Talk:List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom

Coloured boxes perhaps?

I think it would be helpful if we coloured the boxes that have Prime Minister's party in them because at the moment there are only small strips of colour at the most left hand side of the table. For example:

Golden/dark yellow = Whig (later Liberal)

Blue = Tory (later Conservative)

Red = Labour

Ducal titles

It is not useful to state a ducal title only in the list, eg The Duke of Deveonshire, instead of the person's actual name (eg William Cavendesh, 4th Duke of Deveonshire). This would be much more clear. Astrotrain 19:07, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wholly agree, the Duke of Devonshire includes several people who had that name (though admittedly not all at th same time), William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire is fairly clear exactly who it is. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 19:11, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Although if you follow each link it does actually take you to the person rather than the title. -- Graham ☺ | Talk 19:16, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'll fix these. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 22:18, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

fixed; now much better; thanks for the suggestion. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 22:24, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It was like this before and it was decided that it makes the table look messy (which it does). See Talk:Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Proteus (Talk) 15:31, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC) I agree. If there is no objection, I will change the article back to the previous state. -- Emsworth 19:13, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

But itn't it more logical to list the people my name; it is not the office of e.g. the Duke of Devonshire that was PM, it was William Cavendish, who also happened to be Duke of Devonshire at the same time. Maybe drop ducal, etc., titles and keep just names? --Whosyourjudas (talk) 19:16, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Then it gets confusing - to history he's known as the Duke of Devonshire but he's far from the only Duke who was at the frontline of politics. There are some who are better known by their ordinary names (e.g. Pitt the Elder - which is what a biography of him on my shelf is called) but others who are known by their titles (e.g. Rockingham, Portland, Salisbury, Rosebury) and a few who are known by an interim title (Shelburn, Goderich). Timrollpickering 22:20, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This concern, I believe, is based on a misunderstanding of the Peerage. The Dukedom of Devonshire, to take an example, is not an office, but a dignity: it forms a part of the name of the individual in question. Whenever one refers this Prime Minister, one uses "Devonshire," not "Cavendish." Similarly, one refers to Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston as "Palmerston," not "Temple." -- Emsworth 15:26, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Was James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave (1715 – 1763) First Lord of the Treasury and Prime Minister for five days in 1757? Several lists suggest he was. --Audiovideo 02:18, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

another column needs to be added

currently, the chart contains columns for Prime Minister, Entered office, Left office, and Party. another column should be added for "Number of terms" or something of that nature. i am reading how Blair's third term is significant. this chart should help me to understand why. but it doesn't.....yet. Kingturtle 01:09, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Hello? anyone out there? please fulfill my request :) Kingturtle 22:24, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

A third term is significant simply because it is rare. The electorate and party (often on behalf of the former) are disillusioned with the party leader by this time, thus they kick him/her out. Read about Margaret Thatcher. --62.171.194.7 10:25, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

A number of terms column would be useful, but there would be the problem, if it is such, that most terms would be of different lengths eg only a few months for one of Wilsons but 4years for Blair. This may be confusing for some but I'd still support either the addition of a column of this type or a change to a seperate listing for each general election won. AllanHainey 14:04, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

This list is misnamed

This list is of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom but until 1801 it wasn't the territory wasn't officially the United Kingdom (which didn't exist) but Great Britain & Northern Ireland. It may be worthwhile for the sake of accuracy either amending the page title or noting the fact on the page. I'm not making any changes at this time but wan to see what peoples views are on this AllanHainey 14:18, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Actually prior to 1801 it was the United Kingdom of Great Britain, also called the Kingdom of Great Britain. After 1801 the United Kingdom was united with the Kingdom of Ireland and became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Binabik80 22:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Dates

This page used to have individual dates for all PMs. These seem to have been removed by Talrias for no apparent reason. What's the deal? john k 19:02, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a mystery to me. I preferred the old list anyway... Proteus (Talk) 19:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean, all the PMs have their dates of terms in office in the article. I copied these from the Wikipedia articles about them. And I'm sorry you don't like the article Proteus as I spent a considerable amount of time on it. Could you go into more detail about what you preferred about the old one? Talrias (t | e | c) 20:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Talrias, this article used to have more detailed information than the individual PM articles, specifically giving actual dates, rather than just months. I (and, I'm sure, everybody else) would appreciate it if you would go through and restore the specific dates, if they were mistakenly deleted. john k 01:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can tell the old article didn't have any sources for the dates. I would feel uncomfortable adding in the dates from the old article seeing as they weren't sourced. I'll look for a source on the Internet, but if someone else has one to hand, I'll add them in as soon as I've verified the dates. Talrias (t | e | c) 01:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Error in timeline bar?

I think there is an error in the timeline bar, where it indicates Ramsay MacDonald's first term in blue instead of red. I don't know how to fix it, or I would do it myself. Acsenray 19:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Ramsay McDonald's first time was less than a year and so it isn't visible on the scale. It's in between the two terms of Stanley Baldwin (who is shown in blue). McDonald's term is shown by the white line. Talrias (t | e | c) 19:32, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Surely there should be some mention of the coalition government under Lloyd George. One cannot simply label these years as a Liberal Government. This should be altered as soon as possible.

Stop Gap PMs

I don't think that the list includes William Pulteney (The Earl of Bath) who did hold the office of PM for 2 days in 1746. Nor does it include Earl Waldegrave who held the office for a couple of weeks in the 1750s nor The Duke of Wellington who held the office for a couple of days in the 1830s, around the time of the Reform Act. Of course, these ministries were very short but these people were, nevertheless, PMs. They 'kissed hands.' What do people think about including them in the list? Finnophile . 22nd Jan 06.

These people aren't listed at 10 Downing Street's list of Prime Ministers. Do you have a source of some kind of list which includes them? Talrias (t | e | c) 12:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia Brittanica mention that he was PM for 2 days. It mentions Waldegrave's week as well. I think it might be worth mentioning but emphasising that they were only 'stop-gaps,' as they were 'First Lord's of the Treasury.' There are many lists that mention this pair. One can be found here http://www.burkes-peerage.net/sites/common/sitepages/pmindex.asp in Burke's Peerage. Most lists don't have them because the ministries were so short. Finnophile 23rd Jan 06

Were they actually Prime Minister or just First Lord of the Treasury? Often the two get mixed. Timrollpickering 00:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

In both cases, they were 'Prime Minister,' they 'kissed hands' (were appointed PM by the King) but didn't have enough support so had to resign. They also cited as PM by the Dictionary of National Biography.

This has come up before - taken from Talk:Prime Minister of the United Kingdom:

Similarly, James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave was, I think, PM, for five days in 1757. We don't even have an article on him, though. James F. (talk) 16:49, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I imagine he was First Lord of the Treasury. Calling him Prime Minister seems a bit dubious, although I suppose we do the same with the Duke of Devonshire or the Earl of Wilmington...but I've never seen this Lord Waldegrave on any list that I've come across. Was this following the dismissal of the Devonshire ministry but before the creation of the Newcastle one? john k 17:14, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

--david 05:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)== Some comments == Thanks John for your detailed responses to the points I tried to make. I guess it is painfully obvious I am brand new to this .... but I will get the hang of it. Some years ago I developed a chart of the Chief Ministers following Bigham in "The Chief Ministers of England". True, it is very difficult to determine if there was a chief minister at any given time and for how long (just as it is with Prime Ministers, at least in the 18th century and a little after). Still, an article or at least a chart on chief ministers helps (I think) to complete the story of the evolution of the Prime Ministry, showing "trends" prior to Walpole (such as: a. increased importance of the treasury and treasury offices and 2. increased need for ministers to maintain "control" of Parliament, especially the Commons). I did conduct a search for several of the ideas mentioned in my list and couldn't find anything or much, at least. That is why I mentioned them. Anyway .... as I am new to this I'd like to suggest you take a look at my Chief Ministers chart to see if I/we want to proceed further. Is there a way of exchanging files in Wikipedia (like a Wiki-email)? I have some comments:

• Could someone expand the intro part of this list and include information about how Prime ministers are chosen, and how the position changed in time...
• The "Political party ideologies" is irrelevant here, it should belong to List of political parties in the United Kingdom
• The timeline is very "crowdy" and hard to understand. Could you keep only the time spent as prime minister without the birth, death and political career which is irrelevant to the list.
• Finally the long vertical should be removed, because it's hard to understand and the timleine above it is better to read.

Thank you for responding to my comments. CG 12:09, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The information about Prime Ministers is in the article Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, which is a more appropriate place for this. The political party ideologies was added due a request when this was nominated as a featured list. I've split out the two timelines. Talrias (t | e | c) 12:20, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:What is a featured list?:

Featured lists should includes having a lead section where appropriate, which is brief but sufficient to summarize the nature of the list.

