There are considered to be three great offices of state, besides the office of the prime minister: the foreign secretary, the home secretary and the chancellor of the exchequer. Therefore, you might conclude that these should be the path to the top job.
The home secretary’s job is generally seen as a political graveyard given the number of potential issues that can occur to damage any home secretary’s reputation. Dr John Reid famously said 16 years ago that the Home Office is not fit for purpose. Many commentators would agree with this, making it a difficult, but not impossible (Theresa May), launching pad for becoming prime minister.
Likewise, the position of the foreign secretary has been devalued in two ways. First, Britain’s power has decreased in the last century so has the prestige of being the foreign secretary. Second, prime ministers tend to do quite a lot of the diplomatic work that used to be done by the foreign secretary. A good example of this was the prime minister travelling to Sweden and Finland to sign the new defence cooperation agreements.
Therefore, that leaves only the chancellor of the exchequer, where the responsibility of managing the economy would appear to be a good stepping-stone to becoming prime minister. However, this has become rarer, and this article seeks to explain why. The last three prime ministers – Johnson, May and Cameron – were not chancellors of the exchequer. Brown was chancellor but two of his three predecessors – Blair and Thatcher – never held that office or shadowed it. So, in the last 43 years, only two chancellors have made the jump to prime minister: John Major and Gordon Brown. The travails that they had when they became PM, along with the current position of Rishi Sunak may explain why this is the case.
The job of chancellor is generally seen as the number two in the government, irrespective of whether another person occupies the titular position of deputy prime minister. Quite often it is compared to the relationship between the chairman of the company being the prime minister and the chancellor being the CEO. Indeed, in Tony Blair’s ten years, Gordon Brown was seen as equally influential in domestic affairs as the PM.
I believe this points to part of the problem for chancellors of the exchequer. If they get too close to the prime minister, then like George Osborne, they become tarnished when the PM is out of favour and the political parties look for a ‘clean break’. If, however, chancellors fall out with prime ministers, like Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, then their careers tend to be cut short by the prime minister.
It is fair to say that most chancellors, of whichever political colour, tend to be seen as substantial people intellectually in their own right. But perhaps, the position itself creates obstacles to that final step to being PM. First of all, the Treasury is normally in the position of opposing each department’s bid for more spending. Generally, we should be grateful for this because if every department got their spending requests granted then the country would be bankrupt. However, it does not improve the chancellor’s standing with his colleagues and undoubtedly leads to political tensions which may create barriers when the post of prime minister becomes vacant.
Two chancellors definitely fell into this category: Denis Healey and Roy Jenkins. Roy Jenkins achieved the rare distinction for a Labour chancellor of actually running a budget surplus. However, the tight fiscal position was considered by a number of Labour politicians to contribute to their surprise defeat in 1970. Denis Healey, Labour chancellor from 1974 to 1979, was characteristically robust in dealing with public spending measures and there is a whole litany of quotes designed to unsettle opponents from his own party.
It is perhaps no surprise that Denis Healey lost out in the electoral race for prime minister in 1976, leader of the Labour Party in 1980, and indeed only just won the deputy leadership against Tony Benn in 1981.
Books have been written about the ‘nearly men’, and they were almost all men, who never made it to prime minister. They include substantial numbers of ex-chancellors from R A Butler onwards. Although the chancellor oversees the most powerful department in Whitehall, the Treasury, there are two other obstacles to his advancement. The first is that recessions normally happen, according to the economic cycle, approximately every ten years. If you are in charge of the public finances and the economy at the time when a recession strikes, it is difficult to maintain one’s popularity.
Secondly, although it may be necessary at some points to increase taxes, no chancellor can expect to be thanked for necessary fiscal adjustments. Norman Lamont famously said that his tax cutting Budget before the 1992 election was not a particularly sound one, but it did help the Conservatives win a surprise election victory. However, his 1993 Budget, which he felt helped create the foundations of the recovery, cost him his job because of its unpopularity.
