Talk:Cameron–Clegg coalition/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Misc comments

David Laws was never Minister providing support to the Deputy PM in the Cabinet Office, that role has always been Danny Alexander's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.171.218 (talk) 23:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Sources

Where are these details coming from? Cameron has only just been made PM and someone seems to be putting up cabinet positions. Sources?- _J.Logan`^t: 21:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Radio 5 Live has announced Hague, Osborne and Clegg. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.169.53.14 (talk) 21:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

BBC Radio 4 is making similar live announcements, apparently on the authority of Conservative Party announcements. None of it's official yet, but it soon will be. BartBassist (talk) 21:43, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Please editors put up sources along with the names.Foxhound66 (talk) 22:00, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

These additions should continue to be reverted unless they are sourced. Unfortunately I've exhausted my 3RR here. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:14, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Needs moving

The current article title isn't correct. PhilKnight (talk) 22:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Your proposed merger would require the deletion of all the articles listed at List of British ministries. OCNative (talk) 22:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose Pedantry. H7dders (talk) 22:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose But do need to delete the non-Cabinet posts. 86.7.211.128 (talk) 22:30, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose "XXXXXX ministry" is the convention. SethWhales ^talk 18:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I notice that despite "XXXXXX ministry" being the convention, someone has moved all the other recent ones. I don't know whether there was any discussion about changing the convention before moving them? David Biddulph (talk) 19:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
    • I noticed that too, after I had made my comment above. I support consistency, "XXXXXX ministry" was the convention, the "Cabinet of XXXXXXX" is okay, but probably the "XXXXXX Government 195X–196X" is better??? as this can cover the whole governement and not just the smaller Cabinet table. Although would the UK Government now be the "2010 Conservative/Liberal Democrat Government"???? SethWhales ^talk 09:41, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
    • There's a related discussion at Talk:List of British Governments#Merger proposal. PhilKnight (talk) 22:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support The current 'Cameron ministry' sounds like a religious title(Anglican ministry, Christian ministry etc.). It is made up, not sourced and if it continues, AFD will result. Suggest Cabinet of David Cameron to match Cabinet of Gordon Brown and Cabinet of Tony Blair. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:28, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose "X Ministry/ministry" is the standard title. HonouraryMix (talk) 00:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Labour Government 1945–1951, Conservative Government 1951–1955, Conservative Government 1957–1964, Conservative Government 1970–1974, Labour Government 1974–1979, Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher, Cabinet of James Callaghan. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:28, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Support The last five "ministry" articles are titled: Cabinet of James Callaghan, Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher, Cabinet of John Major, Cabinet of Tony Blair, and Cabinet of Gordon Brown. So this article should be titled Cabinet of David Cameron. HLE (talk) 03:50, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Consistency is best. BTW, I've asked at WT:MOS for a ruling on the raft of capital letters I'm seeing in articles related to the new government. Tony (talk) 07:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose but I support consistency. Therefore other ministries which have recently been moved away from this format should be moved back. Kittybrewster ☎ 08:11, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose unless the convention for all other articles are changed at the same time.- _J.Logan`^t: 10:11, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Support - Cabinet of David Cameron is so obviously the correct name for the article. Ministry in a UK context is religious one not a political one. - Galloglass 18:12, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I note with much interest the above discussion. I have little Internet access at the moment but feel that this subject deserves intervention. I oppose the move to "Cabinet of David Cameron" and I support the title "Cameron Ministry". My reasons are as follows:

• The governance of the United Kingdom proceeded via evolution and was not created ab initio. Consequently the separation between executive & legislature (and indeed other aspects: witness Crown-in-Parliament) is blurred. This manifests particularly when it comes to UK government: when Brown replaced Blair (or Major replaced Thatcher, or Callaghan replaced Wilson, or...oh, ask your mother), did the Government change, or did the Government continue? The convention (I believe) is that the Govenment changed. So when the Prime Minister changes, the Government changes.

So, the article title should have the name of the Prime Minister in it.

• The question as to whether the Cabinet changes or continues after a reshuffle is (I believe) the subject of some debate (or, perhaps trivially, nitpicking). I think the convention is that it changes.

So, the article title should not have the word "cabinet" in it, since Prime Minister Cameron will have cabinets - plural.

• The retention of the "X Ministry" format enables the creation of discrete articles on Wikipedia: witness List of British ministries for example

So, the retention of the "X Ministry" format minimises the disruption to Wikipedia and facilitates the creation of articles

• One objection above (by SunCreator and Galloglass) is that the word "ministry" has a religious connotation in the UK. Neverthless, the fact that a word has one connotation in one context does not prevent its correct usage in another context - we do not rename "General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" to "Boss of the Soviet Union" (oversimplification, but run with me) because Leonid Brezhnev was neither a General nor a secretary.

So, that objection is invalid.