Also check List of Presidents of Venezuela, List of Presidents of the United States and List of Presidents of Portugal, they all have enough information in their intro. About the "political parties" section, I'm opposed to it, but if you want to keep it, it must at least be shortened a lot. The paragraph about the Prime minister should be the most important piece of text in this list. CG 16:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing stopping you from making those changes to the article. Talrias (t | e | c) 16:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok, About the timelines, you understood me wrong. The horizontal timeline (Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers 2 doesn't show all prime ministers, plus, the birth and political career information masks the term of the PM being in office, that's why we should remove all other information and keep the duration on which the PM has been in office. Anyway, this kind of timeline is relevant only if the duration in which the PM serves in office varies from one PM to another (see for example List of popes (graphical)). This seems to be the case for UK PMs (tell me if I'm wrong). About the vertical timeline, just delete it: it's unreadable. CG 17:25, 9 April 2006 (UTC) I am new to this Wikipedia. I have been doing some editing but mostly "catching up" by reading all the current sections on the Prime Ministry and the comments back a couple of years. I must say you have all done a fantastic job. I also have several comments or maybe observations: 1. I have edited the section on "political party ideologies. However, I agree with Cedar-Guardian that it is out of place here in a List of Prime Ministers. It should probably be its own section. 2. I think there needs to be a section on the evolution and history of the Prime Ministry (the office itself, rather than those who ocupied it), where it came from and why, and how it changed over time and why. For example, George Downing (who built the Downing Street houses) was Secretary of the Treasury Commission during the Great Treasury Commission of 1667-73 and in that position reformed the Treasury in ways that had profound political and constitutional implications for the relationship between Parliament and the Crown, and ultimately the evolution of the Prime Ministry. 3. As part of the "history/evolution of the Prime Ministry I think there should be an entirely new section on the so-called Chief Ministers of Great Britain from St Dunstan of Glastonbury (10th century) to Harley (18th century) A section like this would show that the Prime Ministry did not simply appear in the early 18th century with Walpole. There were in fact numerous individuals who have wielded powers SIMILAR to a Prime Minister. 4. I think Ten Downing Street should be a completely separate section. There is some fasinating history behind the three houses that make up Number Ten and the land it occupies and former houses that were there going back to late Tudor / early Stuart times. For example, General Monke, who oversaw the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, was, as Duke of Albmarle, the figurehead leader of the Great Treasury Commission of 1667-73. He also lived in Lichfield House, the house in the back which Walpole combined with Number Ten in the 1730's. 5. Lastly, I think all the section headings need to be ..... lets say .... standardized, so that they are clearly related. As a suggestion, we could use British Prime Ministry as the lead for all sections followed by a statement that identifies what specific aspect is being discussed. For example British Prime Ministry: List of Prime Ministers of Great Britain, and British Prime Ministry: History of Number Ten Downing Street and British Prime Ministry: Origins from 10th century to 17th. etc etc Let me know what you all think and how I should proceed if at all. --david 01:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC) Individual responses:

1. By "section," do you mean "article?" If not, I'm confused. I agree that the political party ideology doesn't really belong here. We have detailed articles on all of the various parties which can easily be accessed by clicking on links.
2. This material belongs in Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, not here, and much of it probably is there (although I've no idea if the specific stuff you mention is).
3. See below.
4. There is an article on 10 Downing Street. That is the place for discussion of this sort. The material you suggest would be useful there.
5. Ah, so by section, you do mean article. We normally use section to refer to subdivisions of an article. Each web page on wikipedia is an "article." In terms of the specific suggestion, this would go against the general guidelines we have for how to name articles. Basically, each article is supposed to stand on its own, and not be a subsection of some larger article. Obviously, articles are going to be related, but they're not supposed to actually be subsidiary to one another in that way.

In terms of the Chief Ministers issue, that's an interesting question. I'm not really sure about the medieval stuff (I'm really not familiar with it, but from Tudor and Stuart (and very early Hanoverian) times I've generally seen the following listed as "chief ministers:

• Wolsey (1514?-1529)
• Cromwell (1533?-1540)
• Somerset (1547-1550)
• Northumberland (1550-1553)
• Gardiner, I suppose (1553-1555)
• Cecil/Burghley (1558-1598)
• Robert Cecil (1598-1612)
• Buckingham (1618-1628)
• Strafford (1639-1641)
• Clarendon (1660-1667)
• Danby/Carmarthen/Leeds (1673-1679, 1689-1695)
• Rochester (1679-1684)
• Sunderland (1684-1688)
• Shrewsbury (1695-1698, 1714)
• Godolphin (1702-1710)
• Harley/Oxford (1710-1714)
• Townshend (1714-1716)
• Stanhope & Sunderland (1717-1721)

Would that be about the lines you were thinking? I'm not sure how to do this, though, because it's often quite hard to determine when there's a single chief minister, especially when the person is always holding different offices. In this list, we've got Lord Chancellors, Lord Privy Seals, Lord Treasurers, Secretaries of State, Lord Lieutenants of Ireland, Lord High Admirals, Lord Presidents, and one mere Chancellor of the Exchequer (Harley from 1710-1711). In the later years, one can clearly see the idea that it's natural for one man to lead the ministry developing. But even so, you have significant periods when there's not really any single dominant minister. The Cabal period, for instance, as well as the Chits period that I've listed as "Rochester's" ministry; the Stanhope/Sunderland ministry was obviously a partnership, with Stanhope running foreign affairs and Sunderland domestic. I think the same can be said of the first 9 years of Walpole's premiership - as long as Townshend was in the government, he was effectively in charge of foreign affairs. I would suggest we make another page with a list of "Chief Ministers of England" (as, indeed, for almost the entire period we are referring to England, rather than Britain as a whole), and we note the informal nature of the list. I'd think that we should be able to list more than one minister at a time, for instance. john k 03:31, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

New redesign

I'm going to change the table and make it more readable. I think that the "Notes and key events" column should be deleted. Instead we use symbols to refer to PMs who resigned or died in office (see List of Presidents of the United States). Plus, we should use various colors according to the political party instead of the plain grey. Finally a picture of the PM should also be included. (see also List of Presidents of Venezuela and List of Presidents of Portugal). I need your comments before I make those changes. CG 12:05, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I strongly object to removing the notes and key events column. This list became featured probably due to this column which is incredibly useful in my opinion. There are colours for the various political parties, see the bar down the left? If we have pictures of all the Prime Ministers then adding them might be a good idea. Talrias (t | e | c) 13:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Talrias, we should keep the notes & key events, it is extremely useful as an overview of the PMs accomplishments/failures/events they had to deal with. You suggest using symbols for those who resigned/died, etc like on the list of U.S.A. Presidents. I think this may not be feasible due to the differences in political systems (no fixed terms, choice of who is PM is the Monarchs (the more so the earlier you go) not the incumbents, hard to determine if one resigned/was sacked/wanted to continue but didn't have support, is it a resignation if a PM calls a general election or not (usually because they were defeated on votes)?)and the fact that most early PMs weren't officially PMs but considered as 'first amoung equals'.

There are colours for the various parties (though which 'party' they belonged to is often in dispute in the 18th/19th c) though I see that there isn't a key to this any more. There did used to be one. We could extend the colours to include the whole of that line rather than just being in the bar, I'm not too concerned about that but it may look a bit messy for some. I'm not convinced that we need pictures and it may make it look too crowded. I don't think it'd be too hard to find pictures of the PMs though, whether they're distinct at thumbnail size or any good is a different matter. AllanHainey 07:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

——— The "Notes and key events" column has now been absent for about a year, and has been replaced by that oddest of columns, the PMs' birthplaces. I cannot think of a more trivial piece of information – certainly far less useful than the notes. I am thinking about reinstating the notes column. As I envisage it at the moment, I would get the list looking something like this:

	Portrait	Name	Term of office	Political party	Other ministerial offices held while Prime Minister	Monarchs served · Electoral mandates Notes and key events	Refs
style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |		Tony Blair	2 May 1997 27 June 2007	Labour	First Lord of the Treasury & Minister for the Civil Service	Elizabeth II · 1997, 2001, 2005Independence for the Bank of England; Ecclestone tobacco controversy; Belfast Agreement; Human Rights Act; devolution to Scotland and Wales; House of Lords Reform; Minimum wage; Kosovo War; Mayor of London and Greater London Authority; War in Afghanistan; Iraq War; University tuition fees; Civil Partnership Act; 7 July 2005 London bombings; Cash for Peerages; Identity cards.

or, alternatively (in the style of the German version of the list of US Presidents),

	Portrait	Name	Term of office	Electoral mandates	Political party	Other ministerial offices held while Prime Minister	Refs
rowspan="2" style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |		Tony Blair	2 May 1997 27 June 2007	1997, 2001, 2005	Labour	First Lord of the Treasury & Minister for the Civil Service
Independence for the Bank of England; Ecclestone tobacco controversy; Belfast Agreement; Human Rights Act; devolution to Scotland and Wales; House of Lords Reform; Minimum wage; Kosovo War; Mayor of London and Greater London Authority; War in Afghanistan; Iraq War; University tuition fees; Civil Partnership Act; 7 July 2005 London bombings; Cash for Peerages; Identity cards.