There are considered to be three great offices of state, besides the office of the prime minister: the foreign secretary, the home secretary and the chancellor of the exchequer. Therefore, you might conclude that these should be the path to the top job.
The home secretary’s job is generally seen as a political graveyard given the number of potential issues that can occur to damage any home secretary’s reputation. Dr John Reid famously said 16 years ago that the Home Office is not fit for purpose. Many commentators would agree with this, making it a difficult, but not impossible (Theresa May), launching pad for becoming prime minister.
Likewise, the position of the foreign secretary has been devalued in two ways. First, Britain’s power has decreased in the last century so has the prestige of being the foreign secretary. Second, prime ministers tend to do quite a lot of the diplomatic work that used to be done by the foreign secretary. A good example of this was the prime minister travelling to Sweden and Finland to sign the new defence cooperation agreements.
Therefore, that leaves only the chancellor of the exchequer, where the responsibility of managing the economy would appear to be a good stepping-stone to becoming prime minister. However, this has become rarer, and this article seeks to explain why. The last three prime ministers – Johnson, May and Cameron – were not chancellors of the exchequer. Brown was chancellor but two of his three predecessors – Blair and Thatcher – never held that office or shadowed it. So, in the last 43 years, only two chancellors have made the jump to prime minister: John Major and Gordon Brown. The travails that they had when they became PM, along with the current position of Rishi Sunak may explain why this is the case.
The job of chancellor is generally seen as the number two in the government, irrespective of whether another person occupies the titular position of deputy prime minister. Quite often it is compared to the relationship between the chairman of the company being the prime minister and the chancellor being the CEO. Indeed, in Tony Blair’s ten years, Gordon Brown was seen as equally influential in domestic affairs as the PM.
I believe this points to part of the problem for chancellors of the exchequer. If they get too close to the prime minister, then like George Osborne, they become tarnished when the PM is out of favour and the political parties look for a ‘clean break’. If, however, chancellors fall out with prime ministers, like Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, then their careers tend to be cut short by the prime minister.
It is fair to say that most chancellors, of whichever political colour, tend to be seen as substantial people intellectually in their own right. But perhaps, the position itself creates obstacles to that final step to being PM. First of all, the Treasury is normally in the position of opposing each department’s bid for more spending. Generally, we should be grateful for this because if every department got their spending requests granted then the country would be bankrupt. However, it does not improve the chancellor’s standing with his colleagues and undoubtedly leads to political tensions which may create barriers when the post of prime minister becomes vacant.
Two chancellors definitely fell into this category: Denis Healey and Roy Jenkins. Roy Jenkins achieved the rare distinction for a Labour chancellor of actually running a budget surplus. However, the tight fiscal position was considered by a number of Labour politicians to contribute to their surprise defeat in 1970. Denis Healey, Labour chancellor from 1974 to 1979, was characteristically robust in dealing with public spending measures and there is a whole litany of quotes designed to unsettle opponents from his own party.
It is perhaps no surprise that Denis Healey lost out in the electoral race for prime minister in 1976, leader of the Labour Party in 1980, and indeed only just won the deputy leadership against Tony Benn in 1981.
Books have been written about the ‘nearly men’, and they were almost all men, who never made it to prime minister. They include substantial numbers of ex-chancellors from R A Butler onwards. Although the chancellor oversees the most powerful department in Whitehall, the Treasury, there are two other obstacles to his advancement. The first is that recessions normally happen, according to the economic cycle, approximately every ten years. If you are in charge of the public finances and the economy at the time when a recession strikes, it is difficult to maintain one’s popularity.
Secondly, although it may be necessary at some points to increase taxes, no chancellor can expect to be thanked for necessary fiscal adjustments. Norman Lamont famously said that his tax cutting Budget before the 1992 election was not a particularly sound one, but it did help the Conservatives win a surprise election victory. However, his 1993 Budget, which he felt helped create the foundations of the recovery, cost him his job because of its unpopularity.
