January 31, 2023

Recent Gyrations of the Prime Minister’s Office in Historical Perspective | Hoover Institution

16 minutes

A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Jon Davis.

Jon Davis puts the recent gyrations in the prime minister’s office in historical perspective, analyzing how various prime ministers since the postwar era have exercised authority. Rather than being entirely autocratic or collective in style, prime ministers continuously adjust their decision-making approach within their cabinets. This framework helps shine a light on the dysfunction that plagued successive British governments after the 2016 Brexit referendum, and that dysfunction's acceleration following the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Jon Davis is Director of the Strand Group at King's College London. Before joining King’s, Prof. Davis spent a total of eighteen years at Queen Mary, University of London, and rose to be Director of the Mile End Group (2004-2014), overseeing more than 100 increasingly high-profile events over more than a decade. Major project partnerships included those with No. 10 Downing Street and the Treasury. Davis worked for five years in investment banking at JP Morgan, Banque Paribas and Hambros Bank, and spent the year 2000 in the Modernising Government Secretariat of the Cabinet Office.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

The Hoover History Working Group aims to conduct and disseminate historical research on issues of national and international concern, and provide concrete recommendations on the basis of research and discussion.

Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group

The mission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives is to collect, preserve, and make available the most important materials about global political, social, and economic change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We serve as a platform for a vibrant community of scholars and a broad public interested in the meaning and role of history.

...more