A ‘view from the foothills’ for junior ministers?
Professor Kevin Theakston argues that ‘Junior ministers during the New Labour years tended to enjoy more than just a ‘view from the foothills’
Professor Kevin Theakston, specialist in British government and politics, along with Dr Judi Atkins and Mark Gill, question the assertion made by Labour MP Chris Mullin that junior ministers enjoy only a ‘view from the foothills’.
The article entitled, ‘Junior ministers during the New Labour years tended to enjoy more than just a ‘view from the foothills’, argues that complaints claiming that junior ministers endure ‘low-level drudgery, complete lack of influence, and absence of team working’ are false. This piece has been co-authored with external contributor Mark Gill.
The authors go on to analyse the average tenure of junior ministerial posts and the percentage of those that go on to reach positions in the Cabinet. They conclude that Mullin’s diaries give a ‘colourful but misleading impression of the experience of junior ministers in the Labour government’.