• Another objection above (by HLE and possibly Tony) is consistency: that the "Cabinet of David Cameron" is consistent with other Wikiarticles. Although I applaud consistency, I note that some of the articles have only recently (11 May 2010) been renamed to the "Cabinet of X" format, and they have been inconsistently renamed (and somewhat awkwardly renamed : witness the convoluted "Cabinet of Harold Wilson's second prime ministership", which was renamed from the considerably simpler "Second Wilson Ministry"). Although I note the reasons why User:ProhibitOnions did this renaming, I am not persuaded that they are sufficient and I note that they were undiscussed.

So, that objection is also invalid.

• In conclusion therefore, I believe that the retention of the "X Ministry" format enables the creation of sensible discrete articles, enables consistency, and coheres with the UK's somewhat convoluted governance system.

• I therefore recommend that this article and its companion/predecessor articles be moved (back) to the "X Ministry" format.

• Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 22:28, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Actually, anyone looking at Cabinet of Gordon Brown, Cabinet of Tony Blair should note they were moved on May 11 by a single user, and given List of British Ministries has the vast majority listed as X Ministry. I am going to revert the move and post notices on the relevant pages. We should also get some consistency RE: Ministry or ministry —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamma2delta (talk • contribs) 09:47, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose I have a sense that British editors like to say things like "'ministry' has only a religious connotation" out of ignorance of other usages in their own country. I find it nearly impossible to believe that the people who named these articles and who are opposing the move are overwhelmingly non-British. However, a proposal to move them all, made in a more centralised way, might make sense because the "ministry" is the entire government, not just the Cabinet. -Rrius (talk) 14:44, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
• From the above discussion, am I right in assuming that someone decided to standardise the names of all (well, most) British cabinets around some archaic convention? I'd be extremely surprised if this were the WP:COMMONNAME for the subject, or indeed used in sources at all. Of the opposes so far, half have failed to explain themselves at all. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:35, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
  • I would say you are probably wrong in assuming that. What's more likely is that some person or small group created the articles with the name "ministry", which isn't archaic at all. If you would truly be surprised to learn that "ministry" is used in this sense, then prepare to be surprised. Finally, the opponents have, by and large, explained themselves; it's just that you don't like the reasons. It is actually been the support arguments that are deficient as set out above by User:Anameofmyveryown. -Rrius (talk) 16:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
    • I really am quite surprised. It certainly does not seem to be the case that "Cameron ministry" even approaches the most common name used for the subject. Of Anameofmyveryown's responses, parts #1 and #2 have nothing to do with our naming conventions, #3 and #5 are appeals to consistency (which are fine by me; I'd rather all of these articles were moved to a less strange convention), and #4 is irrelevant because the primary reason for moving the article is that the present title is very uncommon and not because it implies a link to the Church (and I don't mind the word "ministry" so much as the weird structuring). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:52, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
      • As I said in my oppose vote, an attempt to make such a change should be made in a central location, not here. -Rrius (talk) 17:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
        • It is nevertheless still worth establishing whether or not there are any other reasonable grounds for opposition here before taking the argument to a wider forum. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:16, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
          • No, it really isn't; people have given principled objections here, but you're not going to get much beyond the consistency argument until you actually make a proposal that would be applied consistently across the related articles. It is not worth having this discussion twice—once to satisfy your mind that there is a good reason to have a discussion, then once to actually discuss it. Either make the proposal in a centralised way, or drop it. -Rrius (talk) 22:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
• I change my earlier oppose unless to oppose. To call it cabinet excludes non-cabinet ministerial posts that should be listed here.- _J.Logan`^t: 20:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
  • For the moment, the articles do just feature the Cabinet; if they reflected more, they could move. Also, wouldn't we still want a separate article for the Cabinet members? There are quite a lot of other ministers, so the Cabinets would get swamped by the addition. -Rrius (talk) 23:37, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
• Move to "Cabinet of John Major" etc., as I had previously done. Wikipedia is a worldwide general encyclopedia, not one dedicated to the British parliament. As such, the problems with the previous titles such as "Major Ministry" should be readily apparent; apart from the nonstandard capitalisation per WP:CAPS, it's unclear what they are about (a religious movement?). Please take a look at WP:TITLE; titles must be recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, and consistent (the article is "Margaret Thatcher", not "Thatcher"). The use of "ministry" here violates WP:COMMONNAME, and as per WP:TITLE, "Common usage in reliable sources is preferred to technically correct but rarer forms" - particularly when "ministry" is commonly taken to mean something else entirely, while the term "cabinet" is well understood.

