Probably a difference in our party systems. Federally, each party has regional strongholds, where they can generally count on certain seats. There’s also the point that FPTP contributes to there being certain safe seats, when you have a multi-party system. Plus, having the PM as your local member is definitely an advantage, even if people don’t generally like parachute candidates.
Not just theoretically possible, as the Canadian examples show.
Here we run into the difference between legal requirements and conventional requirements. In the UK and Canada, there is no legal requirement that a Cabinet minister hold a seat in the Commons. However, there is a strong constitutional convention that the Minister must be in the Commons, to be accountable to the elected representatives. (I think the Aussies have made this a constitutional requirement?
For instance, in Canada during WWII, Prime Minister King appointed a general, Andrew MacNaughton, as Minister of Defence. MacNaughton didn’t have a seat in the Commons, so he ran in a by-election to get in. He was defeated. King arranged for another MP to resign, and MacNaugton ran again. He was defeated again. This time, he resigned as Minister, because the Minister of Defence had to be in the Commons, to answer questions about the conduct of the war.
Perhaps, one of the key points - the monarch (or in Canada’s case, her representative, the governor General of Canada or the Lieutenant Governor of the province) can appoint a new Prime Minister/Premier. This is technically her sole discretion; but for parliament to work, that minister has to be able to get bills passed etc. so needs a working majority. As a result, this process has devolved into an accepted convention, not really codified in law - the politicians negotiate among themselves and when one has a majority group that agree to follow him/her, they approach the GG for his/her blessing to be prime minister and “permission” to form a government.
Technically, the GG can appoint whomever he/she wants. But like other threads about “what if the queen refuses to sign a bill?” it boils down to - only happens once, then likely there will be a new GG and a formal rule change. Similarly, the GG can call an election if they want when there’s been no non-confidence vote but again - only happens once.
The other typical convention in Canada, at least, is if there’s a non-confidence vote the GG can ask the next leader in line to form a government instead of calling a vote - again, an unwritten rule but usually about 6 months is too soon and 12 months is long enough to call a new election. Of course, if a government falls within 6 months, it means the confidence support was shakey to begin with and the third (fourth, fifth) party will support the second party instead - nobody wants to be blamed for an unnecessary election).
Huh? Canada has thousands of political appointees. A fellow I worked with was approached in the 80’s to help work on an appointments database buy one of the political parties. Joe Clark was criticized and according to some pundits, lost his job because he didn’t push party insiders into the plum appointments fast enough before he lost a nonconfidence vote.
Mind you, most of the appointments are nowhere near as blatantly political as the USA - but there are plenty of jobs that pick people out of the party ranks to get a government job. (Citizenship judge is one that I recall in the news a while ago). Heads of assorted organizations, members of assorted boards of crown corporations and other organizations… Mind you, there is a bit more emphasis over competence, allegedly. I doubt the head of EMO here would be qualified by being a show horse judge, like FEMA in the USA - but he probably could do a better “heckuva” job. But ultimately, head of the RCMP, members of the Fisheries Commission, etc. are all appointed by the minister in charge.
The one interesting exception IIRC is judges - as I understand it, the law society recommends people to the government (usually), and then they pick. But in my immediate experience, it still seems to be biased in favour of those who are buddies of the current government.
And finally for the OP - understand, the selection process for ministers etc. is highly political. Ministers have to come (usually) from sitting members of the legislature. Selecting someone or ignoring someone sends messages, intended or otherwise; creates factions and undercurrents. Meanwhile, how that person performs or fails as minister of their department affects the fate of the party and in a minority, can have repercussions with ongoing support.
Take a look at Israel, the poster child for minority government and why proportional representation is bad. There is not even transit running on the Sabbath; almost everything is closed… not because everyone is strictly observant, but because the swing votes in the Knesset are single-issue fundamentalist religious parties and that is one price of their confidence vote.
In the UK, ministers will have a few political special advisers of their own choosing, but staffing and research are matters for the permanent civil service. Ministers can, though, ask for particular people for their personal office, and some do move with a minister between departments, even though they are professional civil servants.
According to this list, the current PM has rather a lot of special advisers, the other ministers rather closer to what I’d imagined:
TokyoBayer, thanks for your comments on the Japanese system. I know very little about it, so find your comments interesting.
In the UK the “party stalwart” can usually be bribed/consoled by elevation to the Lords 
Why do you think we have a Senate in Canada? 
There isn’t that option in Australia.
The prime “retired upstairs” options are ambassadorial roles … High Commission to London, Ireland and the Holy See, more recently the US ambassadorship.
Can’t even off them knighthoods as a sop.
In the UK, ambassadors are not usually party political appointees, and will not expect to be recalled at a change of administration. Politicians and diplomats are not usually interchangeable here (with occasional exceptions - Duff Cooper got the Paris embassy towards the end of the war, and was asked to stay on by the Atlee government)
Halifax to the US too, but usually it’s professional diplomats.