What do people think? BartBassist (talk) 10:04, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

New graphical list

I created List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom (graphical) in order ro replace the unreadable Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers and Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers 2. What are your thoughts? CG 21:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

I actually quite like Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers, but anyway to comment on your graphical list:

1) I think you can knock the first 20 years off the first graph as it's just empty space. 2) Lords shouldn't be listed as The Lord ...(eg The Lord John Russell makes him sound like a pub) but as Lord ... as Lord is a courtesy title. 3) I'm not sure of the appropriate convention for naming members of the peerage by their titles but I'd leave off the "the" here too as it seems unecessary & a little annoying (eg the Viscount Palmerston, the Earl Grey, it just sounds wrong). AllanHainey 12:00, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

As for the first point, it's done, although this stretches the bars and would make comparisions between two centuries difficult. As for the second and third point, I just copied the names format used in the table of List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. I see that there is a lot of difference between the names used in Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers and in this page. I won't change anything unless it's resolved and the names are changed into the appropriate name format. Finally, when all these issues are solved, I suggest we delete Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers and Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers 2 for the reason that my design is the most readable, where most of the primes ministers are visible without scrolling through the page. CG 16:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

To help this discussion I thought it might be useful to explain why I created Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers 2. I wanted to exploit the timeline functionaility to show the context of each of the PM's terms of office. Unlike, say, US Presidents, the PM has to build an extensive career in the House of Commons, then serves a variable term of office, sometimes many terms, then returns to the Commons for a variable length of time before finally retiring. Ted Heath for example, served for many years after his term of office, longer than the three PM's that succeeded him, and even longer than Home, Callaghan and Churchill. Margaret Thatcher, in contrast, left the Commons very shortly after being ousted from office, and Bonar Law and Chamberlain left the Commons shortly after leaving office and died shortly afterwards. Also it can be seen that Macmillan, Eden and Home enjoyed long retirements. So Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers 2 complements the timelines that show term of office only (such as the very clear and readable List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom (graphical)) and one day I will find the time to complete it! Wikipete 09:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC) I've just had a look at Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers 2 & spotted an easily made error in it. The grey line is entitled "not in parliament" but I think it should really be either not in House of Commons or corrected to show when the people in question were in Parliament but in the House of Lords rather than Commons after their Prime Ministerial terms. AllanHainey 07:20, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to edit and make the change...I did consider making the Lords/Commons distinction when I first created the timeline but decided that could be a future development since it needs a fair bit of research to pull out all the ennoblement dates. Wikipete 18:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I responded so late. Even though I'm not really convinced about the usefulness of Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers 2, I won't ask for its removal. But since Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers is superseded by List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom (graphical), can we just delete it? CG 09:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't they be merged into one page, or something? I regard Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers 2 as a creation of brilliance, partly because it lists PMs who served non-consecutive terms on the same line, and partly because it clearly shows the way in which the post passed between the great political rivals (Gladstone/Disraeli, Gladstone/Salisbury, Baldwin/MacDonald). It also highlights interesting little features such as Churchill's time as a Liberal, the fact that Campbell-Bannerman and Bonar Law died almost immediately after leaving office, and that MacDonald lost his seat in 1918, and Callaghan's long political experience and John Major's short political experience. As for Template:Timeline UK Prime Ministers, I have to say that I too rather like it: I agree that CG's version is more legible, but the need for multiple lines makes it a little unwieldy. BartBassist (talk) 01:16, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Ideology

I don't think the likes of Pitt, Addington, Portland and Perceval should be described as Tories. Pitt was certainly an independent when he became Prime Minister, the Fox-North Coalition that he opposed was almost a Whig-Tory alliance against him. With the others, though the group they led became Tories, they did not use the label themselves. To call them Tories because their group became Tories is analogous to calling Liverpool a Conservative because the Tories in turn became Conservatives. 134.226.1.136 13:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

This has come round a few times and is rather messy to sort out anyway. Using the "Tory" label for the Pittites from 1783 is perhaps anacrhonistic but there isn't really an alternative way to express this well. The term "Tory" was slowly taken up but does really emerge around the time of Perceval's assassination. Certainly there were clear groups, with the Foxites unambiguously seen as "Whigs". If anything it's the use of "Tory" for Lord North that's more confusing - North had been consistently in office since the Chatham ministry and wasn't really a continuity with any of Harley & Bolingbroke, Bute or Pitt the Younger.

For the most part I'm not sure there's a solution, although for the first Palmerston ministry we seem to be labelling it as "Liberal" despite most datings of that party's origins being to 1859. Maybe make that one "Whig" as well? Timrollpickering 14:04, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I would favour relabelling Palmerston's first ministry as Whig, because the 1859 is the clearest date we can find, though I would still not be entirely satisfied that that suits the situtation. As to the Pittites, I knew it would be difficult, as most reference books ascribe parties as they are here (e.g. the Oxford Reference Dictionary, FWS Craig's Parliaments of England), but that in itself is not a reason to use them here. If we have Peelites, why not have Pittites. William Quill 15:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to revive this debate. Having studied eighteenth-century British political history in depth, it is clear that the case for labelling Bute, North, Pitt the Younger or Addington 'Tory' is increasingly feeble. By middle of the century, everyone essentially identified as a Whig; in many ways it was a catch-all term which merely meant support for the Hanoverian succession and belief in the integrity of the Revolution Settlement, which at this point was not in doubt. Even George III identified as a Whig; his gripes were against one strand of the Whigs in particular, the Old Corps, whom he had seen as keeping his royal ancestors in toils. Bute cannot be convincingly called a Whig; Lord North had impeccable Whig credentials and the tenor of his premiership is very similar to that of Walpole (reducing the land tax, emphasising financial reform). Pitt the Younger identified as an 'independent Whig'; just take a look at page 52 of William Hague's biography of him, or page 128 of Michael J. Turner's Pitt The Younger: A Life. The idea of Pitt The Younger as a Tory generally owes to his political followers who were selective with his beliefs in their attempt to transform him into an arch-conservative; they ignored his sceptical attitude to religion and his support for Catholic Emancipation, for instance, as it did not fit in to this view. For more, look at J.J. Sack's excellent article, 'The Memory of Burke and the Memory of Pitt: English Conservatism Confronts Its Past, 1806-29', in The Historical Journal, 30:3.

This confusion is largely owing to the fact that 'Tory' was used as a term of abuse for political opponents; yes, Bute was called a Tory by opponents, but so was, say, the Duke of Grafton, whose Whig credentials are never questioned. There needs to be a significant overhaul in our thinking, as we risk promoting an anachronistic view of the British party system, and of what is meant by the term Whig. The Wonky Gnome 21:48, 27 March 2011 (GMT)

So, to summarise: Bute, Tory(?); North, Whig/Independent; Pitt the Younger, Independent Whig or Pittite. How about Addington? He started out as a Pittite, but Pitt opposed him, so if Addington was a Pittite, then Pitt himself wasn't a Pittite by his second ministry! Portland's ministries are both problematic: Portland had unquestionable Whig credentials, but if North is considered Tory then the Fox-North administration cannot be labelled 'Whig', and his second administration was post-Pittite / proto-Tory. BartBassist (talk) 10:18, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Splitting up the list

What about splitting up the list by the monarchs the prime minister served under, instead of by time period? I'm only thinking this because, after Blair goes, there will only be one PM in the 21st century PMs, which will look a bit silly.Mathsguy 13:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC) It will fill up with new PMs as time goes by, there'll be at least two when Blair goes. Leave as is I suggest. Nigel45 14:17, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Birthplace of Prime Ministers

The birthplace of Prime Ministers has been removed, I find this useful and interesting, is there any view on replacing it? Nigel45 09:10, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

There also used to be a page titled List of UK Prime Ministers' Burial Places, which although incomplete and horribly formatted, seemed to be a useful idea. It has since been deleted, I may propose an undelete. What is the argument for not including either of these pieces of information on this page (as a group they are an interesting, perhaps enlightening historical record). This information should be available on the individual pages, but there is no reason not to have separated pages devoted to it, is there? Tadramgo (talk) 14:29, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

One reason for not including them on this page is to avoid overloading the reader with useless trivia. With only a limited amount of space for information in a list-class article, tough decisions need to be made as to what is relevant. What bearing does the place of birth or death have on the role of a Prime Minister? What information do you think would be worth losing from the article to make way for such lesser details?

There were three key problems with the burial place article that was deleted; it was incomplete, poorly formatted and completely unreferenced. If you can fix all those problems then it might be worth resurrecting the article. However, I would suggest that a more appropriate alternative would be to incorporate the birth place and death place fields into the List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom by longevity as that list is specifically about the life time of each Prime Minister. Road Wizard (talk) 15:54, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Point taken, the information would be relevant on that page. As a new contributor to Wikipedia it seems to me odd that I can find no method for centrally storing such information. Eg in this instance: having a method of collating information from various personal pages onto things like "list" pages. Perhaps pulling the info from info-boxes etc, along with the references, rather than having the same information, and associated refs. spread across the project. Does wikipedia have the capacity for such database like structures?