In fact, a great deal of renaming is going to be required, because despite the usefulness of these articles, the titles are simply confusing. List of British ministries has nothing to do with defence, agriculture, and the Exchequer, but refers instead to British governments and their terms in office (and is perhaps needless, as it is already a merge candidate with List of British Governments). Furthermore, the likes of Conservative Government 1957–1964 refers to what, where, exactly? This, at the very least, requires disambiguation in the form of "(UK)" to make sense, not to mention lowercase. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 22:04, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

• Any idiot who would think it is about something religious would have that misapprehension cleared up pretty quickly by reading the opening line (or any other part of the text). Whether the capitalisation is correct is something that could be discussed, but it has nothing to do with whether "ministry" is the correct word to use. I don't think you know what WP:COMMON actually says, so you may want to click the link. You'll probably be surprised what your linking to. In any event, if you think all of these titles should be moved to "Cabinet of X", then start a centralised discussion. Editors here are clearly objecting to moving this one unilaterally, and editors at other articles deserve to have notice of a discussion before it results in a more of all the other articles. -Rrius (talk) 22:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

My point exactly. "Any idiot", or indeed any non-idiot, would have to read the article first to find out what a "brown ministry" was.ProhibitOnions ^(T) 07:57, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

That's not what I said and, since I assume you aren't an idiot, you know it. They would not have to "read the article" to find out. First of all, the link is hardly likely to occur in any context in which any reasonable (or even dotty) person would understand it to have a thing to do with religion. What's more, the truly loopy person would be disabused of any notions regarding religion by, far from reading the entire article, reading any sentence, or indeed, phrase in the article. The argument about confusion with religious topics is silly and betrays either ignorance or intellectual dishonesty on the part of those who have raised it. -Rrius (talk) 08:10, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

No, it isn't. The term "Major ministry" (etc.) or "Conservative government" will leave people trying to guess what the article is about. This isn't Hansard, or somewhere else where that might be clear in context, but a general, non-specialist encyclopedia aimed at a worldwide audience, not specifically the UK and its parliament. Even so, the use of "ministry" in this case is not one that is the most apparent to a British audience, who would likely associate the term politically with an individual minister's portfolio, and not with a premiership (or otherwise with a religious ministry, the other common use of the term, as the last name of a prime minister is not enough to establish a political or other context). Titles must be clear on their own to identify the subject of the article without reference to links. "Brown Ministry" is meaningless without explanation; "Cabinet of Gordon Brown" isn't. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 08:45, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

That is part of the problem. To my mind this article should include far more people than those in the Cabinet. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:43, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, such a thing already exists: Her Majesty's Government frontbench. In any event, Onions still hasn't given a reason why the Cameron page should be any different from the others. I would probably support a change to "Blair Cabinet" or "Cabinet of Tony Blair" if the a wide-ranging proposal were made, but I will not support trying to make a decision here without broad notice and then forcing the decision on the other articles. -Rrius (talk) 20:46, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

OK. Where is the equivalent for Brown's front bench? I agree that we would need a broad discussion. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:57, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

It is not a per-PM thing. I created the article this last September when I discovered that we had Official Opposition frontbench and Liberal Democrat Frontbench Team, but no equivalent for the Government. Obviously, therefore, the full ministry for the last reshuffle could easily be recreated by starting at September, then working back to pick up the Minister for Digital Britain and whoever else may have left over the summer. The bulk of the rest could be picked up with lists at the London Gazette and the Weekly Information Bulletin, but the personnel changes between reshuffles would be harder to be certain of getting completely right. -Rrius (talk) 00:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

• I mentioned above that the term "ministry" is in fact used in this way, so I thought I'd provide some links: [1][2][3][4][5][6] -Rrius (talk) 23:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

@ProhibitOnions

Several points as follows:

• You said "...Wikipedia is a worldwide general encyclopedia, not one dedicated to the British parliament..." and "...Even so, the use of "ministry" in this case is not one that is the most apparent to a British audience..." Are you saying that Wikipedia is supposed to serve a worldwide audience or only a UK audience?

• You said "...Please take a look at WP:TITLE; titles must be recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, and consistent...". The "X Ministry" format is recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, and consistent.

• You said "...In fact, a great deal of renaming is going to be required, because despite the usefulness of these articles, the titles are simply confusing...". They're not confusing: the "X Ministry" format is recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, and consistent. Please don't rename them to something imprecise, prolix, and inconsistent (e.g. Cabinet of Harold Wilson's second prime ministership).

• You said "...it's unclear what they are about (a religious movement?)...". No, they're about the ministry of the Prime Minister. This isn't intended as a glib comment, but the clue is in the name. We do not rename "General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" because Leonid Brezhnev was neither a General nor a secretary.

• You said "...Titles must be clear on their own to identify the subject of the article without reference to links. "Brown Ministry" is meaningless without explanation; "Cabinet of Gordon Brown" isn't...". Er, a lot of people will think that "Cabinet of Gordon Brown" will refer to a large brown wooden box containing drinks.

• You said "...Furthermore, the likes of Conservative Government 1957–1964 refers to what, where, exactly?...". You are correct that that article is awkward (and fictional: there was no single UK Conservative Government 1957-1964). The solution to the awkwardness is to split it into two articles: "Macmillan Ministry" for 1957-1963 and "Douglas-Home Ministry" for 1963-1964

• You said "...while the term "cabinet" is well understood..." I'd argue that it isn't well understood - did Major have 1 single cabinet with five configurations, or five distinct cabinets?