This is a significant difference from the US system.
Here, people can only serve in one position, so if an elected official is appointed to a head a Cabinet department, they have to resign their elected position. (Then there is either an appointment or a special election for that position. Which can have unexpected results. Recently, Trump appointed the Alabama Senator to the cabinet. Alabama had been a safe Republican area, so they expected to hold the seat. But they nominated a repulsive candidate, who lost to a Democrat.)
I have some questions on how it works in a Westminster system.
- Does the MP appointed to a Cabinet Ministry get 2 salaries?
- Aren’t most of those Cabinet Ministries full-time jobs? How can a person do that and also do the MP work for their constituents?
- In particular, how can they be present in Parliament to cast their vote if they are also busy running a Cabinet department? Seems like this could be real important, if their party has only a very slight majority.
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In Canada, the Ministers get a top-up in addition to their salaries as MPs. I assume it’s the same for the British ministers.
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Juggling and delegation. When the House is sitting, the Cabinet members are expected to be there each day at Question Period, in
case the Opposition asks a question about their ministry. There’s no advance notice of a question. The Minister has about 10 seconds from the end of the question to be on his/her feet, answering it. Thinking in your feet is a prerequisite for a Minister in the Westminster system. Then, they also have to go to committees that are examining bills that they have introduced. And, they have to be carrying out meetings about the operation of their ministry, with external contacts and also their ministry officials. And they have to be in their constituency on a regular basis, meeting with constituents, other levels of government, local organisations, and the occasional funeral of a local notable. It is a heavy load. -
Scheduling. The House Business Leader for the Government party is the Member whose job it is to make sure all the members are in their seats for key votes. That’s done with the cooperation of the House Business Leader for the Official Opposition. Some votes are routine and both sides know that they just have to have a skeleton group in for those votes. Other key votes may require all members present. Some parliaments also have “pairing” - a gouvernement MP is paired with an Opposition MP, and if either of them can’t be in the House for a vote, it’s understood that the paired MP won’t be either, so both sides can function.
The Australian Federal parliament sits for about 70 days per year, usually in fortnightly blocks. Elsewise they are in their constituencies, working in committees or delegations etc. Their constituency office will handle a large proportion of local enquiries. MPs will have a parliamentary office of varying scale depending on responsibilities. Australian MPs don’t usually have "surgeries"as the UK do but it isn’t hard to get a couple of minutes to speak with them on appointment.
A Cabinet Minister oversees their department, focusing on policy and politics and briefing notes. The nuts & bolts get done by the departmental operatives. If their department was overly time consuming they wouldn’t be able to spend so much time on the machiavellian stuff.
In Japan, the real work of deciding policies and such are made by career bureaucrats. Within each ministry there are a select few who are placed on what is called an “escalator course” and put into management track. (I know, am friends with or have met several of these while they were still young.)
It’s from these people that the vice ministers are selected. These vice ministers remain even after a change in government.
In many ways a cabinet / ministerial position is almost ceremonial. OK, not that bad, but certainly Japanese members of cabinet have much less power than their counterparts and other countries.
The ministers are highly dependent on the vice ministers for running the various ministries. The Bureaucrats even write the answers to the questions that the ministers must answer in Parliament. The question and answer sessions are pretty much a dog and pony show, with the bureaucracy also supplying the questions.
One of the PM’s important responsibilities is to award cabinet positions to leaders of the various factions within the ruling party.
“He” (until we see a female PM, if we ever see one) then needs to shuffle the cabinet regularly (every six months to a year or two) in order to maximize the number of ministers so they can be called “former minister” when they die.
A regular complaint in the West is that the key Japanese ministers are constantly being changed so a Secretary of State or Foreign Minister of other G7 countries will have to get to know several Japanese counterparts during a typical term for most G7 leaders.
Something not to obvious to most people outside Japan is that the factions in Japanese political parties are not based on political stances as would be assumed. (In contrast to the US, for example, which has the Freedom Caucus, Representatives united by a shared belief in ultra conservative politics.)
Rather, the factions are formal groups
In which newly elected Diet members officially join. They almost always remain in the group they joined, which helps them raise money and get re-elected.
Within the larger factions are smaller informal groups following key lieutenants of the faction leader.
In Japanese society in general, not limited to political parties, there is a much stronger older/younger, boss/subordinate, senior/junior relationship rather than between peers.
When the leader of a large faction dies (or is forced out by a particularly bad scandal) the faction tends to split into new formal factions comprising these smaller groups rather than unite around the new leader.
An interesting read on the faction politics can be seen in the wiki article on the “Shadow Shogun”, Ichiro Ozawa. Ozawa’s departure from the powerful Takeshita faction in 1993 upon the death of Kanemaru and after Ozawa lost the leadership race to Obuchi. The subsequent founding of a new political party by Ozawa and others cost the LDP their first postwar defeat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichir_Ozawa
(You can also see that he was appointed to various cabinet positions for six to nine months.)