If I can spare the time I might take on adding birth/death/burial places to the Longevity page, however it feels a little like a waste of time considering the possibility of what I have outlined above. Also: the Longevity page is as completely unreferenced as the original burial place was - unless we consider a link to the individuals' page an assumption that those will have the information - though far better formatted and complete. Tadramgo (talk) 16:11, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

A database structure similar to the one you mention is in the process is being built (see Wikipedia:Persondata). As a first step WikiProject Persondata is focusing on the basic details of each biographical article (name, date of birth, place of birth, date of death and place of death) though if the project is able to show significant benefits I expect that it will be expanded to incorporate other data as well. In the long term I think we will see a greater reliance on external database tools for basic biographical information.

You are right that the longevity article is also completely unreferenced. Until it receives references there is the potential that it will be deleted as an unverified article. Links to other Wikipedia articles is not sufficient for referencing an article as Wikipedia cannot be used as its own source. Road Wizard (talk) 16:40, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

My own view, for what it's worth, is that the birthplace of a Prime Minister is completely irrelevant to his ministry, and should not be listed in this article. It is trivial and it's taking up space. If another page can be found to accommodate their birthplaces, all well and good. BartBassist (talk) 10:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

W. H. Smith and the Duke of Wellington's second government

Two changes I thought were neccessary. The Duke of Wellington ran the British government single handedly (six ministries or something like that) for almost a month after King William IV sacked Parlmiston, and I thought that the list should reflect that. Also, What about WH Smith? It's agreed that Lord Salsbury was "Prime Minister" (when the conservatives held power) but the official title of PRIME MINISTER didn't exist until the Campbell Bannerman government. That's why I mentioned the anomoly.

I think there's a danger of overhyping 1905 as some revolution when all that really happened was the term was used in a list. One could equally use whenever official government statements used the term (during Disraeli's time), or when the title was used formally in Parliament, or legislation (1917).

As for Smith, I'm remvoing the following section as highly flawed:

Since the accession of King George III in 1760, the title "First Lord of the Treasury" has been the official title of the Prime Minister . However, 14 January 1887 to 6 October 1891 William Henry Smith held the office while Lord Salsbury held the unofficial title and actual powers of Prime minister. Smith was succeeded by Arthur Balfour on 6 October 1891.

Balfour became "Prime Minister" on Salsbury's resignation on July 11, 1902. Smith therefore is the only First Lord of the Treasury never to have been "Prime Minister."

Where do I begin? First off there were numerous First Lords pre Walpole. Secondly Smith wasn't the only one post 1760 - Chatham never held the title (I think Grafton did), whilst Salisbury only held it briefly during the start of his second ministry. Otherwise I think Northcote/Iddlesleigh held it in the first ministry (and he never became PM either), whilst Balfour holding it 1891-1892 and 1895-1902 is a very different thing even if he did subsequently become PM. Thirdly First Lord was still a nominally different post that just happened to be held by the PM. Even the 1937 Ministers of the Crown Act differentiates between the post of PM and office of First Lord. Not all held it and it was more the case that the head of the government tended to hold the post rather than holding the post conferred leadership of the government.

The British constition is notorious for relying on precedent rather than having everything written down and the idea that somehow Smith was the nominal leader of the government whilst Salisbury exercised actual power is very strange. Timrollpickering 18:13, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Images

Is it not possible to use more 'formal' portraits for some of the more recent Prime Ministers? I think the List of President of the United States looks quite good with the official photographs of the recent US Presidents. Looking at this list of Prime Ministers I think that surely there must be better images available for Blair, Major, Thatcher, Callaghan and Eden... --Popeyedoyle 15:11, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

21 centuary prime minister

its time to add the 21st century pm as tony blair announced his retirement. manchurian candidate 11:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The merger tag was placed on Dec. 31, yet there's no discussion on it. I'm starting this section so it can be discussed. Personally, I think it's a little neater to keep them separate, but, in any event, let's start talking and make a decision. --Steven J. Anderson 19:50, 16 May 2007 (UTC) Merge: Don't Merge: --Steven J. Anderson 19:50, 16 May 2007 (UTC) Neater this way. A week without a word. I'm taking the tags off --Steven J. Anderson 08:39, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Numbering

1) Even though UK PMs are not numbered like US presidents, could numbering still not exist on PM's infoboxes 2) The numbering on this page (which seems correct) does not match the numbering given to PMs by a user recently (which has subsequently been removed) Rutld001 14:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

There is no consensus on numbering - do PMs who have more than one tenure get counted more than once? What about when a PM resigns but is then reappointed (eg. 1931, 1945 - which we currently don't have here at all)? Or when they try to resign but an alternative government can't be formed and so they continue in office (1839, 1851, 1873)? Or when the government collapses and it's not entirely clear who's left running the shop for a bit (1757)? What about cases like 1746 when the Earl of Bath tried to form a ministry - was he PM? And of course we get the modern idea that a PM serves multiple terms divided by general elections...

I think any numbering scheme would invariably involve some degree of POV on some of the above questions, since otherwise it gets messy with the Pelham brothers. Some of the distinctions are well known, others aren't (e.g. Churchill's resignation and appointment on May 23rd 1945). With no official or even widely recognised numbering, any attempt to apply one will lead to loads of reverts. No-one thinks of the PMs by numbers but by when they were in office. Timrollpickering 18:39, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

This seems sensible. Numbering is likely to only cause problems, given the number of possible ambiguities. john k 18:42, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

• I'm ashamed to say that I'm the one who added to numbering to this page and I've just removed it. I wasn't completely happy with it to begin with; it was very messy with MacDonald. --Philip Stevens 13:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Someone's just added it again, this time on a "PMs with multiple terms have multiple numbers" basis. Numbering UK PMs just isn't done, and internationally practices vary heavily - compare Robert Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia 1939-1941 & 1949-1966 who is listed as just the "twelth", and Benazir Bhutto, Prime Minister of Pakistan 1988-1990 and 1993-1996 who is listed as both the twelth and the sixteenth. Timrollpickering 17:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I've just messed with the numbering scheme, one number for each PM. I saw and liked this scheme in the Guiness Book of Answers, though it implies that the list of PM's is more widely accepted than it really is. The EB 11th ed. lists Carteret after Walpole in the "Prime Minister" article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fixpmlist (talk • contribs) 23:35, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Well that's one particular numbering scheme but it's far from universal and as you yourself says there is some dissent from the traditional list. But numbering is hardly ever used and quite apart from the question of which names to include and exclude the lists tend to just transfer the conventions for another country rather than reflect active usage. Timrollpickering (talk) 01:31, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

This issue keeps cropping up in the article. Is it worth leaving a message to editors within the article text such as <!--The issue of numbering the sequence of Prime Ministers has been discussed several times. Please see the talk page and discuss new proposals before implementing them. -->? This note could be placed at or near the top of each table and would be invisible to normal readers. Road Wizard (talk) 07:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Someone has recently added numbering again. There are several media sources which call Cameron the 53rd: the Times online, the Mirror, [1], and there are quite a few hits for a google search David Cameron "53rd Prime Minister", which affirm the numbering scheme currently used, so I am unwilling to reverse the numbering, though I am not entirely comfortable with it for the reasons outlined above. BartBassist (talk) 11:31, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Try the equivalent search for winston churchill "41st prime minister" and you get just 7 hits, one of which instead numbers him as 55th and instead gives 41st to Gladstone's third/1886 term. That indicates just how rare it is to actually number PMs and how little consensus there is on how to handle multiple terms. Including numbering here is OR territory. Timrollpickering (talk) 11:02, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I do think that the previous numbering scheme is actually quite useful. Even the Times has stated that David Cameron is the 53rd PM. That does go to prove that this is not WP:OR. It may be true that past PM's were not thought about as their number, but the title Prime Minister is also a recent name that was retroactively put on past PM's. This being the case I plan to revert to the past version. If that is not liked I hope that this conversation would be opened up as to the pros and cons to having numbered Prime Ministers. -- Phoenix (talk) 09:10, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Other ministerial offices held

Just a thought but would it be useful to include the other offices held by the Prime Minister whilst in post? (e.g. MacDonald as Foreign Secretary in 1924, Pitt the Younger as Chancellor, Asquith briefly as Secretary of State for War in 1914, Churchill as Minister of Defence) This could be useful for showing both how the Premiership has evolved and also how much direct power individual PMs had in their government. Timrollpickering 16:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

This might make sense. It'll get fairly complicated in the late 19th century, especially for Salisbury, who, in all his time as PM, was only First Lord of the Treasury from 1886-1887. That ought to be made clear, as well as any additional posts held. Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer for parts of his premierships, and then he and Rosebery both held sinecure positions in the last few liberal governments of the century. The fact that, before Peel's second government, all commoner PMs were also at the Exchequer is certainly worth indicating. john k 17:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

As a start I've added the other offices for the 20th century PMs (and also taken the opportunity to separate Churchill's coalition and caretaker governments - he did actually resign and get reappointed for this). A few notes so far:

I've only included dates when some posts were not held for the entire premiership.

