Should Prime Ministers be limited to eight years in office?

I pose the question because the suggestion has been raised by former Prime Minister John Major in a forthcoming interview for Radio 4.   According to The Guardian Mr Major will say:

"I think we have seen examples of politicians carrying on too long.  I personally believe - although I'm not quite sure how you enshrine it - that the American system of somebody serving only eight years is very sound.  If you look historically at prime ministers who have served beyond eight years, it has usually been downhill once the eight-year mark has been passed.  So I think as a self-denying ordinance, leaving after eight years is a very smart piece of politics."

Mr Major may be right that most Prime Ministers and Presidents would be best advised to go after eight or so years but, as he hints, it is difficult to legislate for term limits.  It is easy for politicians to become lame ducks when everyone knows that they are 'on the way out'.  Tony Blair has lost much of his authority because the whole of his government is now looking to his successor for future direction and patronage.  Surely it is for voters to decide whether a political leader has run out of steam or not?

Comments

[TomTom]

No !

[Andrew Woodman]

I would have concerns. The entire second term would have a feeling of lame duck about it with successor speculation.

Mind you, what would change with that?

[James Maskell]

Do I detect a hint that he was annoyed not to acheive 8 years? Its up to the electorate who runs the country. I think we should trust the electorate on that.

[Jon Gale]

I agree with the idea of eight-years then its downhill, but the Prime Minister is merely the man who has the confidence of a majority of MPs - when he loses that confidence he goes. You cant say "you must not have confidence in this man for more than 8 years"

Plus, if everyone knows when you're going and you are not going to get reelected you become a lame duck - as Blair has found out!

[Richard Hyslop]

This is a silly idea. In Great Britain we have a Monarchy so we do not have to worry in the same way the American's do. The reason the American Presidents are limited to two terms is to avoid an "elected Monarchy" taking place. It is up to the British people to say when they have had enough of a particular Prime Minister, even when that Prime Minister is Blair.

[Nicholas Slide]

If you don't have a directly-elected Prime Minister (and thankfully we do not), I don't see how you can put a limit on the time the office-holder stays. Another factor that works aginst this suggestion is that we do not have fixed term-lengths (and I'm happy about that too).

[spagbob]

although i dislike major a lot, in this i think he is finally speaking some sense. yes we should put limits on the term's of prime ministers. it works well in america.

as for the british people deciding when we get bored of a prime minister. that would be great if we really were voting for just a prime minister, but we are not, we are voting for a party. what if we like the party and their policies but not the PM? At least with limited terms we can have someone else. limited terms might also help to stop this silly "image politics" where the image of the leader is the most important factor in determining votes.

[Donal Blaney]

Someone in my office remarked that in John Major's case it went downhill after 8 hours, let alone 8 years. Ouch!

[Adrian Owens]

No!

[James Maskell]

Being a pedant and all, Id be missing a move if I didnt point out that strictly speaking there are limits on the length of a term...5 years per term. So John Major isnt even advocating a two term idea...its actually one and 3/5s terms. Of course in modern times, Prime Ministers have four year terms but by law they have five. Major being the obvious exception to that one....

[comstock]

Surely it is for voters to decide whether a political leader has run out of steam or not?

Trouble is it isn't something voters can directly vote for. For instance at the last election my choice would have been Labour with a new leader. But I had no means of accomplishing this. The only way of getting rid of Tony Blair was to vote Conservative, something I wasn't about to do! I guess millions more were in the same boat.

You vote for a local MP, and in doing so a party of which they are a member. You have no control over who leads that party-and in doing so subsequantly becomes PM.

I don't know what the answer is though, and judging by the USA the least worst thing may be to leave things as they are......

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

At least Sir John set an excellent example by doing a sterling job of limiting his term in office to seven years ;-)

[comstock]

Do I detect a hint that he was annoyed not to acheive 8 years?

No, I don't think you do. He lasted 7 years in any case. Possibly he thinks Maggie stayed on too long, but if she had gone sooner he wouldn't have been in a position to take over.

