Cabinet: Directorate or Directory?
The Reith Lectures
BBC
4.2 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 16 November 1983
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In his second Reith Lecture entitled 'Cabinet: Directorate or Directory?', Sir Douglas Wass dissects the composition of the British Parliamentary Cabinet to answer the questions; how well does it do its job? And could it be more effective?
Sir Wass analyses that the British Cabinet is filled with high ranking parliamentary ministers who very rarely function as a collective group. He claims this is because each have their own proposals that they wish to promote and so they work as a group of individuals rather than a community of decision makers with a collective responsibility. He explains how this often can lead to stagnation and an abstraction of policy that cannot be put into practice. How can we increase cohesion in the Cabinet?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC Reith Lectures. |
| 0:04.1 | This lecture in the series Government and the Governed, given by Douglas Was, was originally |
| 0:09.4 | broadcast in 1983. |
| 0:11.8 | Anyone who's had the privilege of mingling with the Assembly of Cabinet Ministers, as they |
| 0:15.5 | wait outside the Cabinet Room at No. 10, could be forgiven for mistaking it for the preliminary |
| 0:20.3 | to a Sunday school |
| 0:21.2 | outing. These 20 or so men and women bear with equanimity, even light-heartedness, the formidable |
| 0:27.7 | task which lies ahead, the resolution of weighty issues which will affect, perhaps change the |
| 0:33.4 | lives of their fellow citizens. But once cabinet begins, it's quite different. |
| 0:39.1 | Or at least it's said to be quite different, because I'm speaking from hearsay, |
| 0:43.2 | as I've never assisted my minister at a cabinet meeting. |
| 0:46.4 | The highest organ of executive government meets very privately, usually once a week, for two or three hours. |
| 0:53.9 | A summary of its discussion is circulated the day after the meeting, |
| 0:57.6 | and Whitehall, that part of it which is now allowed to see the record, |
| 1:01.5 | eagerly scrutinises its marching orders. |
| 1:05.1 | But the term marching orders is a misnomer. |
| 1:08.9 | Cabinet does not behave like a high command |
| 1:10.8 | issuing orders to its field officers. |
| 1:13.7 | And Cabinet Minutes |
| 1:14.6 | rarely tell the reader what the strategy of the government is, |
| 1:18.2 | still less how the strategy is to be prosecuted. |
| 1:21.6 | Military men who go into politics |
... |
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