I'm not sure what dates to give when a PM carried over offices they were holding at the time of their appointment. Currently this only covers Balfour (First Lord and Commons Leader since 1895) and Baldwin (Chancellor of the Exchequer since October 1922) but for earlier periods a lot of PMs carried forward posts they already held (e.g. Newcastle, Devonshire, Grafton, North, Perceval, Liverpool, Canning, Goderich and Disraeli). There may also have been some PMs who stood down from the premiership but carried on in other offices - Wellington as Foreign Secretary & Lords Leader in 1834 is the only one I can think of. At the moment I've only listed when they held it during their premiership but listing the entire tenure may be equally valid. What do others think?

Timrollpickering 18:22, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Gordon Brown

Explaining my recent edit: Though Brown is scheduled to become Prime Minister on June 27, 2007, he's yet to actually take office (as of today). Many unforseen things can occur to 'change' the swearing-in date. Therefore, let's wait until Brown is sworn as PM (then we can make the needed edits, for it). Let's be patient (it's only 'til Wednesday). GoodDay 23:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

20th century

Tony blair was bot 20th century and 21st should he be down for 20th 21st or both?

The Two Days & Four Days Prime Ministers

One way or another the various relavent pages handle these inconsistently. On James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave the position boxes list him as Prime Minister between two terms by Devonshire. However this list just shows one Devonshire term and no Waldegrave. The position boxes for William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath don't show him as PM. Nor do Henry Pelham or William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire indicate interregnums. But in the case of Bath's ministry, the one actual appointment, of John Carteret, 2nd Earl Granville (as both Secretaries of State), is acknowledged on both his page and also on Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne & William Stanhope, 1st Earl of Harrington and on the lists for Secretary of State for the Southern Department and Secretary of State for the Northern Department. Plus the Short-lived Ministry (aka "Bath/Granville Ministry") appears on List of British ministries (and the template) but nothing appears for Waldegrave. A consistent position as to whether or not the Bath and Waldegrave ministries and the ministers in them should appear on the lists is needed. Thoughts? Timrollpickering 22:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC) I think they should not. They were entirely abortive, and are not usually listed in official lists and the like. john k 23:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay there's been no other comment so can I suggest that unless there are any objections within three days the articles are amended accordingly to not count the Bath & Waldegrave ministries completely? Timrollpickering 21:05, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Changes made (a little later than planned). Timrollpickering 11:49, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Purpose of colors?

What is the purpose of the colors to indicate political party when the actual party is listed in the 6th column? Tocharianne 19:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC) It more efficient than reading all the parties. Leave it as is, it's not like it is taking up room or anything.

Mrs. Thatcher - "First Lady"?

Was Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher "First Lady of the Treasury? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.141.82.126 ([[User talk:{[[User:69.141.82.126}|69.141.82.126}]] ([[User talk:69.141.82.126}|talk]] · [[Special:Contributions/69.141.82.126}|contribs]] · [https://tools.wmflabs.org/whois/gateway.py?lookup=true&ip=69.141.82.126}

WHOIS])|talk]]) 22:18:30, August 19, 2007 (UTC) 

A late reply, but no, I don't think so. Just as Baroness Amos was Lord President of the Council, these offices are retained in the male form. Craigy (talk) 13:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

No. of Terms served by Blair

Should not Mr Blair be listed as haveing served more than one term, as he has been re-elected a number of times. For earlier prime ministers, the terms are divided - even where they follow on from one another without a pase.(brzak 23:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC))

This is a common misconception. In the British constitution general elections are in and of themselves irrelevant to the premiership. A Prime Minister is appointed and remains appointed until they resign, are dismissed or die. The number of general elections that pass makes no difference. So Blair, like Thatcher, Asquith, Liverpool, North, Walpole and so forth only served one term. Timrollpickering 00:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining that. So Churchill successive terms are an exception to this due to the circumstances at the time - how does that work? i.e. you say that a "Prime Minister is appointed and remains appointed until they resign, are dismissed or die", but Churchill's 1st and 2nd terms do not follow this, should they be merged or... (brzak 09:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC))

Churchill in 1945, and MacDonald in 1931, both formally resigned and were appointed again the same day. In both cases this was due to political changes with coalitions being made and unmade. Both are noted separately becayse of this. Timrollpickering 10:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

cumalalative notes

can we remove some of these notes surrounding recent pms? 2007 floods in UK is hardly what Gordon Brown will be remembered for, can we trim them to essentials? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.92.117.93 (talk) 20:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I have added the reference to the "Credit Crunch" for G. Brown. I havent gone looking for a wikepedia page for this as a link.

Is it my imagination or does gordon's list of notable and memorable "achievements" actually read as a list of disasters?

Bute left office 8 April 1763

See discussion attached to Bute's article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.232.72.45 (talk) 19:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Tony Blair 21st century PM?

Having been elected for a second term in 2005 and resigning in 2007, doesn't that make Blair a 21st century prime minister as well as a 20th Century one? Pathfinder2006 19:24, 13 Oct 2007 (UTC)

His second term was 2001. But anyway, his tenure would probably only be classed as 21st century if he'd been interrupted and returned - i.e. if he lost in 2001 to William Hague, then won again in 2005. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.213.106 (talk) 18:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Coalitions

The party designations at present are misleading. I would strongly suggest you look at some way in which you can indicate coalitions. An obvious example is the coalition during the Great War, which was not 'Liberal' once the Tories were admitted, nor would have been described as such by any contemporary. Neither was Lord Salisbury's third government a Conservative one, but Unionist - the distinction may not matter to you, but was significant at the time, the Liberal Unionists having split from the Liberals over Ireland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.111.14.198 (talk) 18:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, the coalition governments were important parts of the British political makeup, easily as much as any single-party administration, and the Prime Ministerial terms should be marked to represent such. Lloyd-George, for example, whilst a lifelong Liberal MP, was never a Liberal Prime Minister... 139.222.126.141 (talk) 17:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Numbering on pages of UK PMs

I don't suppose this is the right place to ask this, but I couldn't see where else to. On the pages of UK (note not GB) prime ministers, Henry Addington onwards, they are given a numbering, for instance in Addington's case '17th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom' which includes all the GB PMs. I'm sorry to nitpick, but is this really exactly correct? Addington was, in my view, the second PM of the UK (Pitt the younger being the first). Passingtramp (talk) 11:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Numbering is not a convention of British politics & history and any numbering scheme is entirely subjective as to when you start counting, what is and isn't counted and how to handle multiple terms. Unfortunately too many users unfamiliar with this seem to insist on adding what is original research to the articles. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, and I wasn't intending to add my chosen numbers. My preference would be to remove this numbering altogether. Passingtramp (talk) 15:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, which I see you have done! Thanks! Passingtramp (talk) 15:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Tony Blair Major Events

I have added the death of Princess Diana into his list of events, as it was not mentioned previously. Princess Diana died in 1997 in a fatal car crash. Tony Blair was prime minister at the time and he had made a very memorable speech. For more information: Princess Diana Fzhi555 (talk) 10:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

First Prime Minister in 1905?

User 82.46.228.175 has just added an unverified statement claiming that the first use of the title of Prime Minister was in 1905. However, after digging through Hansard records, I have found the term was in use since 1885. There were 195 recorded references to "Prime Minister" in the 1880s including 20 March 1885 and 14 April 1885. This figure rose to 1,240 recorded references in the 1890s. Unless there is a specific source that claims the title only appeared in 1905 it seems pretty clear that it was in common use within Parliament long before that. Road Wizard (talk) 13:05, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

This article mentions the same under Campbell-Bannerman's bit. As does his article. The article on Prime Minister of the United Kingdom says "The first mention of "Prime Minister" in an official government document occurred during the premiership of Benjamin Disraeli. The title has been used since then in documents, letters and conversation (and, in conversation at least, may have been used before then). In 1905 the title "Prime Minister" was noted in a royal warrant that placed the Prime Minister, mentioned as such, in the order of precedence in Britain immediately after the Archbishop of York. By this time legal recognition of the title seems to have occurred and it was later mentioned in the Chequers Estate Act 1917, and the Ministers of the Crown Act 1937." - not referenced. Jooler (talk)

OK. That makes more sense than what was just entered here. I would be willing to accept the first "legal recognition" or "recognition in the order of precedence" claim if a reliable source can be found to support it. Road Wizard (talk) 13:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the distinction being made is between 'common use of the title' and 'legal title'. "modern historians generally apply the title" of course does not make it true. Are modern historians making a description of past events to make it understandable to their modern readership or are they actually referring to documented usage?

Sir Ivor Jennings The Law and the Constitution (5th Edition) (1959) p118: "Some of the institutions which are due to the growth of conventions are in fact recognised by legislation. Thus the office of Prime Minister, though it has been in existence since the early years of the eighteenth century and was one of the key positions in the constitution, was not mentioned in legislation until 1917." which is the The Chequers Estate Act 1917. I have an entirely disreputable quote for the 1905 bit which I will add to article--Utinomen (talk) 23:55, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Documented usage. Walpole was actually called "Prime Minister" by his rivals, but at the time it was meant as a slur and didn't become a title of respect for some time. However, while you comment that what modern historians say might not be true you have to remember that we publish facts not truth. If the sources say something then we are bound to replicate it here. Road Wizard (talk) 06:29, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Would it not make sense for the picture of a Prime Minister to be from during their time in office?

