When his country was confronted with the divisive issue of the abolition of the Corn Laws, British Prime Minister Lord Melbourne urged his cabinet to do the following:

“Bye the bye, there is one thing we haven’t agreed upon, which is, what are we to say?  Is it better to make our corn dearer, or cheaper, or to make the price steady? I don’t care which:  but we had better all tell the same story.”

What the Whig leader said at the time sums up the principle of collective cabinet, under which ministerial responsibility plays a vitally important role in a constitutional monarchy such as Malaysia.