• You said "...Even so, the use of "ministry" in this case is not one that is the most apparent to a British audience, who would likely associate the term politically with an individual minister's portfolio, and not with a premiership...". That's exactly the point: the UK Government (leaving aside the Privy Council for the moment) is the portfolio of the Prime Minister - that's the job description: s/he's the UK Head of Government.

Additional points as follows:

• I can see the point of a rename to "Ministry of X", but the term "Ministry" has a known start date and time (the second the proto-Prime Minister accepts the offer of the Head of State to form a Government), a known end date and time (the second the Head of State accepts the resignation of the outgoing Prime Minister), has known personnel, is consistent, recognizable, easy to find, precise, concise, and consistent. Other terms ("Cabinet", "Government") are ambiguous (what is the Government of the UK? HoG, HoG+Cabinet, Privy Council, HoG+Cabinet+Frontbench, do we include the Civil Service, and so on). Why remove the correct term that can be precisely defined (down to the second! OK, minute...) with ones that aren't?

Regards, Anameofmyveryown (talk) 01:23, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Cabinet

This list contains posts which are not part of the Cabinet. Blair and Brown gave attendance rights to lots of the posts listed here, but they were not Cabinet members. 86.7.211.128 (talk) 22:21, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

A more accurate list is here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_the_United_Kingdom

86.7.211.128 (talk) 22:23, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

More reason to delete the whole thing until reliable sources and confirmation exist. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:23, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

What sources do you want? This is breaking news; sort out the sources later. H7dders (talk) 22:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Classic stuff. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Despite the external source, are we sure that Chris Huhne has been confirmed as Energy minister? I just heard that he had denied this. Viewfinder (talk) 11:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Privy Counsellors

Shouldn't we wait before adding 'The Rt Hon' before all of the Cabinet's names..?? Number 10 haven't officially announced any of the Cabinet as of yet, and they have to be sworn of the Privy Council in a meeting with The Queen before they can amend the prefix 'The Rt Hon'. Granted some are already Privy Counsellors i.e. David Cameron and Nick Clegg but the majority are just MPs. PoliceChief (talk) 22:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the point of having The Rt Hon before all the names as all Cabinet members are (or will be soon) Privy Councillors. David (talk) 22:30, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The ranking and naming so far is correct. For example, W Hague was part of the Privy Council long before Cameron.Foxhound66 (talk) 12:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Why are they all listed as 'rt hon' - the new cabinet hasnt been sworn in to the privy council yet and therefore shouldnt have the honorific. (Maidels (talk) 19:17, 12 May 2010 (UTC))

I agree, and thanks for the explanation. Many aren't "Rt. Hon." according to the No. 10 press notice [7]. Zexpe (talk) 19:44, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I would edit it - but its 'semi-locked' and I cant - but ive requested an edit. (Maidels (talk) 19:48, 12 May 2010 (UTC))

Note that we should in general not use "Rt Hon" and the like anyway: see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)#Honorific prefixes. Hairy Dude (talk) 18:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

The table is not inline text, so the policy actually does not stand against using it. -Rrius (talk) 22:14, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Offices

Why have short titles replaced the proper titles? It's "Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs", not "Foreign Secretary". 86.7.211.128 (talk) 22:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:COMMON is why. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 22:06, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Common sense? That's not much of an explanation. If you mean WP:Common name, that isn't either, as that policy is about article titles. -Rrius (talk) 22:11, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I did. Mind playing tricks on me. WP:COMMONNAME it is. ProhibitOnions ^(T) 19:50, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME appears to discuss article titles only. Leaky Caldron 19:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Agree, the short version should be for titles only Manbilong (talk) 09:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Order

Let's look at the ordering. There is a convention, which I summarise here:

• Prime Minister
• Deputy PM / First Secretary of State (note the latter is constitutionally better, though you can see why DPM is being used here)
• The remaining Great Offices of State (Foreign Sec., Home Sec., Chancellor), of which Foreign Secretary has historically been seen as the most senior. (The idea that Chancellor is the top of the three has really only come from Brown's tenure of that office, and his seniority in the Labour Party since 1997.)
• Lord Chancellor (now Justice)
• Senior non-"Great Office" offices: Defence, Business (ex Trade & Industry)
• [Note that the "new politics" posts such as Education and Health might nowadays be listed at this stage, though not necessarily traditionally]
• Other offices starting "Secretary of State for..."
• Other offices which are full members of the Cabinet (i.e. not just "attending Cabinet", or "attending when their issue is on the agenda")
• Everything else

13th Law Lord (talk) 23:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The order is all screwed up because often posts have been grouped together (Eg deputy primeminister and leader of the house of commons) it would probablly be better to leave the reorganising until all the posts have been filled (Maidels (talk) 23:08, 11 May 2010 (UTC))