In fact how did he ever become PM? LOL

[Cllr Iain Lindley]

Term limits are fundamentally undemocratic. They are wrong in the United States and they would be wrong here too.

[Yet Another Anon]

It's not as if there have many Prime Ministers in the past 150 years who have gone much over 8 years anyway, Lord Liverpool was Prime Minister for 17 years, William Gladstone was Prime Minister for about 13 years in all but split into 4 seperate bits, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister for 11.5 years and Tony Blair so far has been Prime Minister for 9 years 1 month and probably has another just under 2.5 years to go, Winston Churchill PM for 9 years, Harold Wilson was only PM for 8 years in total.

Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher just went through an unpopular spell which probably had more effect on their party than the country in general, Margaret Thatcher almost certainly would have lead the Conservative Party to victory in 1991 or 1992; Winston Churchill is often cited as an example but his problem was just that he was unwell by then and probably would have been anyway, John Smith just as much had problems as Leader of the Opposition because of health problems and maybe that is an argument for Health Checks for Prime Ministers rather than fixed limits on the amount of time they can be in office, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton could easily serve a couple more terms if they were allowed to and from a health and psychiatric perspective would be perfectly up to the job but are barred by a limit set after Franklin Dwight Roosevelt died, maybe John F. Kennedy was never really fit to serve.

[Yet Another Anon]

Where there are limits in the US on number of successive terms as governor what usually happens is that husbands and wives alternate as the candidate - I'm not quite sure if that actually results in any real difference than what otherwise would happen?

Maybe if there was some kind of system where people could formally limit for themselves how long they would serve in a particular office and register this publicly so that the public could choose to vote for someone for a limited term if the candidate chose to offer it and the rules said that if so registered it was required to be carried out? This could then be any length the candidate chose to register it as but the details would be known.

[Yet Another Anon]

He lasted 7 years in any case
6.5 years - November 1990 - May 1997.

[Yet Another Anon]

Prime Ministers have four year terms but by law they have five.
British Prime Ministers don't have terms, they are made Prime Minister until they leave the office whenever that is and whether because they have been replaced by the monarch or resigned or dropped dead, parliament has terms (although even these can be extended - for example if an election was going to be held at the end of 5 years but for some reason it was decided to delay it, usually when this has happened it has been due to a war or some other national emergency, then what happens is that the Parliament Act is no longer applicable until after there are fresh elections and a new House of Commons) - it isn't like a French or US President who are elected with a fixed date limit, if for example after the 2000 US Presidential election there had been no decision regarding the Florida result then there would have been no President when it came around to the end of Bill Clinton's term, on the other hand if there had been a Hung Parliament in 2005 and it was clear that Tony Blair could not form an administration with majority support but the incumbents were remaining in place until and if Michael Howard could form one then so long as they chose to remain there and no moves were made to remove them the ministers and Prime Minister would remain in office as they were until the Royal Perogative was used to change who was in place.

[comstock]

Term limits are fundamentally undemocratic. They are wrong in the United States and they would be wrong here too

Yes I think you are right. But the alternative (apart from the status quo) might be too convoluted.

1) Voter registration- unlike now you'd nominate a party when registring
2) Local primary- choose your party's candidate to be the local MP
3) National primary- choose your party's leader for the next four years
4) General election- as now. You could back another party if you didn't like the winner of your primaries. No need for a separate election for PM- the leader of the winning party would automatically become PM as now

Incubaments would be allowed to enter stages 2 or 3 as many times as they liked, but the electorate would have the power to remove them if they saw fit, without needing to change party alliegence.

It would mean the votes of people in Huntingdon or Bootle would really count without introducing the PR system (with it's spectre of endless hung parliament)

But we have enough trouble getting folks to vote once, never mind three times!!!

