Talk:Conservative–DUP agreement

Merge?

No one uses the term "Con–DUP pact". Shouldn't the content of this article be in Second May ministry? EddieHugh (talk) 10:49, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Possibly, but I think a separate article could prove to be a useful place to record more specific information as the relationship develops over the course of the parliament. It is also possible that the "pact" will survive longer than the Second May ministry if we see a Tory leadership contest with no immediate general election subsequently, in which case the page will need to be revived (if the consensus decision is made to merge the pages for the time being). WatermillockCommon (talk) 10:53, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I used the same nomenclature as on the Lib-Lab and Lib-Con pact articles. Agree in hindsight that it wasn't the best title for this article.

Regarding whether this article should be merged, I don't think so. There's a history of arrangements between the two parties that predates the current one, and it's true that the present alliance may last into another Tory leader's tenure. --RaviC (talk) 13:37, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Title too long?

Is 'Arrangement between the Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party' just a touch long winded for this article? Would something like Conservative–DUP Agreement (/Arrangement/Understanding etc.) not suffice better? In similar circumstances the dash has been used to adequately express the delineation of a specific relationship between two parties, so this idea has precedent.

Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement. 

Obviously a chosen adjective can be debated accordingly and changed depending on the nature of the relationship that develops with the DUP and Tories. MatthewJAFields (talk) 16:50, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Any reference to an agreement or arrangement may need to include a date in the title in the future, as the current article also refers to the history of informal understandings/discussions between the two parties. But we'll see how things pan out... WatermillockCommon (talk) 17:33, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Also agree with 'Conservative-DUP agreement' (we could give DUP its proper name, but it's too long really). If no one opposes, I might make the move as this will be a high-traffic article over the next few days. — Quasar G. 17:42, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree with to an extent both points raised. On the point raised about a date potentially being needed to be tagged into the article title in order to avoid conflict between an article of generic DUP-Tory history with an article on any specific agreement: I would argue perhaps that the generic relationship between the two parties prior to the election is itself not warranting of its own article, and would be better spun off elsewhere; eg the Conservative and DUP's main pages, the main General Election 2017 page, other historical articles covering generically the state politics in the UK - and obviously mentioned in the opening context of any article on the specific deal the two parties reach forming the basis of a government in 2017. Thus mitigating such need to date the article.

I agree that DUP should be used as a shortened version of the Democratic Unionist Party - anyone who would argue that it is unfair to shorten one party and not the other holds double standards. For if both parties were to be fully named in the title the article would become 'Conservative and Unionist Party-Democratic Unionist Party agreement'- which is ridiculous WP:NC. Obviously common sense is best placed to use shorthand versions which are much commonly used and well known, namely Conservative and DUP. One other solution could be the removal of 'Party' in the title, which out of its three word title, is perhaps the party's least relevant descriptor. Thus leaving Conservative-Democratic Unionist agreement. But I remain of the opinion that from the amount of attention people in Northern Ireland and the media give to the 'DUP' abbreviation, that it has become practically the unoffial party name as, just as Conservatives has become the de facto name of the Conservative and Unionist Party. Therefore, Conservative-DUP agreement would use incarnations of the two parties' names that are the most well known and the most used; concise, well understood and relevant.

- MatthewJAFields (talk) 19:59, 10 June 2017 (UTC)