And remove the posts which have nothing to do with Cabinet, for example Minister for the Olympics. Blair and Brown used attendance at Cabinet (not membership) as a way to placate internal conflicts and massage egos. 86.7.211.128 (talk) 23:13, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree, Maidels. I just thought I'd put it there so people can see it. If it hasn't been done already, I'll sort it out tomorrow when all the posts have been filled. 13th Law Lord (talk) 23:18, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

In terms of ranking, the "big three" posts have never really had a consistent pecking order. The Chancellorship wasn't considered one of the top job until about the 1850s when Disraeli and Gladstone raised the profile of the post. Until then the Secretaries of State were the front rank roles, with War & Colonies often considered on an equal footing to the others. The Home Secretary was historically superior to the Foreign Secretary purely because when the posts were first created Shelburne was a peer and Fox a commoner but this historic precedence hasn't always held weight outside some formal court duties, particularly as a lot of Home Office tasks have been hived off for other ministries.

Through the twentieth century the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary have often been in alternate political weight, largely depending on the individuals holding them. Foreign Secretary Curzon was clearly ahead of Chancellor Baldwin during the brief Bonar Law premiership, conversely Chancellor Neville Chamberlain was clear ahead of Foreign Secretaries Simon, Hoare and Eden in the MacDonald/Baldwin National Governments. It's certainly not the case that the post's prominence is down to Brown - he was 150 years too late for that. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, either way, the order as listed still doesn't reflect this. 137.222.231.37 (talk) 16:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Note that Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice are separate posts. They happen to have been filled by the same person (Jack Straw) since the latter's creation, but that is not necessarily true. Hairy Dude (talk) 18:15, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

• Going back to the point about order, we should follow the order used by the government itself. -Rrius (talk) 22:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Redundancy

Almost all of this article has just been copied verbatim from Cabinet of the United Kingdom. I would just remove it and add {{Main}}, but then all that would be left is the lead section and "Current Cabinet"/"Shadow Cabinet" sections. These sections could easily be put in the general article, so we really need a separate article for Cameron's ministry? Hairy Dude (talk) 18:04, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you'll find that it's not been copied, but has included the content through the use of a template or subpage. Various different versions have been in use over the past few days, & changes have been made, sometimes with unexpected results in other pages. It's probably different now what what it was when you wrote your comment yesterday evening. If in doubt, look at the content of the page source to see where the nitty-gritty is, & look at the page history (which is very lengthy). David Biddulph (talk) 10:57, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Historically this article would have included all ministers. Kittybrewster ☎ 10:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Rt Hon

Isn't the title of the Right Honourable applicable to all former and current cabinet members? Thus everyone on the list would now have the prefix Rt Hon rather than the few currently listed as so. And if that is indeed so, then there is little point in stating that as it offers no distinction, it would be like adding a column for saying whether they're in the cabinet. We don't actually need full titles in such a list surely? Just their identifiable names.- _J.Logan`^t: 18:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

In which case the article would need a note below the table indicating that all cabinet members are, by definition, PCs. That's just as messy. IMO full titles are correct. It was also discussed here, in what looks like a duplicate article Talk:Cabinet_of_the_United_Kingdom/Current_cabinet. Leaky Caldron 10:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

How is a small note somewhere more messy than sticking "The Rt Hon" in front of every single name?- _J.Logan`^t: 09:44, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Rename

Shouldn't it be Cameron-Clegg Ministry instead? 12:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

An interesting proposal, however nil support if you are willing to accept it has suffered delay and just to add weight to the possible disinterest, the fact of an altered manifesto and much-altered or ad-hoc party-political government majority composition is something not seen since the Callaghan ministry for a year formed the Lib-Lab pact, which was nonetheless a leadership, just not the sort of leadership you would want as the leader but nonetheless made for interesting policies, however with with one leader, not two. Adam37 (talk) 19:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Size

Is there a cap on the size of the government / ministry? How many ministers (from PM, Secretaries of State, to Ministers of State, Parliamentary Undersecretaries and Private Secretaries) can there be? 12:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

In terms of paid positions, there can be up to 22 Cabinet ministers (the legislation actually says "21 plus the Lord Chancellor", which I think reflects the now defunct requirement for there to be a Lord Chancellor for government to continue, whereas every other post including Prime Minister can be left vacant for periods of time). There can then be up to 51 cabinet and non-cabinet ministers, and up to 84 ministers in total (cabinet, non-cabinet and junior ministers). So if you have a full Cabinet of 22, you can have another 29 non-cabinet ministers, and then a further 33 junior ministers (Parliamentary Under-Secretaries). On top of that, there's the 3 law officers (the Attorney General and Solicitor General who cover England, Wales and now NI, and the Advocate General who covers Scotland) and up to 22 Whips, making the maximum 109. However, these limits only apply to salaried government positions. Any number of additional ministers can be appointed if they are unpaid. Apart from the Parliamentary Private Secretaries (and no official list is kept of these), the unpaid members are usually peers. So, for instance, Baroness Warsi was able to be a 23rd member of the Cabinet because she was unpaid. There is an additional rule that only 95 members of the House of Commons can be ministers at any one time (this doesnt include the PPSs, who act more as legislative assistants to ministers than members of the ministry).--86.179.225.42 (talk) 11:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Modification of the changes section

I removed the large changes section at the bottom for all ministerial positions, instead keeping only cabinet changes, and putting them under the cabinet boxes. This is the way the other ministry articles do it, and I don’t see the necessity of having each minor parliamentary change detailed in text, when they are already listed in the table. With the cabinet changes, though, they should be listed, and I have done so in the way that the other articles do it. 138.16.102.172 (talk) 23:35, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Offices included

Stale

 – Resolved with new conventions for British ministry articles.