[Yet Another Anon]

The reason the American Presidents are limited to two terms is to avoid an "elected Monarchy" taking place. It is up to the British people to say when they have had enough of a particular Prime Minister, even when that Prime Minister is Blair.
What is elected in the US Presidential elections is an Electoral College, not a President as such, the Electoral College then sends it's recommendation to the Senate, as President of the Senate the sitting Vice-President then opens the recommendation and reads it out to the Senate, the Senate then votes on who should be President and Vice-President and for example in 2000 they could have decided to retain Al Gore as Vice-President or to make John McCain President or any number of alternatives and the same with every election although it is exceptional for the Senate to choose someone as President who was not the nominee of the party with most representation in the Electoral College although it is more common for them to choose someone other than the person recommended for Vice-President.

In fact the limit is on 2 terms in their own right for US Presidents, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson were perfectly entitled to run for a 2nd Full Term as President despite taking over on the death of their predecessor originally having been Vice-President but chose not to, so far as I am aware there are no limits on the number of terms anyone can serve as Vice-President.

[Cllr Iain Lindley]

Margaret Thatcher almost certainly would have lead the Conservative Party to victory in 1991 or 1992

This is one of the more baffling views I find in the Conservative Party. I can understand how people say it would have been better for the Party (as opposed to the Country!) for Thatcher to have fought on and lost in 1992, but I've yet to see any compelling evidence that she would have pulled a rabbit out of a hat...

[DavidB]

It would be a disaster. Second terms in the USA are all downhill - once they know the high water mark has passed, power just evaporates. Same with Blair - they know he won't fight the next election, so he is a lame duck.

[Graeme Archer]

NO! No truck with anything to do with a written constitution. Parliament is sovereign! (William N always explains how I get this wrong but I cling to it as one of my core Tory beliefs).

[Graeme Archer]

Actually 6 weeks of a term limit on poor Sir John's government might have been a blessing.

[Yet Another Anon]

I rather think she would have made more out of the 1991 Iraq War apart from anything else and have come through with a stronger majority, there wasn't the sudden shift back in support to the Conservative Party that it had been made out that there had been, what happened was that there was a continuing trend of support going back that there had begun in 1990 and a Liberal Democrat revival took support off the Labour Party.

[Bishop Hill]

It's a mistake to reject term limits on the grounds that they are "undemocratic". All the best constitutions have very undemocratic features. We of course have an unelected second chamber. The Americans have term limits, an electoral college for President and a judiciary which can overturn the will of the democratically elected legislature.

The object of most written constitutions is to place limits on democracy - to prevent democrats from destroying individual freedoms.

Term limits are a good idea - and while we're about it let's have term limits for MPs too.

[TomTom]

The reason the American Presidents are limited to two terms is to avoid an "elected Monarchy" taking place

Not true. It was a fit of pique by a Republic Congress because Roosevelt kept winning elections.............the 22nd amendment was passed in March 1947

[TomTom]

When will we get fixed term Parliaments ?

[johnC]

'it has usually been downhill once the eight-year mark has been passed'

Pitt the Younger led the nation in the Napoleonic Wars and the victory at Trafalgar at the end of his 19 years as Prime Minister and Salisbury presided over the Pax Britannica, the Diamond Jubilee and victories in Sudan and the Boer War during the last of his 13 years. Neither went into decline; quite the reverse in fact. Major is talking nonsense as usual.

[Mark Fulford]

Whether or not a limit is a good idea, it is good work by John Major to open a new oblique attack on Tony Blair: limits are up for discussion because Tony Blair is past his.

[Richard]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Apologies for traditional conservative the cliche but I think it applies.

[Alan T]

We have term limits; some even call them elections. Yes to fixed term Parliaments though on the model being proposed in Canada by Stephen Harper! I don't think limits for PMs fits the Westminster system of government. We have mechanisms for removing PMs like confidence votes, public opinion putting pressure on the government party to choose a new PM etc. Ain't broke don't fix it!

[comstock]

The only concern about fixed term parliaments is governments with tight majorities......... what if the sitting govt looses a confidence motion, or loses it's majority as a result of by-elections, or is elected with a majority so small (Labour in 1950 for example) it is struggling to put legislation through?

[Serf]

Typically Conservative, I don't like the idea of forcing people to do things, even if I think they are a good idea.

