Talk:Politics of the United Kingdom

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Politics This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, an attempt to improve, organise and standardise Wikipedia's articles in the area of politics. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
High This article is on a subject of High-importance in Politics.

Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.
Northern Ireland This article is within the scope of WikiProject Northern Ireland, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Northern Ireland on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale.If you are a member of the project, please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
WikiProject Northern Ireland tasks:
Politics Portal
This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom , a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of politics and government within the United Kingdom. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. Please also feel free to join in the discussions on the project's talk page.

Contents

[edit] Question

This is just a quick question, and while this question might not seem encyclopedic, I just knew that the people working on this page would probably know the answer. My friend says that her family left Britain in 2004 because they did not like how the country was growing politically. Would this mean they were to the Labour Party, or was the UK growing more conservative? Is the country getting more liberal or conservative? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.57.157.249 (talk) 05:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alliance Party

24.87.245.64 05:27, 4 May 2005 (UTC)I think this article is wrong in saying that Seamus Close is the leader of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland. Seamus was its deputy leader under John Alderdice, but as far as I can remember he was beaten in the recent leadership election. (But then for some reason, all the recent leaders have been bearded guys who are psychiatrists. And no I'm not making it up. I once had a meeting in their headquarters and joked about there supposedly being quite a few psychiatrists in the party. The result was embarrassed silence. Of the twenty-four there, nineteen were psychiatrists, three were psychologists, one a psychotherapist and one a mere doctor! Weird!) So if you just put down 'bearded psychiatrist' for leader, the odds are you are right! JTD 06:09 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

David Ford, according to http://www.allianceparty.org/html/who_s_who.html. He's a bearded social worker (http://www.davidford.org/dford.htm ), so you're not far off. --rbrwr

[edit] British Politics article

I have moved the text from the article 'British Politics' back here as this closer resembles the standard title for articles on the political systems of individual states and countries. (JDH)

JDH Please log in. We get nervous when anonymous IPs start doing heavy lifting. Mintguy
Also are you going to fix the double redirects that have now been created. Mintguy
...and if you log in, you will be able to use the "Move this page" function, which keeps the history of the page coherent. --rbrwr

[edit] Prime Ministers in the House of Commons

There is no 'strict convention' that the Prime Minister should be in the House of Commons - for almost all the 20th Century it has been a memeber of the Commons (but Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury was PM from 1896-1902) - it is, however, almost inconveviable that a modern prime minister would not be from the Commons dmp

But isn't that what a "strict convention" is - not written as a rule but it would be "almost inconceivable" to do anything else? --rbrwr
I'd say it's more of a contemporary convention. The first PM's were from the House of Lords and not the Commons. Lapafrax 19:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nationalists

Zoney wrote: "*N*ationalist is a title"

It is the title of a doctrine not a political party. Capitalising "nationalist" of the SDLP variety is certainly not the practice in any news media or political science source ive read. Not so sure about "unionist" though as this derives from the Union.

Under wikipedia naming conventions: "most names of doctrines shouldn't be capitalized".

193.203.156.240 06:09 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. 'Unionist' in this context ought to be capitalised because it refers to the particular Union which itself has a capital U; 'unionism' as a general (worldwide) doctrine would have a small u. Toby W 13:38, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I guess you're right. Oh well. (I bet our Irish press capitalise it!) Zoney 16:48, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Iraq

I guess Tony Blair will be relieved to see that Iraq & terrorism isn't a major issue in UK politics! David Thrale 21:16, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Point taken, but this brings up a more general discussion about what this page is for. Is it a 'current affairs' page, changing to reflect current political topics, controversies and developments in the UK, as I think David is hinting? Or is it a rather more static page, describing the political systems of the UK, its institutions, and the perennial issues and discussions that surround them? I think at the moment it's more like the latter, though perhaps in that case it could do with a title more like Political constitution of the United Kingdom or similar. And we could add a link to another page, something like Current political issues in the United Kingdom (or maybe List of current political issues in the United Kingdom), which would indeed include terrorism and Iraq as one of today's political 'hot potatoes'. Just me 2p's worth. Toby W 09:39, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I think this page is really fantastic. I was just pointing out this obvious inaccuracy. I could have been more helpful and suggested how to address this - sorry. I agree with Toby that this page is the latter, that it describes the political framework in the UK and is not a current affairs page. I'd do the easy thing, and changing the introduction text for the Major issues in British national politics section to say something like the list covers the issues that traditionally concern UK voters, and that it excludes transient issues. Although I would be tempted to add transport policy and terrorism to that list (although I have no firm evidence to back this up)! David Thrale 10:40, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Following your discussion on current issues i have gone ahead and started the page, only very, very breifly, but a starting piont at least, LINK-Current political issues in the United Kingdom, thanks --JMcD 00:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uncodified and largely unwritten

Hi there - I think that this should read that it is uncodified but partly unwritten, it is clear which elements are unwritten, but it is uncodified as a whole since it is not written down in any one single place or small group of documents. The current version is not strictly correct. Mark Richards 21:45, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Don't disagree, just that the last version read strangely.

