John Robson: Why Governments Keep Getting Bigger

Commentary For a brief moment I felt encouraged. Someone sent a photo of Britain’s new cabinet, small enough to meet at one large table, and asked why ours was so big. I was preparing to offer a Chestertonian paradox involving their Parliament being bigger than ours. But alas and prosaically, I checked and the wider British cabinet is enormous, continuing to erode self-government by subordinating the legislature to the executive branch. Their House of Commons has 650 seats, making backbenchers harder to control. But don’t worry. They found a way. The UK is by statute limited to 21 “Secretaries of State.” But also up to 50 paid “Ministers of State” and a baffling 83 “Parliamentary Secretaries other than Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury.” And with these fancy titles comes plain old cash....