, there happened to be a rapid turnover of Prime Ministers.

Or it could actually be a meaningful trend, and lengthy periods in office will seem as long ago as figures such Major and Blair themselves.

*

Anyway it has been an interesting day for constitutional history nerds.

(And the last foreign secretary not to be a member of parliament? That was Dominic Raab, between the dissolution of the old parliament and the election of the new parliament in 2019 - which the constitutional history super-nerds among you would have known.)