  1. mainly because the way it was ordered mentioned unwritten part then listed various written components, which was confusing.
  2. because while part of it is unwritten, whether it should be called "some" or "most" or "a little" is a weird impossible paradox. Or something. I like partly unwritten (as above) better. In short, to me it is not clear which parts are unwritten - but then I'm not an expert.
  3. finally I think that because even the written parts of the so-called consitution seem to be binding in custom and by convention, it is debatable whether even these constitute a constitution! I like the way all this is expressed in British constitutional law. I accept this large point is a bit philosophical for the main article, but I'd like a wording that dealt with the first two points. It is a bit tricky though I admit. It is certainly uncodified. Many elements are unwritten and others are binding only by custom/convention.

Washington Irving | Talk 22:08, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree with the points you make, and am open to revisions. I tried to capture what I think is the mainstream opinion here, and feel that the philosphical discussions of what a constitution is probably belong on the constitutional law page - what do you think? Mark Richards 22:30, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Ulster Liberals

The Ulster Liberal Party remained a part of the now Liberal Democratic Party but faced with marginal support it chose to form a sibling relationship with the Alliance Party.

Can anyone confirm that "Liberal Democratic Party" here means the Liberal Democrats? I presume that this is the case, but my knowledge of NI politics is not that strong. It would be nice to stop this pointing to a disambiguation page. --rbrwrˆ

Um. Not sure - have never heard of the 'Ulster Liberal Party'... The Lib Dems currently do not have any regional or national organisation in NI, though there is a branch (a 'Northern Ireland local party'). They are on good terms with the ALPNI and many ALPNI members are also Liberal Democrats. The Land 12:16, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

They were the Northern Ireland branch of the Liberal party, similar to the Scottish Liberal Party and Welsh Liberal Party. They had some minor successes in the province - the old member of the Stormont Parliament and some councillors - but the 1920s to the early 1970s was not a proposerous period for the Liberals anywhere in the UK. By the time of their 1970s surge in Britan Northern Ireland's politics were diverging heavily and the Liberals lacked a support base or appeal. They got some very derisory results and many both locally and in the UK leadership felt it was a better use of resources to achieve liberalism to support the Alliance rather than standing themselves, hence the strong relations between the two parties. In recent years the party has had some NI organisation but I think this is just for allowing the party's members in NI the chance to feed into the UK party's structures. Timrollpickering 02:57, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Parliamentary constituencies

With an election due within the next year or so, I think it's about time that Wikipedia had articles on the UK constituencies showing, past and present, with a list of the past representatives and election results. There's loads of interesting stuff about pocket boroughs, rotten boroughs and disenfranchisement for fraudulant practices etc.. This would be a big project though, so if we start now we might have something approaching completion by the time of the election. Mintguy (T) 17:09, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There are a handful so far detailing the boundaries, the various MPs, the general political position and some of the key history. See Category:UK Parliamentary constituencies for the ones in existance (mostly Northern Ireland as the constituencies are [with one exception, and that's only on current boundaries] not concentrated on single units of local government, making it impossibly to include this info there). If anyone's got suggestions for additional stuff to include, feel free to suggest it. Timrollpickering 03:03, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Title of this article

Surely the title of this article should be "The Government of the United Kingdom". It has more to do with the institutions, the office-holders and the procedures of government than it has to do with politics. Politics, to me, has always meant the debating of policy, the determination of the government's attitude to various issues, and the personalities involved in all that. --Mikeh 12:55, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As I have been chastised as a "naive American" for not knowing, "government of the UK" would mean the Blair administration, not the form of government or the state itself. I agree with you, that politics to me means issues, personalities, etc., not the procedure of running things. I'm not sure what word is appropriate here -- "politics" doesn't fit, but "government" is clearly wrong, too. I am told the closest British word to the American "government" is "state", but that doesn't seem right, either, since "state" refers to a nation or sovereign group of people itself, and not necc. to the form of government they use to run things. Revolver 22:26, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Can someone please clarify Agencies/Public bodies and task forces?