I think that Prime Ministers would do well to serve for just two parliaments (eg. Aznar), but would hate to see a rule about it.

[Andrew]

"It was a fit of pique by a Republic Congress because Roosevelt kept winning elections............."

Absolutely. However, there is some logic behind it - occasionally there are such electorally masterful politicians they just become nearly unbeatable once in office. If Roosevelt had stayed alive, he would likely have been re-elected for a 5th term in 1948, making for 20 years as President (and given the postwar boom he'd be pretty unlikely to lose in 52). That's not healthy for the political culture of a country.

Doubt it's needed here though. You do well to get re-elected once in Britain before the electorate get sick of you....

[Burkean]

Methinks Yet Another Anon should re-read the XIIth Amendment to the US Constitution.

As for the UK, the Prime Minister holds office as long as he or she can command the confidence of government (used to be the cabinet) and/or Parliament, then the country. Mrs T left office because she lost the confidence of her government. Jim Callaghan left office because he lost the confidence of Parliament. John Major left office because he lost the confidence of the country. That suggests that long-serving PMs go on because they have a great deal of support, warranted or not. We should remember that Thatcher and Blair (and to some extent Major) have been exceptions to the rule. Most PMs have not served anything like as long.

And what would Sir John do with PMs who lose elections and are then re-elected, as has happened so many times? Are their clocks reset?

[Chris Ryder]

Given the government were landed with I'd I'd have one tomorrow and total incompetence being my main reason as here in my home town of Banbury right now we are fighting for the very survival of our local hospital from severe possible life threating cutbacks from a government that doesn't give a monkeys! and whats more thats the insulting Labour Minister virtually said to that effect in parliament to! ..but may I say a big one up to David Cameron for taking time this morning to come and see us in Banbury here today regarding this very issue!!..but to the question in hand I think governments can simply roll on to long, just like the one we have now! so maybe a fixed term would be a chance for voters like me to have the power returned to so as to be given the chance to bring about change and maybe 'self serving' politicians ( and they know who they are) then might start to wake up and realise they have responbility to serve its people properly not just sit about for year on year in there own presumed right to take a liberty at our expense ..as for this government it can expect a very cold chill blowing from this area all the way down to Whitehall very very soon so watch this space folks!

[Richard]

"but I've yet to see any compelling evidence that she would have pulled a rabbit out of a hat..."

If she was prepared to reform the poll tax she might have succeeded but I doubt she would have accepted such a U-Turn. Anyhow, she would then have had to face the disaster of Black Wednesday.

[william]

If a country wishes to vote in the same PM three times or more, let them.

If a PM keeps himself in power by large scale electoral fraud, hang him.

For a view on the correctness of the last general election result or otherwise in Britain see the report of the Office Of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw.

[Cllr Iain Lindley]

I was waiting for "we can't limit terms, Europe won't let us"... but that was close enough.

[Stephen A.]

Of course Canada's PM has just suggested regularlised, 4-year elections for parliament and term limits for PM there cannot be far off.

Speaking as an American conservative, I actually wish we could dissolve Congress and force Bush to run again at this point. Or better yet, I wish the party could simply choose another president and call new elections. Neither are possible if you lock in a leader's terms.

But, for example, if an upward limit to the number of consecutive years someone can serve as PM was set into law, it would not at all be anti-democratic, it would simply be a "check" on power, and as we've discovered on this side of the pond, occassional changes to the way our government is constituted are necessary, based upon experience.

It's only natural that Blair's situation would raise the issues raised by Major at this point.

[A H Matlock]

I've always liked Sir John think he gets a lot of unfair press, but I part company with him on this idea. In our constitutional system, the Prime Minister serves at the pleasure of the Monarch with the support of the Commons for as long as both are retained. I see no reason to deviate this on practical grounds, and then there is the very good argument raised above regarding the 'lame duck' factor.

It is absolutely right to say that it is for the electorate to dictate term limits for the Prime Minister.

