Rhetoric and Parliamentary Leadership — Prime Minister’s Questions

Abstract

Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) is the most conspicuous of a variety of rhetorical events — speeches from the throne, formal debates, ministerial statements, select committee hearings, points of order, prayers — which collectively constitute the proceedings of the UK Parliament. Although PMQs is hardly typical of the way parliament conducts its business, it is parliament’s most familiar face — ‘the shop window of the House of Commons’, as Speaker John Bercow has put it (Bercow, 2010) — and in an important sense it has come to represent parliament in the public eye. Bercow’s concern for the reputation of the House has made him one of the most persistent and outspoken of PMQs’ many critics. ‘I ask right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, as I have done many times over the years, to give some thought to the way in which our proceedings are regarded by the people outside this House whose support we seek and whom we are here to represent’, he remarked after a particularly rowdy session in July 2013 (HC Deb [6 series], vol. 566, Part I, col. 391). Yet despite the low esteem in which it is generally held, PMQs excites more public interest and discussion than any other parliamentary event. It is an occasion when rhetorical performances are scrutinised and thought to matter, not for what they contribute to deliberation or policy making, but for what they reveal about the public characters of the party leaders.