Minsterial positions as institutionalised bribery

A very interesting thread.

In 1900, the government - which had an empire to run - had a total of 60 ministers, by 1950 this had reached 81, but following the recent reshuffle this has grown by three and now stands at > 120 (I can't figure out exact numbers because the methodology seems to change somewhat). In this time the cabinet grew from 19-23, but non-cabinet ministers increased dramatically.

India - 78 (capped at 15% of total MPs)
South Africa - 66
Canada - 63

This indicates that we are still an outlier and it's not just based on the system of government. Whilst we have more ministers per capita than these countries, we do have fewer per capita than smaller countries such as Australia and New Zealand (as expected). We have ~30x more ministers per capita than India.

Well, probably there are are always a certain number of key posts that are needed almost regardless of country size, so it's going to be non-linear. Still, we clearly have a lot. The possible effects are interesting, in particular I think these two are the most worrying :

Why would government break the limit on purpose? Well one obvious reason is to reduce dissent. Ministers traditionally aren't in a position to rebel against the government, otherwise they will be relieved of their position. This is especially useful for newer MPs or those who are looking to make a name for themselves as they wouldn't be willing to risk their career once given such an 'opportunity'.

"If you have a big majority, it is very easy to be strong because your majority and your payroll vote is so large you can just ignore anything, even if it has total common sense behind it; that is the position governments with large majorities get into. Governments without large majorities have to be more sensitive to the realities of political life." - John Major

It can lead to superfluous and unnecessary government action, and people trying to 'stand out in the crowd'.

"Under the present system I think we probably do have too many ministers and having too many ministers undoubtedly leads to the ‘something must be done’ tendency and it certainly leads to, ‘I need to attract attention because I am keen to have promotion’, so a lot of junior ministers are extremely keen when they get into office to find the six sound bites that can get them noticed by the higher-ups in their party over the 12 months that they are likely to be in the position." - Lord Birt, Former advisor to the PM and Director general of the BBC

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/7pezjv/the_uk_has_too_many_ministers_and_its_having/