[Yet Another Anon]

it is good work by John Major to open a new oblique attack on Tony Blair: limits are up for discussion because Tony Blair is past his.
In fact his pledge at the last General Election was to serve a Full Term so anything less than 3.5 years really would be a breach of an election promise.

So far as Roosevelt goes, in fact the US President is far from being all powerful and in terms of Domestic Policy is heavily reliant on Congress not vetoing his or indeed her bills and in voting money for things that he or she wants to do, George W. Bush has had it easy because Congress has stayed mainly Republican, Bill Clinton was remarkably skillfull in his final few years in doing deals with a Congress that had gone over to the Republican Party, George Bush Senior and every Republican White House before him going back to Eisenhower had had to work with Democrat dominated Congress's and this limited what they could do; in fact the legislation by Congress will have had very little to do with Roosevelt who anyway was dead in 1947 and Harry Truman was expected to lose the 1948 Presidential Election and it was a great surprise when he won a landslide victory so I doubt it will have been partisan reasons.

[Yet Another Anon]

Anyhow, she would then have had to face the disaster of Black Wednesday.
except that unlike John Major who insisted that the pound had to be propped up at the level it was inside the ERM even to the extent of spending vast amounts of Treasury money on this and pushing Interest Rates up from already high levels to absolutely crucifying ones, she would have been inclined to just pull the pound out as soon as it was clear that the system was falling apart, in fact it was John Major as Chancellor of the Exchequer who was the main proponent of the UK joining the wretched ERM in the first place and him and Douglas Hurd rather against her better judgement pushed Mrs T into signing up to it.

[Yet Another Anon]

Looking at the 22nd Amendment I gather that in fact Truman was actually exempted from it so he could have carried on running, and contrary to what I had thought to be the case under the new rules he could not have run in 1952 because he had served longer than 3 years of the term to which FDR had been elected as President, in fact ratification was delayed so as to exempt Truman who could have run in 1952 but who decided not to and it was ratified in 1951 and so the first President it applied to was The Buck Stops here Ike:
http://www.usconstitution.net/constamnotes.html#Am22

[Yet Another Anon]

The regulations for the French Presidency were similarily restricted to no more than 2 terms after General De Gaulle finished as President and I gather they have cut it from 7 years to 5 years.

[Derek]

I don't agree with John Major. I see nothing wrong with things as they are. We have far too much interference in our constitution by politicians. Leave it alone!!

[Yet Another Anon]

We have mechanisms for removing PMs like confidence votes, public opinion putting pressure on the government party to choose a new PM etc.
US Political Parties don't really have leaders as such on the whole, and there is a difference in that the British Prime Minister is not a Head of State so it is not really comparing like with like, should there be Fixed Limits on the Length of Time someone should be the Head of State?

I rather favour the Privy Council selecting the Head of State, in theory the Head of State actually could use the powers of the Royal perogative without reference to parliament - maybe if there was a 10 year limit on how long anyone could be Head of State (whether you call it President or King\Queen)?

Surely this would restore power to rather more stable longer term establishments as The Privy Council is primarily comprised of past and present ministers which surely would be more likely to maintain a continuity from decade to decade.

[wasp]

Sure the general rule is that 8 years is enough.

But figures such as FDR prove that there are exceptions worth not having a rule.

Much as it pains me last year the British people were offered a choice of 3 leaders and wanted Blair to serve for more than 8 years. That choice should be respected.

[Hmmmm]

Oh god, not this old chestnut again...always comes up when the PM you dont agree with reaches 9 years.....basically you either agree with democracy or you dont. The people decide.

[Hmmmm]

and who, pray tell, would trust the judgment of John Major Esq? easily the most useless PM of the 20th century.

[Ted]

Sorry Sir John but this reads as a not so subtle dig at Thatcher plus a dig at the guy who humiliated him in 1997 (too often when JM talks now in elder statesman mode there is a "the party & country didn't appreciate me" undertone). If he could have won in 1997 would he have gone before he could have celebrated millenium night in the Dome?