Shouldn't this be pared down to just the Cabinet and Cabinet attenders? That is what we have for previous, similar articles. Moreover, this is quite unwieldy. The exact portfolios for junior ministers change from time to time, even if the gist of the role is the same. Frankly, there are just too many line-items for this to be of much use in keeping track of the reshuffles. -Rrius (talk) 14:00, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It's called Cameron Ministry, so it should be the whole Ministry - or else change the name to Cameron Cabinet, maybe (or create a seperate article for that)? If previous articles are missing junior ministers, that's down to data not being known/added. If the issue is the exact portfolio, that could simply be left out (it’s just a conceit rather than an official title, anyway - the “Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Forks and Spoons” is really just “Parliamentary Under-Secretary”, the “for Forks and Spoons” could be validly excluded if changing those appellations to reflect government press releases becomes problematic). —86.179.225.42 (talk) 11:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

This whole issue was resolved earlier this year. Prior, there was a mess with all the different members of a ministry spread across many articles, with inconsistent information. The only ministry article at present that lacks junior ministers is the Blair ministry, and no one has undertaken the job to find them…every other article has both junior and cabinet ministers. This is article is now correct, with both a cabinet shortlist and full list of ministers, per the conventions for these articles listed at this page. The comment above yours dealt with a mess that doesn’t exist anymore. Anyway, I welcome anyone to compile Blair ministry junior ministers…RGloucester (talk) 23:40, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Addition of pictures

I think the addition of pictures to this article is unneeded and has made a mess of the tables. What say you all? RGloucester — ☎ 15:46, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

It might work if all of the pictures were the same size and were all head shots. But they are not and I agree it looks sloppy. - Nbpolitico (talk) 20:39, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm reverting the changes per WP:BRD, if anyone would like to discuss. RGloucester — ☎ 23:55, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 12 December 2014

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move at this time, after extended discussion. There is also a clear lack of consensus for a move target. bd2412 T 15:17, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Cameron ministry → Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition – No-one refers to the coalition as the "Cameron ministry", and this is a weasel-worded title for a coalition Relisted -- Calidum 05:44, 19 December 2014 (UTC) Gymnophoria (talk) 13:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Why is this called the "Cameron ministry"? No-one calls it that, and I challenge anyone to find any newspaper articles calling it that. It sounds most peculiarly ecclestical. Since it's a coalition of two parties, it's inaccurate to name it purely after Cameron. It's more often called the ConDem Coalition, or more formally the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government. As it stands the article is misleading since I can't imagine anyone searching for this title. A redirect already exists for this title, I can't understand why it wasn't used.Gymnophoria (talk) 13:16, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose – Something similar was proposed to once before. First, "ministry" is the term used in all academic research of successive British ministries. All of our articles follow this pattern, based on Butler and Butler's Twentieth Century British Political Facts 1900–2000 and Dod’s Parliamentary Companion. Reliable sources on the subject of the successive ministries of Britain make it clear that this is the proper title. Ministries are always titled by Prime Minister, unless there is some clear reason to not do so. In this case, there is no such clear reason. Nothing about it is "weasel-worded". It isn't anyone's fault other than your own that you don't know what a ministry is, and think it is "ecclesiastical ". This is a British tradition that goes back to the first day of the Union and before. To be clear, this article is not supposed to be a history of the coalition. It is supposed to only be a list of ministers in the Cameron ministry, which is another reason why this title must be maintained. We don't want to broaden the scope of this article. The history of the coalition is documented at Premiership of David Cameron, which you may want to draw your attention to. RGloucester — ☎ 15:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Twentieth Century British Political Facts lists ministries by party (e.g. Conservative Government 1979–1990), not by leader. Opera hat (talk) 23:38, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

No, it has two schemes of listing. It only lists by party when it includes more than one consecutive term (i.e. ministry), as in the example you provided. In cases where only one term (i.e. ministry) is dealt with, it goes by leader. I think you and I discussed this once before. Anyway, Dodds continues to go entirely by ministry. RGloucester — ☎ 00:33, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I have my (2000) copy open in front of me now. The lists of ministries are on pages 1–50. Nowhere are the ministries named after the Prime Minister. Opera hat (talk) 11:57, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

You need to look at British Historical Facts. RGloucester — ☎ 14:31, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