This is not currently the case with Tony Blair - rst20xx (talk) 02:01, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Names in office

I have reverted User:81.110.220.68's inclusion of titles into the names of the Prime Ministers,[2] as the titles were issued after they retired from the office of Prime Minister (except Benjamin Disraeli, as is noted already under his second term). As the titles were not relevant to their times in office, they should not be provided on this page. For example, if a reader was looking for the time that Henry Addington served as Prime Minister, they would not be looking for Viscount Sidmouth. Comments of other editors would be welcome. Road Wizard (talk) 06:58, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Referencing

Is it really necessary to reference each PM? Some information can surely be considered general knowledge, at the back of many OEDs, for example, so it's hardly a disputed fact. Besides, there is a link to Number 10's website here as well. William Quill (talk) 17:40, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia favours an article with numerous references over an article with a single or few references. As this article attempts to meet Wikipedia's requirements for Featured list status it should be held to a higher standard for all quality aspects including referencing.

Do you have a legitimate reason why you want to remove references? I cannot see what harm having one reference per line is causing or what benefit would be created by removing them. Road Wizard (talk) 18:01, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

First, sorry for being late coming back to this. The only legitimate reason I want to use the references is that I think they're are unnecessary. I don't think a table should be wider than it needs to be. I'm sure the list existed on Wikipedia before the particular books referenced were used and this list has appeared in trivia books for years and years. We don't have references in the equivalent List of Presidents of the United States. And we do have a reference for the list as a whole, [3] at the bottom of the page covers the whole thing. William Quill (talk) 13:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

A bad example there. List of Presidents of the United States recently failed a Featured list review and is judged to be of lower quality than this list.

Again I point out that a single source is insufficient for a Wikipedia article per the terms of the Verifiability policy, so relying solely on one link at the bottom of the article is not acceptable.

If your only concern is the table width then there are other methods of slimming it down short of knocking it out of Featured status. Road Wizard (talk) 13:45, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, it just looks odd to me to credit these particular works with a list like this. If the single source at the bottom of the page was from The Times or The Guardian, fair enough, but as it's Number 10 itself, it's fairly much the authoritative source on this matter. I believe I'm right in thinking that when this list was originally written the sources used here were not the sources used, or at least we have no way of knowing that they were. But if these facts need to be in the table, I think if it would look better if they were within the other cells, as in List of English monarchs. William Quill (talk) 17:54, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the lack of references wasnt mentioned in the POTUS discussion you linked, so it wouldnt necessarily knock it out of featured status, but if I can't win on that one, I do propose not having a separate col. Tho I would like to add, that I just had a look thru the edit history here, and you have done quite a bit of work, so well done. William Quill (talk) 18:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

While it wasn't a specific issue raised against the US list, it was definitely a problem for this one (see the recent Featured list discussion). The need for more than a single source is clearly supported by policy and the Featured list criteria; I don't think you can go back to a single source without losing the featured status. However, the method of referencing has a little more leeway.

Your proposal for removing the reference column seems to be solely based on your desire to reduce the width of the table. Are there any other reasons that you would like to discuss? As I said before, there are alternative ways to reduce the width of the table without losing the reference column.

Your alternative proposal to match the layout of List of English monarchs is interesting, but it is also another failed Featured list. We can learn lessons from it, though attempts to match it too closely will cause an equal drop in status. Looking at the entry for Egbert there are two references identified, one of which is repeated four times for the same line. This duplication of references for a single entry occurs repeatedly throughout the list.

Can you confirm that you want references repeated several times on the same line on this list instead of the summary reference at the end of the line? If not, I would welcome an alternative proposal. Regards. Road Wizard (talk) 18:41, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it does look neater as it is than to have multiple references across the line, if that is the only other option. The fact of references at all put me off, and I still think that for exceptionally well-known trivia, a single reference for the list should suffice. But I can let it go if there if it would just look messy if changed. --William Quill (talk) 10:28, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Common Descendancy from Sir George Villiers

According to George Malcolm Thomson in his book "The Prime Ministers" fifteen UK prime ministers are descendants of Sir George Villiers of Brokesby who was the father of the first duke of Buckingham. These are

1. The Duke of Grafton
2. The Duke of Portland
3. The Earl of Chatham
4. William Pitt the Younger
5. The Duke of Devonshire
6. Lord Melbourne (assuming his father was Lord Egremont)
7. Lord Grenville
8. Lord Aberdeen
9. Lord Derby
10. Lord John Russel
11. Lord Salisbury
12. A. J. Balfour
13. Sir Winston Churchill
14. Sir Anthony Eden
15. Sir Alec Douglas Home

Thomson also states that HM the Queen is a descendant of Sir George. As David Cameron's ancestor's include King William IV it may be that he could soon be added to the above list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frank.corr (talk • contribs) 12:03, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Numbering of PM of the GB/UK

I was considering numbering the PMs (starting with Walpole) & counting non-consecutive mandate PM's just once. Would this be wise & accurate of me? GoodDay (talk) 17:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

No. It's not the convention to stick a number on each PM and thus there are no rules on the various factors. Past consensus has always removed this. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:41, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Okie Dokie. GoodDay (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

1756/7

The page gives '(1757 Caretaker Ministry)' as the link to the Ministry of William Cavendish The Duke of Devonshire 16 November 1756 - 25 June 1757. However, the Caretaker Ministry only began when Pitt left office as Southern Secretary on 6th April 1757. Although there is no page for the 1756-7 'Pitt the Elder Ministry', I feel that its existence should be recorded.

Alekksandr (talk) 13:21, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I have inserted this (as 'Devonshire-Pitt Ministry') and done likewise for the 1766-8 'Chatham Ministry' and the 1807-9 'Second Portland Ministry'. I have also added a link for the First Pitt the Younger Ministry

Links to 'Ministry' and 'Government'

At present some of these links are to 'Ministry' pages (which just show the Cabinet) and some are to 'Government' pages (which also show those outside the Cabinet). I propose that the page should link to 'Ministry' pages where they exist, and to 'Government' pages where there is no 'Ministry' page. It seems strange that we have a link which appears as 'Ministry' but which actually goes to the 'Government' page even though the 'Ministry' page exists. This would involve the following changes (working backwards from the present) : -

1. Labour Government 1974–1979 to Callaghan Ministry 2. Labour Government 1974–1979 to Second Wilson Ministry 3. Caretaker Government 1945 to Churchill Caretaker Ministry 4. Coalition Government 1940–1945 to Churchill War Ministry 5. War Government 1939–1940 to Chamberlain War Ministry 6. Fourth National Government 1937–1939 to Fourth National Ministry 7. Third National Government 1935–1937 to Third National Ministry 8. Liberal Government 1905–1915 to First Asquith Ministry 9. Liberal Government 1892–1895 to Fourth Gladstone Ministry 10. Liberal Government 1886 to Third Gladstone Ministry 11. Conservative Government 1885–1886 to First Salisbury Ministry 12. Liberal Government 1880–1885 to Second Gladstone Ministry 13. Conservative Government 1874–1880 to Second Disraeli Ministry 14. Liberal Government 1868–1874 to First Gladstone Ministry 15. Conservative Government 1866–1868 to First Disraeli Ministry 16. Conservative Government 1866–1868 to Third Derby Ministry 17. Liberal Government 1859–1866 to Second Russell Ministry 18. Conservative Government 1858–1859 to Second Derby Ministry 19. Coalition Government 1852–1855 to Aberdeen Ministry 20. Conservative Government 1852 to First Derby Ministry 21. Whig Government 1846–1852 to First Russell Ministry 22. Conservative Government 1841–1846 to Second Peel Ministry 23. Whig Government 1835–1841 to Second Melbourne Ministry 24. Conservative Government 1834–1835 to First Peel Ministry 25. Whig Government 1830–1834 to First Melbourne Ministry 26. Whig Government 1830–1834 to Grey Ministry 27. Tory Government 1828–1830 to Wellington Ministry 28. Canningite Government 1827–1828 to Goderich Ministry

Alekksandr (talk) 00:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Now done

Alekksandr (talk) 12:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Consecutive terms of the same PM

There seems to be some inconsistency as to how these are treated. Churchill is shown in two consecutive rows for (1) his 1940-45 War Ministry and (2) his 1945 Caretaker Ministry. MacDonald is shown in two consecutive rows for (1) his 1929-31 Labour Government and (2) the First and Second National Ministries. Chamberlain has a single row for 'Fourth National Ministry' and 'Chamberlain War Ministry'. Asquith has a single row for 'First Asquith Ministry' and 'Coalition 1915–16'. I appreciate that this may flow from inconsistent treatment in the 'Ministry/Government' articles, and that it may not be possible to resolve the issue without altering them. I feel that it is necessary to have separate rows when the two terms had different political compositions - eg the change from (1) a Liberal to a Coalition Government in 1915 and (2)a Coalition to a Conservative government in 1945. OTOH, the change from 'Fourth National Ministry' to 'Chamberlain War Ministry' in 1939 was little more than a reshuffle - no party entered government. I suggest that the 'Ministry' and 'Government' pages for those 2 should be combined to show a single National Ministry/Government in office from 1937-40, and that Chamberlain's row on this page should have a single link to it. Likewise, the change from 'First National Government' to 'Second National Government' in November 1931 was little more than a reshuffle - no party entered or left government. I suggest that the 'Ministry' and 'Government' pages for those 2 should be combined to show a single National Ministry/Government in office from August 1931 to June 1935, and that MacDonald's 'National Government' row on this page should have a single link to it. I also suggest that there should be two rows for Asquith, as follows: -

	Portrait	Name Constituency/Title	Term of office — Electoral mandates		Political party	Other ministerial offices held while Prime Minister	Refs
rowspan="3" style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |		Herbert Henry Asquith MP for East Fife	7 April 1908	25 May 1915	Liberal (First Asquith Ministry)	First Lord of the Treasury, Leader of the House of Commons & Secretary of State for War (1914)
January 1910†, December 1910†
†Hung Parliaments. Liberal Welfare Reforms; People's Budget; Parliament Act 1911; National Insurance and pensions; Suffragettes and the Cat and Mouse Act; Home Rule Act 1914; World War I.
rowspan="3" style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |		Herbert Henry Asquith MP for East Fife	25 May 1915	7 December 1916	Liberal (Coalition 1915–16)	First Lord of the Treasury, & Leader of the House of Commons
—
Easter Rising.

