Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom

Hansard listing for MPs

Lots of the MP pages seem to have Hansard record listed under 'external links'. For example Tom Watson (politician). Is there any standard for putting a link to Hansard in an infobox, and if not can I suggest that it is adopted as a standard? I don't know what the process is for doing that here. Extua (talk) 07:01, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I have added Hansard links to thousands of MP articles, and it would be great to have them all linked.

There are two sources for Hansard:

1. Current and recent Hansards (since 1988 for the Commons) are on the Parliament website at http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/hansard/
2. Hansard from 1803 to 2005 are http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/. This is an experimental site which uses data from the Hansard Digitisation project; it has the advantage of covering a huge period, but the disadvantage of having imperfect indexing.

So, the question of which to use depends on the period when the MP served. For anyone in Parliament pre-1988, there should be a link to the millbanksystems site, because that's the only on-line record of that period. For anyone in Parliament before 2005, I suggest that those links should be added anyway.

I would like to recommend adding a link to the Parliament site for MPs since 1988, but Parliament website doesn't seem to have done a good job of indexing. At http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/hansard/commons/by-mp/, they seem to have separate indexes for each session, and no combined index.

There are two templates for adding the Millbanksystems links:

1. {{UK MP links}}, which is a general-purpose template for creating lots of external links to websites on MPs, including Millbanksystems. I would recommend use of this template for those whose career as MPs includes the period after 2001. It includes a parameter for linking to the current Hansards, but AFAICS that setup is broken :(
2. {{hansard-contribs}}, which is an older single-purpose template (written by me) for linking to the Millbanksystems. It includes instructions on how to create the link, which are also applicable to the {{UK MP links}} template.

Hope this helps. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:56, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

ah, that's very useful, thanks for explaining Extua (talk) 15:17, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I linked to the same template twice. The second one is {{hansard-contribs}}, so i have just corrected comment. A month late :( --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:51, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

An RfC has been opened at Talk:List of British shadow cabinets.

An RfC has been opened up at Talk:List of British shadow cabinets. Please feel free to comment! RGloucester (talk) 00:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I meant to take a look at that today but haven't had time. I will see if I can fit it in tomorrow evening. Road Wizard (talk) 23:08, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

A request to editors: help with articles in the British shadow cabinets series!

I’ve been working for a while on various UK shadow cabinet articles. They are all currently located in this category: Category:British shadow cabinets. Many of them need refurbishment, or more information. Especially the Liberal Democrat ones, which are still unfinished. Also, currently we only have articles for the shadow cabinets from 1970 - present, excluding the Heath’s 1974-75 shadow cabinet. If anyone would like something to do, doing some research for these articles would be great. It is NOT EASY to find information on older shadow cabinets. But if anyone has access to this information, it would be very useful. You can use Shadow Cabinet of Margaret Thatcher as a template. I would suggest that the most important entry that we currently lack is that one I mentioned above, Second Shadow Cabinet of Edward Heath. Good luck! RGloucester (talk) 01:01, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Category:Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (United Kingdom)

Category:Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (United Kingdom), which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has been nominated for renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:46, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Political scandals in the United Kingdom

As I've just pointed out on the talk page, this article is a disgrace. Lacking sources (and thus violating WP:BLP policy), and full of WP:OR. If it isn't improved dramatically, and soon, I'm going to take an axe to it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:59, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

With a title like that I am almost afraid to look. If there are sourcing issues and BLP violations I for one would be happy for you to chop them out. Road Wizard (talk) 19:03, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

That article is a disgrace, it is - dare I say it - a scandal. Andy, I encourage you to take an axe to it. I suggest following some well defined rules about what should and what shouldn't be there, like the rules at List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes. Perhaps civil or criminal prosecution should be required for something to be considered a 'scandal', or that the incident should be described as such by multiple reliable sources? FurrySings (talk) 10:10, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Michael Portillo succession dates

At Michael Portillo, in the info box, he's listed as MP under John Major at Enfield South until 1 May 1997, when he lost his seat. However, he's listed as Secretary of State for Defence under John Major until 2 May 1997. Is this another of our good old fashioned constitutional quirks? Hiding T 10:35, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes I think so: the Blair government didn't come into office until 2 May (after the votes were counted) so I presume the incumbent ministers held onto office until then.Lozleader (talk) 12:17, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I thought it would be something like that. Hiding T 13:56, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Ministerial Offices are retained until the next person takes over as government has to continue functioning even when there isn't a parliament. For example, if a country decided to declare war on the UK on 1st May the armed forces would need to know who was in charge at MoD.