That's not quite what you said before, but OK: Cook and Stevenson's British Historical Facts 1688–1760 (1988, pages 33–46) and British Historical Facts 1760–1830 (1980, pages 11–20) have their lists of "ministries and administrations" named by leader(s), with the exception of the Ministry of All the Talents. These lists of ministers for the most part only include Cabinet offices, so are not really comparable to this article. Cook and Keith's British Historical Facts 1830–1900 (1975, pages 1–47), which does include full lists of all ministers, has the ministries named by party, with the exceptions of the Aberdeen Coalition 1852–1855 (page 16) and the Palmerston Government 1855–1858 (page 18). I don't have access to any volumes of Dod's; are they available online at all? Opera hat (talk) 14:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

No, library only. Most libraries should have a few of them, though. They are comparable. To be clear, I'm sure you are aware that prior to the late 19th century, there were many fewer posts in the ministry than there are now, meaning that often all members would be in the cabinet. RGloucester — ☎ 15:49, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not aware of anything of the sort, but we're getting a bit off-topic here, so I'll reply on your talk page. Opera hat (talk) 19:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

• "Cameron - Clegg ministry" only got 62 hits on web, 1 hit in news and another single hit in books. Otherwise that would have been my suggestion. Contrary to image the entirety of the establishment seems to be against the underdog in the UK. GregKaye ✍♪ 15:31, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

It is reliable sources that matter, such as the books presented above. It is also consistency with our conventions that matter, as mentioned above. We are not a newspaper. We write an encylopaedia. Please go to the library, don't just use rubbish Google searches. That's lazy. Spend two ounces of time in the British politics section, and you'll see that this should be called "ministry". RGloucester — ☎ 15:34, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I may support Cameron-Clegg ministry, as this seems to be supported by reliable sources. Having looked at it, coalitions of this sort are usually defined by the PM and First Secretary of State. RGloucester — ☎ 15:39, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

"Reliable sources" like what? Can you cite a newspaper article that refers to the the "Cameron ministry", or the "Cameron-Clegg Ministry"? You seem to forget that we have a party-based democracy in the UK, not a presidential system.

• Support. The other articles in Category:British ministries show no consistent naming policy. WP:COMMONNAME should apply. Even if the current government might be known as the "Cameron ministry" to history, that's not how it's known now, as the nominator says. Opera hat (talk) 14:01, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

There are consistent conventions. You were even present for their formalisation. The proposed title simply isn't good. Unless you are going to rename all articles in Category:British ministries and make new conventions, this will simply make a mess. In fact, I'd argue that this party disambiguation is highly inappropriate. If we're going purely on the basis of WP:UCN, rather than WP:CONSISTENCY or own conventions, then "Cameron Government" is the most common name by far in books, whereas the proposed name is often not used to refer to this specific ministry, but to the coalition agreement. RGloucester — ☎ 15:45, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

These "consistent conventions" were drawn up by you, and the only other editor to comment upon them (me) disagreed with part of them. I don't think you can claim much consensus there. There's nothing at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (government and legislation) to cover this sort of article, and their format and scope varies widely, especially when including different countries - e.g. for Ireland they are sorted by each Dáil (Parliament), while for the USA they are a section within the "Presidency of ..." articles. If you're concerned about uniformity, then it's already a mess; there is no consistency, so each article title should be considered on its own merits.

You make a fair point that the proposed title is ambiguous and could also refer to the coalition agreement. But why do you say that using the party label is "highly inappropriate"? What's wrong with, say, Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government (or ministry, if you prefer)? Opera hat (talk) 19:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

They were drawn-up by me, because we had a mess of duplicate articles before, as I'm sure you remember. However, they were merely an updating of the existing conventions, described here, which had been in place for years. I oppose those titles because they are not the most common, nor are they WP:CONCISE or WP:CONSISTENT with our other articles. The most common disambiguation for modern British ministries is by Prime Minister. There is no doubt about this, as demonstrated above in my book search. If you search for "Blair Government" or "Blair Ministry", you'll find many more results than for "Labour Government XXXX-XXXX". I can provide more, if you like. I don't really care whether they are called "governments" or "ministries", though I think "ministry" is more correct, traditional, and favored by higher quality sources on the matter. However, I simply cannot support party-based disambiguation. It simply isn't as common. I certainly cannot support such a long title as what you proposed, which absolutely fails WP:CONCISE. RGloucester — ☎ 19:49, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

[shrug] You clearly feel more strongly about it than I do. You were right to merge all of those articles on Cabinet members with the full lists of ministers a while back. I would have preferred to keep those articles under the party name, because that's what the source for the articles used. You prefer to use the Prime Minister's name. Because they can all be redirected anyway it doesn't really matter, unless the article title is actually wrong (like Coalition Ministry was). Opera hat (talk) 22:29, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

