The exam board rotates which topic gets the Section A source question each year. PM and Cabinet has not been a source question since 2022. Four years is a long time for one topic to wait, so it is overdue.
Three recent events make a question on PMs and Cabinet very likely this summer. First, Liz Truss tried to run the country through a small group of advisers in September 2022 and was forced out within 49 days. Second, Keir Starmer's chief of staff Sue Gray was pushed out of No 10 in October 2024 by a rival group of advisers, not by the Cabinet. Third, the 2025 examiner report said the best answers used recent named examples rather than general theory. All three of these point to a question on this topic in Summer 2026.
This is a Section A source question worth 30 marks. Marks are split roughly equally between three things: AO1 (your knowledge of how PM and Cabinet work), AO2 (analysis of what the SOURCE actually says, not just what you know), and AO3 (your judgement, where you pick a side and stick to it).
The source you get on the day will be similar in structure to this. It will contain TWO views: one that agrees with the question's claim, and one that disagrees with it. Your job is to compare and contrast the two views, debate them in a balanced way, and reach your own judgement using only the information in the source.
Cabinet government has become a small part of how Britain is now run. Real decisions are made by around twenty advisers in the No 10 political operation. Sue Gray's removal as Keir Starmer's chief of staff in October 2024 was not decided by the Cabinet. It was decided by a group of advisers inside Downing Street loyal to Morgan McSweeney. The Truss mini-budget of September 2022 was written by a small circle around Kwasi Kwarteng and not even discussed in Cabinet before it was announced. Boris Johnson governed for a year through Dominic Cummings, who in February 2020 forced the Chancellor Sajid Javid out of office. The number of Special Advisers across government has grown from around twenty in the 1990s to over a hundred today. Government has shifted into the unelected machinery of No 10.
The 2022 collapse of Liz Truss showed the limits of inner-circle government. Her mini-budget bypassed the Treasury and the Cabinet, but within forty-nine days the parliamentary Conservative Party had effectively imposed Jeremy Hunt as Chancellor and forced her resignation. Theresa May's Brexit Cabinet repeatedly forced her to retreat: David Davis and Boris Johnson resigned over Chequers in July 2018. Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid walked out of Boris Johnson's government on 5 July 2022 and over fifty ministers and aides followed within forty-eight hours, ending his premiership. Suella Braverman's open rebellion against Sunak in November 2023 forced a harder Rwanda Bill. The Cabinet keeps the option of mass resignation, and recent history shows it uses it.
This side argues that the modern Prime Minister relies on a small group of unelected advisers inside Downing Street to do most of the work the Cabinet used to do. The evidence falls into five areas: the size of the Cabinet Office, the rise of Special Advisers, the No 10 communications operation, the No 10 Policy Unit, and named cases where advisers have overridden Cabinet ministers.
The Cabinet Office is the central department that supports the Prime Minister. It includes No 10, the Cabinet Office Secretariat, the National Security Council secretariat, the Government Communication Service, the COBR emergency-response system and the Joint Intelligence Organisation. It has grown from around 1,500 staff in the 1970s to about 10,000 today. That is a sevenfold increase. Most of those staff serve the PM directly or feed information up to the PM. The Cabinet Office now has more staff than several full government departments. The Treasury employs around 2,000. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport employs around 1,300. So the machinery serving the PM is bigger than the machinery serving most Cabinet ministers. This is the clearest structural sign that the centre of government has shifted into Downing Street.
The number of SPADs across government has grown from around twenty in the John Major era of the 1990s to over a hundred today. SPADs are political appointees who work inside No 10 and the major departments. They are not elected and they are not civil servants. They write policy, manage the press and brief ministers. Sue Gray's appointment as Keir Starmer's chief of staff in 2024 was treated by newspapers as the most important political appointment of the new government. Cabinet appointments did not get the same attention.
Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's Director of Communications from 1997 to 2003, invented a planning tool called "the Grid". The Grid is a daily and weekly chart of every government announcement, ministerial visit and media moment, all coordinated by No 10. Departments are told what they can announce and when. The point is to stop different ministers stepping on each other's stories and to make sure the government's overall message dominates the news. Every Prime Minister since Blair has kept the Grid. Andy Coulson ran it under David Cameron. Lee Cain ran it under Boris Johnson. James Lyons handles it under Starmer. Cabinet ministers cannot announce policy without going through the Grid first. This is direct No 10 control over what each Cabinet member can say and when.
The Policy Unit is a small group of advisers based in No 10 who write policy directly for the Prime Minister. It was founded by Harold Wilson in 1974 and run by Bernard Donoughue. Every Prime Minister since has kept it, and several major policies have come out of the Unit rather than out of Cabinet committees:
If major policy is consistently written by the Policy Unit and not by Cabinet committees, the inner-circle case is structural rather than personal. It does not depend on having a Cummings or a McSweeney. It is the way modern government runs.
Keir Starmer appointed Jonathan Powell as his National Security Adviser in November 2024. Powell was originally Tony Blair's chief of staff from 1997 to 2007 and one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. As NSA he runs UK foreign policy day-to-day from inside No 10. He was the lead negotiator on the Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius and runs Starmer's response to Donald Trump and the war in Ukraine. The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, is the public face of foreign policy, but Powell handles the meetings and the strategy. This is a clear example of an unelected adviser running an entire policy area that is supposed to be the Foreign Secretary's job.