The difference between an Executive Agency and the institutions listed on Public bodies and task forces of the UK government is not very clear. Can someone clarify please? This raises a question about the function of category:UK Agencies. It should probably be renamed category:Executive agencies of the United Kingdom and an extra category called category:Public bodies and task forces of the UK government created. Bhoeble 22:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Merger from Political Sleaze (UK Politics)

Disagree. The article on UK politics is not going to be able to cope with in depth issues such as this one if all such issues were inserted there - that article would become rather unwieldy. If there is a need for a merger (which I do not presently believe), then a more likely candidate would be Political corruption.--jrleighton 01:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. ditto. A good tidy-up is needed but prefer to retain separate identity--leaky_caldron 18:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. This article is a general one, and needs only reference Political Sleaze (UK Politics) which should be reworked rather than merged into this one. Davidkinnen 23:28, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Independents

It seems pretty obvious to me that somebody who is elected other than as a candidate of a party is an independent (eg, Peter Law) --Khendon 13:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Disagree, as do all the textbooks. There is a difference between "independent" ex-members of a political party, such as Law, SO Davies, and others since the war, and genuine Independent members, such as Bell, AP Herbert.

In the former case, these individuals have been previously elected under their party colours, and subsequently fallen-out with their party(usually over selection issues.) They have been re-elected in opposition to official candidates of their previous party, but there is little evidence that they have changed their political positions. Law in his maiden speech described himself as a Socialist, no doubt had he been elected as official Labour candidate, this statement would have remained unchanged.

AP Herbert and Bell, on the other hand, had no previous party affiliation, and no identifiable program allied to any political party. They were genuine independents, and are worthy of note in their extreme rarity, especially since the abolition of the University seats in 1950. If you are going to include Law, why not include SO Davies, Dick Taverne, Eddie Milne, and several others since the war... See List of UK minor party and independent MPs elected

Also your glib statement that "somebody who is elected other than as a candidate of a party is an independent" means that you should remove Dr. Taylor from the list, as he was elected under the party label KHHC. This is clearly nonsense.

I would suggest the definition of an independent(in the sense that the section implies) is one who has not been previously elected under party colours, and whose program is distinct from anyone elses, whether or not there is a label attached to it. So that means Bell and Taylor since 1950, and several others in 1945. RodCrosby 12:56, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Devolution

I've added in that the NI Assembly is suspended at the minute. A suspended assembly is kind of pointless, lol.martianlostinspace 16:29, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Northern Ireland

Can some-one write a bit more on Northern Ireland in the Devolution section? martianlostinspace 16:32, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


[edit] In Theory

Theory, theoretical etc. is used 3 times in the first 1/2 dozen lines of this article. Maybe this need a bit of thesaurusising (nominally? strictly speaking?). I'll give it ago if someone doesn't get around to it first. Epeeist smudge 18:05, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opening paragraphs are not representative of article

The opening paragraphs before the table of contents are mostly about the monarchy. I'd be in favour of a new section on the monarchy and its relation to government. Then the opening paragraph could become a more representative summary of the rest of the article. Thought I'd ask first...anyone else for/against? Pgr94 08:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I've just read this article for the first time and thought the same. Needs changing. Andeggs 13:06, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured articles

I have noticed something, and it is the disturbing amount of articles that are featured that are part of the politics of the UK series. Skinnyweed 01:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed re-ordering

In my humble opinion this article is well-written but needs a little re-ordering to make it clearer. At the moment we have some unsatisfactory section titles such as "Major issues in British national politics" and "Miscellaneous". I propose re-ordering the text according to fit into these titles instead. Your comments would be appreciated. Otherwise I'll just go ahead and do it :+) Andeggs 09:57, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with the introduction and monarchy sections. Not sufficiently familiar with the material to comment on the rest. Pgr94 09:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually I got bored waiting so have already done this. I think the biggest problem with the page now rests with the emphasis given to small parties and independents without much detail on the big 3. I think the history section should also get its own article too. Andeggs 12:29, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I would agree that the 3 main party history needs to be catigorised by developments in history of the party's and reasons why, maybe sub heading under whigs, tories, librals then devolping to e.g. emergance of conservative party, joining of libral's to Lib Dems, and emergance of Labour Party. it would be easier to read rather than chunks off information, what do others think? --JMcD 23:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Respect Party

There really ought to be a mention of RESPECT in the minor partys section, although they don't fit into non-parlimentary partys as they have an MP, and they aren't sub-uk and are too big and too sucessful to count as a fringe.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.48.73.94 (talk • contribs) 25 May 2006.

