Talk:List of British ministries

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some conventions:

  1. Certain Secretaries of State may be shortened (Northern Secretary, Foreign Secretary, War Secretary, etc.).
  2. Use the peerage conventions that we use for position navboxes - affix a "The" in front of those who were peers in their own right ("The Duke of Wellington"; "The Viscount Whatever"), and change Baron to Lord. Courtesy peers should not have a "the." ("Lord North", "Viscount Castlereagh").
  3. Terms should not be longer than the ministry - ex. if a ministry went from 1700 to 1720, and someone served from 1680 to 1725, the term should read "1700–1720", not "1680–1725".
    On further thought, I think this convention should be struck. It allows you to see, especially in the early ministries, who retained the confidence of the monarch and who didn't. ugen64 22:58, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

But I think most of these are pretty easy to see. ugen64 00:20, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

We need to give careful consideration to the terms of office (amongst other things). Under Prime Ministers, members of the government are considered to have resigned whenever a PM does - so, their terms cannot exceede those of the life of that government. If they continue into the next government, they are reappointed. That was not the case here, and I'm worried about creating a false impression. An laternative (that I've just used on Privy Council Ministry, is to list terms as throughout the ministry in question, or "to/from" a certain date if there was a change within the ministry. Does that work? -- Gregg 05:48, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would like to add the following convention:

  1. In lists, first mention the head(s) of the government, i.e., the "Prime Ministers." Prior to 1905, when the office of Prime Minister became official, do not use the term "Prime Minister" in the table.
  2. After head(s) of the ministry come the other officers in order of precedence or importance: 1st, Great Officers of State; 2d, Officers of the Royal Household; 3d Secretaries of State; 4th Chancellor of the Exchequer; 5th Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster; 6th Others. -- Emsworth 23:27, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
But isn't the Chancellor of the Exchequer often the second most important member of the ministry (i.e. Gordon Brown), as he is also Second Lord of the Treasury? ugen64 03:06, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that the pages be moved to more explanatory names - Major Ministry sounds like a nightclub or something. Cabinet of John Major or Ministry of John Major would look better, I think. sjorford 13:57, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmm - the obvious thing is to go for the names that are most famous historically, e.g. Fox/North Coalition, the Ministry of All the Talents, the Who? Who? Ministry, the Asquith Coalition, the Lloyd George Coalition Government, the First Labour Government, the Second Labour Government, then anything from 1931-1940 really should have "National Government" in the title (holds up hand for not using those terms for Chamberlain's governments), then Churchill Coalition, Churchill Caretaker Government and so on. It would seem very wrong not to use the term "Fox-North Coalition" for that government when that is how it's known to history.
But I can see problems:
  • Not all governments are so well known by an individual name.
  • Where exactly does "Ministry" become "Government"?
  • Different people take different views on whether an incumbant government being re-elected constitutes someone becoming PM an additional time. Harold Wilson was one of the worst examples of this, claiming to have been PM four times, "the only person since Gladstone". (Though by Wilson's logic, Stanley Baldwin would also qualify!)
  • "National Government" was used at the time to mean the all aprty war coalitions, but historians nowadays generally restrict it to the 1931-1940 administration and the fancies of Edward Heath in the October 1974 general election.
  • "Coalition" also has sloppy usage - it may mean an all major party government of national unity in the 20th century, but the Fox/North government was certainly not that. Yet virtually no-one used it at the time or since for the 1931-1940 administration.
Hmm... not an easy thing to write rules for that don't produce article with titles that don't use the common forms, yet at the same time cover the lot.
Also I think as a rule every page should have a full detailing of each reshuffle so that we can see easily when ministers changed and especially when a reshuffle demonstrates very little imagination by just swapping a few people around. The Thatcher Ministry page is difficult to follow (for instance was Nicholas Ridley Secretary of State for Trade and Industry at the same time John Major was Foreign Secretary?) and would work better to have reshuffles listed and maybe even several tables to reflect the substantial ones.
Finally should we use a firm ranking of positions or attempt to reflect seniority within the government, in particular by putting the acknowledged number 2 (whether or not they held the title Deputy PM) in immediately below the PM? Timrollpickering 11:40, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Consistency about the "Two Days" & "Four Days" Prime Ministers

Please see Talk:List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom#The Two Days & Four Days Prime Ministers for discussion about consistency on how to handle the events of February 1746 and June 1757 on the various lists on ministers and ministries. Timrollpickering 22:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming standard for government cabinets/ministries

I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions, which will hopefully lead to a consistent naming standard for national government cabinets/ministries. See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions#Naming of government cabinets/ministries to take part in the discussion. /Slarre 12:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)