I think it is the other date that is incorrect though. Parliament was dissolved on 8 April 1997 so there were no MPs after that date. He stopped being an MP on 8 April and his replacement didn't take over until 2 May. Road Wizard (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

I did wonder about that but it seems to be the standard convention on Wikipedia, presumably because if Portillo had won the election he'd have remained MP. I think an incumbent remains incumbent until defeated, again through a quirk in the constitution. He can't be called to Parliament since Parliament is dissolved, but would technically still be an MP. Hiding T 18:55, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Not really, they stop being the MP at the moment Parliament is disolved. There have been discussions about it before, however it was probably too much effort to convert all articles especially as well intentioned editors would just mistakenly change it back. Road Wizard (talk) 20:00, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Fllowing that through would mean that every returned MP would have two terms as MP, which would be a very obtuse way of looking at things. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Please refer back to the archives of this talk page. As I said, the issue has come up before and I'm not the one who raised the points. I thought consensus had formed so that MPs who weren't re-elected should have their end date listed as the day parliament was disolved. However, I have been away from Wikipedia for 2 years so a new consensus may have been formed. I'm happy to go along with whatever the current consensus says.

Out of curiosity, which definition of obtuse are you using in this context? Road Wizard (talk) 21:20, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

(undent): Isn't that one rule for MPs who won and another for MPs that didn't? Anyway I wasn't aware of the past discussion. Oh, and I didn't mean obtuse as in "dimwitted" or anything personal, merely "indirect" - (in my opinion) needlessly complex, because saying they were MP from 1997 till 2005 (say) would achieve the same. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:25, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

That was the consensus that I thought had formed when I left; Multiple terms are considered as a straight run with the start date as the day the returning officer provided the constituency result and the end date as the dissolution of Parliament in their final term.

The inconsistent approach between single and multiple terms may be one of the reasons why it was never followed through. Road Wizard (talk) 21:32, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:John Gummer, Baron Deben#Requested move to John Gummer

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:John Gummer, Baron Deben#Requested move to John Gummer. -- Trevj (talk) 12:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)Template:Z48

Requesting comments at WT:WikiProject Conservatism.

I think some people here might be interested in a discussion that is currently going on at WT:WikiProject Conservatism about problems with that project. If you are interested, start reading that talk page, starting with the section "NPOV edit requests". There is also much of interest in the talk page archives. RGloucester (talk) 00:32, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

XXX (British political party) moved to XXX (political party)

Pnen27 (talk · contribs) has made the following article moves:

• Radicals (UK) to Radicals (political party)
• Tory (British political party) to Tory (political party)
• Whig (British political party) to Whig (political party) - (now reverted)

Unfortunately in each case there are other political parties with the same name so the disambiguation doesn't work. I reverted the Whig entry before I spotted the others. Is there a consensus to revert or are there better names that can be used? Road Wizard (talk) 18:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Those changes shouldn't have been made, full stop. If they were made without consensus then that's a pretty rough act from him. Request reverts from whereever that's hidden these days doktorb _words^deeds 21:45, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

a mitchell has quit

someone should add that andrew mitchell quit govt to cameron ministry page 128.148.231.12 (talk) 19:31, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Someone will probably get around to it sooner or later. You are welcome to edit the articles yourself. Road Wizard (talk) 19:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Category:Parliamentary constituencies in Wales

Category:Parliamentary constituencies in Wales and Category:Constituencies of Northern Ireland‎, which are within the scope of this WikiProject, have been nominated for renaming. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:10, 28 October 2012 (UTC)