I have added a bit under the section heading "small parties".--JK the unwise 12:22, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fringe Parties

The subheading The fringe parties doesn't seem very NPOV. While carecterising the BNP as fringe seems fair but is it true to say that it is a group that is "constantly splitting to create new groups", it seems to have been relativly stable for a while.--JK the unwise 12:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Graphic of the political system

Hi, I recently removed this picture from the page because I believe, that although it is helpful, it isn't at publishable standard yet. In particular: 1) Spelling renders the diagram unintelligible. I'm not convinced that our sovereign "sings bills assed by parliament in to low"! 2)Can we have consistent fonts please? 3)What does the blue signify?

Perhaps you could upload a version (other than JPG) that other contributors could polish? Lots of people use GIMP which reads XCF files. Thanks Andeggs 15:32, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to put in a vote for something like this: quite helpful for the uninitiated. -- 201.50.123.251 13:03, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evolving federal

Does this need to be in the opening paragraph? Technically the UK is still a unitary state and there is no inclination from the government to create a proper federal system. Lapafrax 03:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Requesting article "Tribunite"

Does anyone feel able to create a stub on Tribunite (sub-set of the mid-20th century British Left)?
The only sources I have are

http://www.allwords.com/word-Tribunite.html

(and other pages with identical text)

and this from Guardian

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1530801,00.html

"According to his biographer, Professor Bernard Crick, Orwell saw himself as a Tribunite socialist whose experiences in the Spanish civil war had left him sharply disillusioned with Soviet communism."

-- 201.50.123.251 13:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] New graph

I think the content of the graph is more or less accurate. There are a few mistakes though. For example, Parliament doesn't "elect" Her Majesty's Government. They all sit in Parliament but are chosen by the PM, with the permission of the Sovereign, since appointing and dismissing ministers is one of the Sovereign's Royal Prerogatives. Can this part be altered? Lapafrax 19:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

"sings bills assed by the parliament" ??? Andeggs 23:46, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Michael Brown (Liberal Democrats donor)

I have now started the Michael Brown (Liberal Democrats donor) article. Please add to and improve the article, especially if you are aware of other good source material, per WP:CITE. I note that there is no mention yet of Michael Brown in our Liberal Democrats article. --Mais oui! 09:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


[Mr Zack Gilpin (Independent UK Politiician)]

I intend to run for office of Mayor of London in 2008. UK politics is vibrant and fit for purpose and british people would decide in the ballot box what is right and proper for the country. Read link at http://www.123greetings.com/view/7CP30523022702426 [Vote for Mr Zack Gilpin London Mayor 2008] 12:11, 23 May 2007 (UK time)Zackisbacknews 11:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

dont u think that UKs law is too difficult to read and so?

[edit] Government and Opposition Chief Whip

Please respond:

Until Tony Blair changed it, 12 Downing Street was the Grace and Favor home occupied by the Government Chief Whip. The three salaried posts of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are Leader, Deputy Leader and Chief Whip. The importance of discipline in the UK parliamentary system, which these facts illustrate, and is doubtless unlawful in some jurisdictions, is ignored by the box on the right and the article in general.

Can we agree amendment, perhaps replacing the now less important Home Secretary with Chief Whip?

Oh yeah, and it's name is Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition - one the few to receive government funding, to our credit, unless he who pays the piper . . .. --User59 09:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is evidence for the effects of devolution needed?

"However, this increased autonomy and devolution of executive and legislative powers has not contributed to a reduction in support for full independence, with the Scottish National Party winning power in Scotland in the 2007 Scottish parliament elections, though running a minority administration"

This is in the opening paragraphs. I didn't know whether it needed rewording. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hiugo (talk • contribs) 16:44, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I see your point - the extra clause at the end is untidy. I'll try ti fix it. Cheers Fishiehelper2 (talk) 17:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Judiciary

Of the two paragraphs of the Judiciary section, the first concentrates on the effects of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 on the Lord Chancellor and the second discusses the highest courts. It seems to me that treatment of the superior and inferior courts matters more than a discussion of the Lord Chancellor (including his form legislative duties), especially since the offices is no longer the dominant one in the UK judiciary. On the other hand, I am not sure how much detail would be appropriate. The reader should get some sense of how the courts are structured, but there are three court systems (i.e., England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) to be described. Any thoughts? -Rrius (talk) 04:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Separate page on Government of the United Kingdom

Please see Talk:Her Majesty's Government (that page is currently a redirect from Government of the United Kingdom). I'm considering whether there should be a Government of the United Kingdom page, separate from Politics of the United Kingdom. Superm401 - Talk 03:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)