1956 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference 1956 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference The 1956 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference was the eighth Meeting of the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held in the United Kingdom in June 1956, and was hosted by that country's Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden. The new prime minister of Ceylon, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike pressured Eden to remove British military bases in Ceylon; Britain agreed to close the installations. In international affairs, the leaders expressed their support for the People's Republic of China and Japan being admitted to the United Nations (see China and the United Nations)
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom decision-making. Former ministers such as Clare Short and Chris Smith have criticised the lack of decision-making power in Cabinet. When she resigned, Short denounced "the centralisation of power into the hands of the Prime Minister and an increasingly small number of advisers". Graham Allen (a Government Whip during Tony Blair's first government) made the case in "The Last Prime Minister: Being Honest About the UK Presidency" (2003) that in fact the office of prime minister has presidential powers. However, the presidentialisation thesis has been extensively criticised as well. Keith Dowding, for example, argues that British Prime Ministers are already more