If you want "Government" I'll take "Government". If you want "Ministry" I'll take "Ministry". Yes, I prefer "Ministry", but I don't care enough to oppose such a move. Either way, I think we should be uniform. If we're going to move this to "Government", then the rest should be at "Government". That might be anachronistic, though, for earlier ministries. However, I cannot support using parties for 21st century ministries, as I said. If we're going into the realm of common usage, as you mentioned in your support for this proposal, then disambiguation by party is simply not supported. A search for "Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition" gets 60,900 hits. Most of these having nothing to do with the government, but instead have to do with the coalition agreement. The first hits are newspaper articles about the original signing of that deal. If you start adding "government" onto the end of that, the result is that the title fails WP:CONCISE. If one searches for "Cameron Government", one gets 274,000 results, all having to do with what this article is about. It is also WP:CONCISE. As I said above, I'd prefer no change in line with WP:TITLECHANGES. However, if a change is to occur, the only logical moves are to either "Cameron Government" or "Cameron-Clegg ministry", to address the proposer's concerns. RGloucester — ☎ 22:50, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an academic paper - it's an encyclopedia which will be used in future by ordinary people to look up facts relating to the current Coalition Government. No-one in the media calls it the "Cameron Ministry". No-one calls the last government the "Blair ministry", or the "Thatcher ministry" or the "Churchill ministry" for that matter. Giving an article a title which is not what everyone calls it, purely because that's what academics call it, is not in the spirit of Wikipedia, imho.Gymnophoria (talk) 08:56, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Note, there is an article on the Premiership of David Cameron which is fine, because it talks specifically about Cameron and his role as Prime Minister. This article is more generally about the Coalition Government. It's also ambiguous: what if Cameron (gods spare us) wins the next election outright? What happens with this article? The coalition government will be over so this article would strictly come to an end, since a purely Tory government would be of a very different political makeup of the current coalition. "Cameron ministry" really doesn't seem to work as a term; for the benefit of Wikipedia readers, we need to be clear and specific. "Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition" does what it says on the tin: it's clear, precise, and unambiguous. It's what people call it now, and what they will most likely call it in future.Gymnophoria (talk) 09:23, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

No, it is not any of those things. Party-based titles are not supported by common usage, and it is ambiguous, as it can refer to the coalition agreement. Did you see all the sources I provided above? Whether you like it or not, your proposal is not the common name of this body. If Cameron forms a new ministry, this article becomes the "First Cameron Ministry". I don't know who "no-one" is, exactly. Who is "no-one"? Regardless, if you'd take the time to read the sources above, you'd see that the only viable alternative to the present title, if "ministry" must go, is "Cameron Government". This would also require moving all other articles in the category. RGloucester — ☎ 14:57, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• How about Cameron coalition ministry? That'll solve problems, right? --George Ho (talk) 19:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support proposed or Cameron-Clegg coalition government (or something of the like). "Cameron Clegg coalition" -wikipedia produced 168 Google Book hits, "Cameron ministry" -wikipedia 158 hits[8]. In terms of news hits, "Cameron ministry" -wikipedia get 40 hits[9] and "Cameron Clegg coalition" -wikipedia[10] 63 hits. "Conservative-liberal democrat coalition" -wikipedia get 1090 Google news hits[11] and "Conservative-liberal democrat coalition" -wikipedia gets over 1500 Google Book hits.[12]. It's clearly the case that the current name is by no means the common name and more than likely not how people are searching for the term. That being said, consistency certainly plays into this situation as almost every government follows the XX ministry format.--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:19, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose, per RGloucester. This would also break a consistency which is applied to governments on Wikipedia worldwide.—Brigade Piron (talk) 16:18, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Second Salisbury ministry, Seventh Menzies Ministry, Third Orbán Government, Verhofstadt II Government, Fox–North Coalition, Unionist Government 1895–1905, List of Thatcher ministers 1979–90, 24th Canadian Ministry, Government of the 14th Dáil, Dominique de Villepin#Cabinet membership, Presidency of George W. Bush#Administration and cabinet. There is no consistency. Opera hat (talk) 19:27, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose Per RGloucester & Brigade Piron. To add, the proposed move is ambiguous, as there is no reference to this being a government. A coalition is just a temporary alliance of parties, not necessarily of parties in government. Parties can form a coalition for elections and never make it to government. Walrasiad (talk) 08:55, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Including military ranks in names

I've noticed that some of the ministers who currently serve or have formerly served as commissioned officers in the British Army have their military rank stated. This includes Desmond Swayne (Major), Hugh Robertson (Major), Andrew Robathan (Major), Andrew Selous (Major), Julian Brazier (Captain), Tobias Ellwood (Captain) and Crispin Blunt (Captain). I wonder why this is necessary? None of them appear to be in active servicein the regular army (some might be in the Army Reserve, some definitely have left the army in the past). I suppose, if their rank is stated, it gives the impression they are currently active in the Army, which is not really the case. Seaweed (talk) 17:37, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

It is part of their proper title. RGloucester — ☎ 18:25, 15 February 2015 (UTC)