The classic view of Cabinet Government was laid out by Walter Bagehot in "The English Constitution" (1867) in which he described the prime minister as the "primus‐inter‐pares" ("first among equals"). The view was questioned by Richard Crossman in "The Myths of Cabinet Government" (1972) and by Tony Benn. They were both members of the Labour governments of the 1960s and thought that the position of the prime minister had acquired more power so that prime ministerial government was a more apt description. Crossman stated that the increase in the power of the prime minister resulted from power of centralised political parties, the development of a unified civil service, and the growth of the prime minister's private office and Cabinet secretariat.