cabinet

cabinet The group of ministers responsible for implementing government policy. The cabinet may make collective decisions, as it does in the UK and most European democracies, or it may have only an advisory status, as in the case of the President's cabinet in the USA. The size and membership of cabinets vary, but the holders of the major offices of state, such as the ministers responsible for finance, defence, and foreign affairs, are always included. The monarchs of England always had advisers, but it was not until the RESTORATION in 1660 that a cabinet (or cabinet council) developed, consisting of the major office-bearers, and the most trusted members of the Privy Council, meeting as a committee in a private room (the cabinet, whence its name) and taking decisions without consulting the full Privy Council. In the time of Queen ANNE it became the main machinery of executive government and the Privy Council became formal. From about 1717 the monarch GEORGE I ceased to attend and from that time the cabinet met independently. GEORGE III became obliged, through insanity and age, to leave more and more to his ministers, but it was not until after the Reform Act of 1832 that the royal power diminished and cabinets came to depend, for their existence and policies, upon the support of the majority in the House of Commons.