Alekksandr (talk) 14:08, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Now done.

Alekksandr (talk) 22:55, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

However, Asquith's second ministry was completely during the reign of George V, so what I did was stick it there. It also looks better. 98.14.187.227 (talk) 14:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Shelburne's political allegiance

The article calls him a 'Whig (Rockinghamite)'. However, [4] states 'The North administration left power in March 1782 following the American Revolution, and a coalition of the Rockingham Whigs and the former Chathamites, now led by the Earl of Shelburne, took its place.'. I therefore propose to change Shelburne's description to 'Whig (Chathamite)'.

Alekksandr (talk) 18:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that you have quoted a Wiki page as the source for the change. It would be best to identify an external source before altering things here, in case it is an error on the other article. Road Wizard (talk) 19:13, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

See http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VSmFSMCirugC&lpg=PA124&dq=Shelburne%20Chathamite&as_brr=3&pg=PA124#v=onepage&q=Shelburne%20Chathamite&f=false 'Shelburne, the chathamite leader' http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VSmFSMCirugC&lpg=PA124&dq=Shelburne%20Chathamite&as_brr=3&pg=PA124#v=onepage&q=Shelburne%20Chathamite&f=false 'the Chathamite earl of Shelburne' http://books.google.co.uk/books?pg=PA53&dq=Shelburne%20Chathamite&lr&cd=28&id=UI8LAAAAIAAJ&as_brr=3&output=text 'Lord Shelburne heads the Chathamites'. I propose to make the amendment, citing these authorities

Alekksandr (talk) 22:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Protect

I think we can all agree this needs edit protection. Metallurgist (talk) 20:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Yep, semi protected for one week. Garion96 (talk) 20:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

David Cameron - Conservative Prime Minister?

David Cameron is head of the Conservative party, but is he a Conservative PM? Isn't it meant to be a Conservate/Liberal Democrat alliance? 89.242.124.119 (talk) 07:58, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

He is a Conservative PM who heads a coaltion. -Rrius (talk) 08:00, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

How about this as a compromise - Cameron is a Conservative, without any doubt, but some indication of the Coalition could be given by describing the Ministry as the Cameron/Clegg Ministry. There is some precedent for naming ministries like this - the Walpole/Townshend Ministry, the Carteret Ministry (in which Carteret was never First Lord of the Treasury), the Newcastle/Pitt Ministry, the Fox-North Coalition, etc. BartBassist (talk) 18:07, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Changes to the page.

I would revert the page to be listed under century then monarch, as in any practical sense the monarch is of little pertinence. Furthermore, Winston Churchill (first term) and David Cameron should be coloured as 'coalitions' rather than Conservatives (as I believe was done before). This is a more accurate reflection of the government of the time and it would seem to me better to state the government they served (be it a party or coalition) then what party they belonged to. Cheers, Mtaylor848 (talk) 09:21, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

"as in any practical sense the monarch is of little pertinence" - not quite correct there. The Monarch's role has reduced over time. The early monarchs could and did replace Prime Ministers on a whim. From adding sources to the article I found that even George V had input into who became Prime Minister in the 1920s through having to choose between Lord Curzon and Stanley Baldwin.

What information will be added for the reader by sorting by century when the years are already in the section headers? Road Wizard (talk) 10:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Aberdeen

Why is Aberdeen described as the 'only Peelite prime minister'? Surely Peel and Gladstone fit into this category? In any case it is a misleading description, since it appears to assume the allegiance of 'Peelite' is equivalent to 'Conservative' or 'Liberal'. Best to delete this, I think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.8 (talk) 21:52, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

The Peelites were a political faction formed from a split in the Conservative party that brought down the second Peel Ministry. As the faction didn't exist until Peel lost the Premiership it would be wrong to describe him as a "Peelite Prime Minister". The faction only existed for 13 years, allowing it to be represented only by Aberdeen as Prime Minister. In 1859 the faction merged with the Whigs and independents to form the Liberal party. Gladstone didn't become PM until 9 years after the Peelites ceased to exist, so it would be wrong to say he was a Peelite Prime Minister. Road Wizard (talk) 23:11, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Although you are technically correct, this still smacks of bad history. Yes, Aberdeen was a Peelite, but the faction certainly did exist before 1846 and elements of it continued to exist after 1859. Just because Peelites did not fit into either the Conservative or liberal grouping between 1846 and 1859 does not mean it was only during this period that they were a distinctive faction. It seems to me as though someone has seen that Aberdeen was a 'Peelite' while Peel was a 'Conservative' and Gladstone a 'liberal' and put in the description 'only Peelite prime minister'. This fails to capture the subtlety of British politics in the mid-Victorian period. The fact is, it was possible for Peel to be both a Peelite and a Conservative and, later, for Gladstone to be both a Peelite and a liberal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.8 (talk) 12:17, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

If you have source material that disagrees with our Peelite article then you are welcome to correct it. I am reluctant to change something that, by your admission, is technically correct without provision of a reliable source that puts forward an alternative view point. Road Wizard (talk) 19:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

What I mean to say is that while it is technically correct that Aberdeen was the only Prime Minister who could only be described as a Peelite, he was not the only Peelite Prime Minister. It just seems clumsy is all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.8 (talk) 19:18, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Would it be correct to say "only Peelite-faction Prime Minister"? -Rrius (talk) 19:31, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather delete it altogether. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.8 (talk) 17:32, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Again, any changes must be based on source material. If you have a source that supports your comments then please provide it. Road Wizard (talk) 18:20, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

How about this:

'Gladstone condoned most of the agenda set out in chapter 10 [the liberal programme of 1868]. But hardly any of it was his. It arose from within the whig-Liberal tradition, updated to cope with political needs after 1867. Gladstone was not from that tradition; he was a Peelite.'

Parry, J., 'The rise and fall of liberal government in Victorian Britain' (1993), p.247 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.8 (talk) 18:23, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Can the 'only Peelite prime minister' description now be deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.8 (talk) 13:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Would anyone object if I deleted 'only Peelite prime minister' from the Aberdeen entry? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.184.8 (talk) 16:26, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Recent edit

I must object to the recent edit by User:Tryde, which removes the constituencies which the PMs represented and the given names of peers. The constituency is significant because it indicates the MP's right to sit in the House of Commons. For example, it is significant that Peel represented Tamworth because of the Tamworth Manifesto, often regarded as the founding document of the Conservative Party, which was (officially, at least) part of Peel's constituency campaign. Listing the constituencies also helps to sort those PMs who became peers during their term (Walpole, Disraeli) or who ceased to be peers (Douglas-Home).

The given name of peers is also often deeply significant. It is highly significant that Chatham was called William Pitt, because he is widely known as Pitt the Elder and because he was Pitt the Younger's father. It is also significant that Newcastle was called Pelham, because he was Henry Pelham's brother, and that Lord John Russell is the same person as the Earl Russell. Salisbury being named (Gascoyne-)Cecil and Derby being named (Smith-)Stanley are significant because these are families of remarkable political lineage. This issue has been discussed before, and it was felt that my solution of rendering the given name of peers in small text, resolved the matter. BartBassist (talk) 09:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The common style in lists of this type is to use only the peerage title. See for instance Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary. This makes the lists look clean and tidy, if a reader wants further information on any PM, he or she could easily click on the link to that article. The style John Russell Earl Russell is wrong. If we should include a peer's Christian name and surname then there should be a comma after the surname and an ordinal before the peerage title, i. e. John Russell, 1st Earl Russell.