Most of the political parties are founded by former members of the LDP, and there isn’t much difference in the fundamental political philosophies.
Japan had a long-term opposition party in the Socialists, who had a long-term opposition to the Self Defense Forces, until they became the leading party in the coalition government in 1994-1996. The PM Murayama promptly made a 180 turn and reversed course on all of their policies.
Powerful career bureaucrats are a feature of the Westminister system as well. It’s the Americans,with their rather weak civil service which is an outlier.
Interesting.
I am reminded of the Yes, Minister quote (S02E05 The Devil You Know)
So who is in charge of the Japanese government? The PM or the mandarins? (apologies for any cross-cultural faux pas)
It varies by location, of course.
In most of Spain: any parties which do not specifically hate each other’s guts will try to form a coalition, which involves splitting who names which “Minister”. The President has to be a MP; Ministers do not (Spain’s current Government includes several non-MP Ministers, including “Interior”, “Healthcare” and “Science”). These get different names depending on whether we’re talking national or regional, and which region. The exact number and names of the Ministries vary but not that much. Any party can propose a candidate for President, which will get voted on: if the vote pases, they form a Government. If enough time passes without a Government being formed, new elections must be held.
In Navarre there’s a twist in that if enough time passes, the President becomes the person proposed by the party with the most votes; in your example, Labour.
In both cases, being part of a government doesn’t necessarily mean that all the MPs belonging to the government’s party or parties will vote For a bill proposed by the government: there may be a bill that one of those parties decide they’re against, and there’s parties which do not have “vote discipline”. In these, MPs are supposed to vote their own way; the party’s decisions are guidelines, not orders.
Also, even if a government expects to have a majority of the votes for a bill, they may still try to negotiate for a larger majority; this is generally considered to make those bills more “stable” than if they’ve been rammed through, because a party which voted for a bill is less likely to come up with a revision next time they’re in power.
When a government is in the minority, they need to look for partners for different votes. While seen from outside this may seem like a pain in the arse, people know which side of issues other parties are on (or mainly on): you wouldn’t even try to get the Greens’ vote for a bill allowing drilling in a National Park.
Yes. You are right, of course. Brilliant observation.
The answer of course is a resounding and unqualified “it depends.”
Some PM and even ministers have been able to leave their marks while others have simply made it without any apparent purpose.
Understanding former PM Tanaka (of the Lockheed scandal) and his faction, which became the Takeshita faction is important to understanding Japanese politics in the 80s and 90s, when I first lived in Japan. What I would have given to have had google back then. Ozawa was a key player in the Tanaka/Takeshita faction.
Here is a short article giving the basics of Tanaka and his faction.
https://wiki.nus.edu.sg/display/JPE2012/Tanaka+Kakuei+the+Shadow+Shogun
Some important other facts include that the Tanaka faction was synonymous with the Construction Ministry, and not only did Tanaka and his supports become rich by acquiring land to be developed, they also enriched themselves through old fashion bribery.
An absolute insane percentage of Japan’s GNP was funneled through five construction companies. I worked for a subcontractor to one of the Big Five in the early 90s supplying translation services for the hopelessly corrupt ODA. (In my defense, I wasn’t aware of it at the time.)
Tanaka and his faction members managed to be named as Construction Ministers for many years and were part of the “Construction Tribe,” Diet members close to the Construction Ministry. A number of this powerful group had blood or marriage ties to the Big Five.
One thing that does not derive from constitutions and varies through countries and time but is also critical to forming a government is the strength of the party system. Its very strong in Australia, although a bit wobbly at the margins. Generally if you were a member of a party you were expected to follow the directives, either set by annual or major congresses, official policy or agreed positions brokered by the party room.
In you had a fundamental problem, say believing the opposite to the party line on abortion, climate change or same-sex marriage the expectation was that you remained to influence from within, and until then you shut up. If it came to a vote, that was a good time to be out doing a school visit so your vote against/abstention was not a risk. Only a few testosterone-filled loons ever crossed the floor and got away from it [Barnaby Joyce, who is a train-wreck in a large hat can do it, but he’s not a normal person].
From an Australian perspective the smoky insubstantiality of what it mean to be a Republican or Democrat and the lack of boundedness that imposes on you in the US system seems bizarre, but I’m the sure the perspective looking to Australia’s party system or to Britain [but not right now, where both the Tories and Labour seem to be imploding] must be like the Midwich Cuckoos.
Westminster has a longstanding convention that on “conscience” issues - where there may be religious views cutting across party lines - there are “free votes”, or indeed it’s not dealt with as a government bill, but as a private member’s bill. That’s how law reforms on abortion and homosexuality got through in the 60s. More recently, things like changes to gambling law and same-sex marriage went through as government business, but there was some latitude given to conscientious objectors.