From November 2019 to November 2020 Dominic Cummings ran No 10. He had no elected position. He worked with Lee Cain on communications and Munira Mirza on policy. In February 2020 Cummings demanded that the Chancellor, Sajid Javid, sack his own advisers and merge them with Cummings's team. Javid refused and resigned. The Chancellor was forced out by an unelected adviser. This is the single clearest example of an inner circle overruling a Cabinet minister.
On 23 September 2022 Kwasi Kwarteng delivered a mini-budget worth 45 billion pounds in tax cuts. It was written by Kwarteng with a small group of free-market advisers from Tufton Street think tanks. It was not discussed in Cabinet. The Office for Budget Responsibility was not asked to forecast its effects. Cabinet ministers heard the detail at the same time as MPs in the Commons. The fact that Truss could attempt this at all shows how little Cabinet was involved in the biggest fiscal decision of her premiership.
Sue Gray was forced out of No 10 in October 2024. The decision was made by a group of advisers loyal to Morgan McSweeney inside Downing Street. The Cabinet was not asked. The Cabinet did not vote on it. The most important personnel change of the early Starmer government happened entirely between advisers. The same pattern is visible under Rishi Sunak, where his chief of staff Liam Booth-Smith ran more day-to-day government than several Cabinet ministers.
| Case | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Truss mini-budget Sep 2022 | Major fiscal package drafted in inner circle, not discussed in Cabinet |
| Cummings era 2019-2020 | SPAD ran government; forced out a Cabinet minister (Javid) |
| Sue Gray ousting Oct 2024 | Power struggle settled inside No 10, not at Cabinet |
| SPAD numbers 2024 | Over a hundred Special Advisers vs around twenty in 1990s |
This side argues that inner circles can win short-term battles, but lose the moment the Cabinet decides to act together. Every Prime Minister forced out in the last ten years was forced out by Cabinet ministers, not by advisers. There are five pieces of evidence.
The same Truss case the other side uses can be turned around. Yes, the mini-budget was written without the Cabinet. But the result was the shortest time in office of any modern Prime Minister: 49 days. Markets, MPs and Cabinet ministers reversed every major measure within three weeks. Jeremy Hunt was effectively imposed on Truss as Chancellor by the parliamentary Conservative Party, not chosen by her. Cabinet ministers either resigned or refused to defend her. An inner circle cannot survive a Cabinet revolt.
On 5 July 2022 Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid resigned from Cabinet within minutes of each other. Over the next 48 hours more than fifty ministers and aides followed. Johnson resigned within two days. No amount of support from his inner circle could save him because the Cabinet had withdrawn its support. This is what the source means by the option of mass resignation.
Theresa May's premiership is the clearest example of Cabinet constraint. The Cabinet repeatedly forced her to soften her Brexit position. David Davis and Boris Johnson resigned in July 2018 over the Chequers plan. Cabinet ministers leaked private discussions and pushed her into concessions. May could not deliver her own deal because the Cabinet would not let her.
In November 2023 Suella Braverman wrote a public letter as Home Secretary accusing Sunak of breaking his Rwanda promises. Sunak sacked her, but the Rwanda Bill that followed was much harder than the version she had attacked. A Cabinet minister with her own political following forced Sunak to change policy.
Cabinet ministers including Liz Kendall and Bridget Phillipson pushed back against the deepest version of welfare cuts in spring 2025. The government dropped the most controversial parts. A backbench rebellion in Parliament mattered too, but Cabinet pressure was a major part of the retreat.
| Case | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Truss collapse Oct 2022 | Inner-circle policy reversed in 3 weeks; PM resigned in 49 days |
| Johnson resignation July 2022 | Sunak + Javid Cabinet exit triggered 50+ resignations and ended his premiership in 2 days |
| May Brexit Cabinet 2018 | Davis and Johnson resigned over Chequers; PM unable to deliver own policy |
| Sunak / Braverman Rwanda 2023 | Cabinet member's public rebellion forced policy hardening |
Edexcel mark schemes and examiner reports are clear on this point. Top-band answers commit to one of the two views and defend it the whole way through. Answers that say "both views have a point" or "it depends" are marked down for fence-sitting. The view in the question is either right or it is wrong.
For this question, the stronger side is View 1: yes, modern Prime Ministers do rely more on their inner circle than on the Cabinet. The growth of Special Advisers, the Truss mini-budget, the Cummings era and the Sue Gray ousting all show advisers making the running while the Cabinet reacts. View 2's evidence is real, but it shows what the Cabinet can do in a crisis (Truss falling, Johnson resigning), not what it does in normal government. Crisis is the exception, not the rule.
So the answer is yes, the view in the question is correct: PMs rely more on the inner circle than on the Cabinet. Use View 2's evidence to build counter-arguments, then knock them down.
The view in the question is correct: modern Prime Ministers do rely more on their inner circle than on the Cabinet. Day-to-day government runs through No 10 advisers, not Cabinet ministers. View 2's evidence (Truss falling, Johnson resigning) shows the Cabinet can act in a crisis, but crisis is the exception — for the rest of the time, an inner circle of around twenty advisers does the work. View 1 wins.