As for the constituencies, I was perhaps a bit hasty in removing these. I don't think they're necessary but I wouldn't mind if they were included. However, we should use the system for peers that is used in other lists. Tryde (talk) 15:15, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for starting the revert. I'll complete the job in the following style:

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby

I know this isn't what you meant, but I think that this should fit reasonably well visually with the entries for Commons PMs, with constituencies given in small text like the given names of the peer PMs. This list is unlike the lists for other government posts because it gives much more information. None of the lists for the other great offices of state give other ministerial offices held, or a resumé of key events during a term. Similarly, the peers don't have their given names listed; this doesn't mean that they shouldn't be listed here. BartBassist (talk) 15:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Concerns

So, this list has been featured for a while, so I'm reviewing it in-line with our current standards.

1. Lead is short. This is one of the most important political positions in the world, so it could use a really significant lead.
2. Not sure why the list has to be split under monarchs. The monarchs could be listed as part of the table.
3. Colour bar next to image seems a different colour to that in the Political party column, and doesn't have a symbol to help those who can't determine colours too well.
4. Links in headings is discouraged per WP:HEAD.
5. Any reason why surnames are bold?
6. Term of Office/Electoral mandates column is confusing. There seems to be a number of rows where there are multiple terms of office.
7. Notes seem also to be crowbarred into the article. I'd consider having a separate column for this.
8. A lot of dependency on ref 8, for example, so where is "Increased tax on spirits; in poor health for much of his time as Prime Minister, the government was led de facto by John Carteret. Died in office." referenced?
9. Redlinked See also... (why?!)
10. The "sometimes listed as..." should be covered in the lead.
11. "2 days" -> "two days" etc.

The Rambling Man (talk) 19:20, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Addressing only the points raised above concerning the layout of the table (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), how does the following seem? Note that I have altered the alignment so that the notes section no longer relies on the reference.

To address the point about multiple rows for multiple terms (6), I have used this format where a PM led two ministries in succession. For instance, Chamberlain led the Fourth National Ministry and the Chamberlain War Ministry; Churchill led the Churchill War Ministry and the Churchill Caretaker Ministry. This format seemed more concise than two full consecutive entries. BartBassist (talk) 20:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

For the notes (7), I have experimented with a notes column and with a double-row format, and the double-row format invariably works much better: it allows much greater width for the notes cell, which therefore takes up much less height.

By the way, you are perfectly free to make alterations such as removing red links and changing "2 days" to "two days", both of which are simply errors which need to be corrected. BartBassist (talk) 20:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

9, 10, 11 resolved. The lead is now longer than it was (1), but the lead doesn't need to be too long because it links to the article on the office (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom). BartBassist (talk) 04:00, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Portrait		Name (Birth–Death) Constituency/Title	Term of office		Other ministerial offices held while Prime Minister	Party of P.M.	Government		Refs
			Electoral mandates
Prime Ministers under Elizabeth II (1952– )
rowspan="3" style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |		Gordon Brown (1951– ) MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath	27 June 2007	11 May 2010	First Lord of the Treasury & Minister for the Civil Service	Labour	rowspan="2" style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Brown
—
London car bombs; Glasgow Airport attack; foot-and-mouth outbreak (2007); national floods of 2007; child benefit data misplaced; Donorgate; Northern Rock nationalisation; Treaty of Lisbon; 42 Days detention; 10p Tax rate; Financial crisis of 2007–2010; Parliamentary expenses scandal; arrest of Damian Green; 2009 flu pandemic; national floods of 2009; Chilcot Inquiry.
rowspan="3" style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |		David Cameron (1966– ) MP for Witney	11 May 2010	Incumbent	First Lord of the Treasury & Minister for the Civil Service	Conservative	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Cameron Coalition (Cons.–L.D.)
2010†			style="background-color: Template:Liberal Democrats/meta/color" |
†Hung parliament; leading a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. U.S. Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill; Bloody Sunday apology; June 2010 "emergency" Budget; leak of Afghanistan War Logs; Browne Review proposes rise in student top-up fees for higher education; Spending and Strategic Defence Reviews cut £81 billion in public expenditure, with main intention of reducing the country's budget deficit.

I don't understand the "Ref" column. All it appears to note is when a new PM took office. That isn't a matter that really needs to be referenced for the vast majority of PMs. Where there is some issue for a given PM either kissing hands or leaving office, the date in question can bear a ref. -Rrius (talk) 04:06, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

A quick thank you for making several good changes to the list. There are still a few issues with WP:ACCESS (colours without symbols/text/key) and headings with links (discouraged). Existing colour scheme (e.g. Labour with a red background) is much more accessible than the proposed one (e.g. Brown with a thick red stripe next to him). I'm also not sure why the table heading can't be row- and col-spanned just like the table itself, so instead of Term of office separated by an en-dash from Electoral mandates, why not make the cells in the heading equivalent to the table?

As an aside, I'm aware of {{sofixit}} but I review just about every list at WP:FLC, and have started reviewing every single WP:FL so so-fix-it would take me a month of Sundays, and I'd hate to make a mistake. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:09, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The reason why I would recommend the stripe rather than the background colour is that the stripe enables use of meta-colours (the officially wiki-designated party colours), which are generally too vivid to use as background colours. The key at the top of the page currently refers to the stripe colours, not the background colours. I have amended the sample above in response to your recommendation for the headings, though I'm not convinced by the result. BartBassist (talk) 16:19, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Ref column

Will someone please explain the point of the ref column? What exactly are these refs supporting? -Rrius (talk) 04:26, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Most of the references are to books, listed by surname of author and year of publication; further details of the books are given below the references. The books give general information on the PM's term. A few of the more recent references are to websites; these seem only to reference dates of appointment. BartBassist (talk) 17:35, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Most of the references were added by me as part of the featured list review linked to in the banner at the top of the page. As part of the review the notes column was removed. After the review finished the notes column was restored by an editor who didn't participate in the discussion.

None of the references I added were meant to support the deleted notes column. By coincidence some of the referebces may support the notes still in the article, but I for one haven't put that to the test. Road Wizard (talk) 18:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Why is Thatcher listed as the "First" female prime minister?

Surely if Perceval is the "The only Prime Minister to have been assassinated", Disraeli is the "Only ethnically Jewish Prime Minister" and Lloyd George is the "only Prime Minister whose mother tongue was not English", she should be listed as the "only female prime minister"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.11.104.29 (talk) 22:19, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

In the same way that Walpole isn't the first male, and the next woman won't be "the other". Gareth E Kegg (talk) 22:44, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I really don't understand what you are saying. Surely Walpole is the first male PM, but as he is the first of either gender it doesn't require stating. And obviously if and when there is a second female Prime Minister Thatcher would be the "first one" as opposed to the "only one". But unless you are going to call Perceval the first PM to be assassinated and Disraeli the first Jewish PM surely it is consistent to call her the only female PM? Otherwise it makes it sound like there has been a second one, which as of yet there hasn't. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.11.104.29 (talk) 22:57, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

The most historically important PM is Cameron?

Rampant recentism at play. If there is no meaningful criteria under which items are added to the "acheivements/notes" section, it should be removed. At present, Cameron's less than a year has nearly 5 lines of text: can someone explain on what basis he is more than 5 times as historical as Pitt the Elder, and 10 times more than Wellington. Is it really only in modern times that tax rates have changed or media have published uncomplimentary things about politicians or students have protested? Kevin McE (talk) 10:07, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

There are more Wikipedians in the c21st than in the c19th. That is the problem. Perhaps we should endeavour to add more historical events to the previous PMs? Gareth E Kegg (talk) 14:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

That is why a clear set of criteria should be in place, so that Recentism doesn't have free reign. If that can't be established, then remove that section: it is a list of UK Prime Ministers, not a list of events in UK politics sorted by PM. Kevin McE (talk) 16:16, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this sort of article is going to be an easy victim of recentism. Let's put it back into context and carve out things which will probably not be relevant in a year, let alone a decade or a century. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:18, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I respect the concerns and share agreement with bias due to recent history. Either collaboration to bulk other PM histories, or minimalism for them all is the best course of action. Sir Richardson (talk) 16:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The bulk should appear in the main article. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I have been bold and made large...cuts to Cameron's section. Sir Richardson (talk) 23:43, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill should also be listed under Elizabeth II, because during his second term as prime minister the monarch was changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.128.223.231 (talk) 20:28, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

No. Entries are never repeated for a change of monarch. BartBassist (talk) 23:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposals not introduced

I just removed 42 days detention from Gordon Brown. If we list things which were proposed and not accepted, we will be here all day. Hypnoticmonkey (talk) 07:52, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Re: William Pitts 1786 the decision to send convicts to Australia - not mentioned

Hello, yes, something minor, but not altogether insignificant: my understanding was that the decision to send convicts to Australia was made on the 18 August 1786, while William Pitt was in office. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Australian . This information is missing from his achievements. 58.161.57.229 (talk) 07:10, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Lord Melbourne was fired

Melbourne did not resign in 1834, the king dismissed him: the last time this happened. I have changed his entry in the list to reflect this. Richard75 (talk) 18:00, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Monarchs

An observation: I dislike how PMs already serving before a new monarch's ascension are accredited to the preceding monarch. Churchill was Elizabeth II's first PM but the way information is laid out currently hides that crucial fact. Perhaps someone can find a better presentation style. User:SamUK 17:03, 10 April 2013 (UTC)