[give me a break]

Overlooking his attack on the lady who left with a 100+ majority in the House of Commons for a moment (and which he transformed for his successor into a -179 majority), his time in office seriously deteriorated after 3 years, not 8.

[Andy Stidwill]

People have schizophrenic views on this issue - they don't like prime ministers going on for a long time, but as soon as you consider having term limits, everyone then starts using the phrase 'lame duck'. You can't have it both ways.

[Yet Another Anon]

easily the most useless PM of the 20th century.
Surely the most useless must've been Edward Heath, Harold Macmillan, Herbert Asquith or David Lloyd George?

[Prodicus]

>>the Prime Minister is merely the man who has the confidence of a majority of MPs - when he loses that confidence he goes. <<

Er... does he? ;-)

Nothing that sniffs of a written constitution, please. The American founding fathers had no choice, not to mention specific objectives, and they did good job *in their circs*. The unwritten British constitution, however, has innumerable advantages over any written constitution I have ever seen. At least, it did, until this lot blessed us with the Human Rights Act (which completely altered the fine balance of Parliament, executive and judiciary) and started their other, scarily ignorant constitutional tinkerings. Either they know nothing of history (as I suspect) ... or they do, which scares the life out of me.

[John Coles]

Does John Major think that anyone takes him seriously on anything? He wrecked the Conservative party and spent his leisure time entwined with a member of his staff - he's right there in the hall of infamy with Prescott. For heaven's sake, go away, Johno.

[gingeral]

Of course it's easily overlooked by some of the posters on this site that the most votes ever gained by a political party in a General Election was by the Conservatives under John Major in 1992. He must have had something going for him!

[sjm]

'He must have had something going for him .... yeah, Kinnock.

[Richard]

"Surely the most useless must've been Edward Heath, Harold Macmillan, Herbert Asquith or David Lloyd George?"

Macmillan at least presided over a significant increase in house building due to deregulation of the housing market.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"Of course it's easily overlooked by some of the posters on this site that the most votes ever gained by a political party in a General Election was by the Conservatives under John Major in 1992. He must have had something going for him!"

It was the Sun wot won it.

[gingeral]

Kinnock may have been hopeless, but he was also 15% ahead in the polls when Thatcher went.

[Hmmmm]

Can anyone point to a single achievement of the major years apart from his betrayal in signing THAT TREATY??!!

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

The booming economy bequeathed to Labour in 1997 seems a good place to start.

[Ted]

DVA - the problem was the booming economy wasn't associated with Major in the public mind. His inaction directly after the ERM debacle together with the years of "green shoots" meant that when Clarke finally made the right decisions any recovery seemed in spite of the Government rather than because of it.

Knee jerk responses aren't sensible but recognising that an event has changed the narrative and responding strongly to that demonstrates leadership. Thatcher had the Falklands and her response there gave credence to the economic changes she had made previously that were incredibly unpopular (our poll ratings dire a year or so after election) Major showed his lack of flexibility and leadership and that undermined the many good things thenceforth.

[TomTom]

Can anyone point to a single achievement of the major years apart from his betrayal in signing THAT TREATY??!!

Well he returned the Stone of Scone to Scotland which means any future King has to be crowned separately in Scotland.

He turned Polytechnics into Universities and made tuition fees inevitable

He wasted billions on BSE so Labour had to waste billions on Foot & Mouth to show they could trump him

He brought Jonathan Aitken into cabinet so he could peddle weapons to Saudis.

He played Mr Morality and fornicated with Edwina

All in all a typically disastrous Prime Minister and scion of the political classes

[malcolm]

Major had an essential decency about him which is all too rare in politics.Of course he made mistakes just as Mrs Thatcher did but I can think of noone else would have won the 1992 election,whether that was a good thing or not is a moot point.

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

The Gulf War?

The Welsh Language Act?

Saving our country from Prime Minister Kinnock (technically my boss so I'll refrain from further comment on that one...)?

[Jim]

"it has usually been downhill once the eight-year mark has been passed"... Anyone in mind apart from Tony Blair, John?