More than just drama: the agenda of Prime Minister’s Questions

Prime Minister’s Questions is one of the most public venues for MPs to express their opinions and represent the views of their constituents. But can opposition parties and backbenchers – MPs who hold no governmental office and are not a spokesperson in the Opposition – drive the content of such questions? Shaun Bevan and Peter John address this by looking at questions between the start of the Labour government in 1997 and the end of 2008. They find that no area was dominated by either the government or opposition, and that the Conservative backbench led frontbench questions.