Talk:British Government frontbench

Merger proposal
Is there any reason why List of government ministers of the United Kingdom should not be merged into this article? Parliament.UK defines a frontbencher as 'either a Government minister or an Opposition shadow spokesperson', so Government frontbench = List of ministers. Mmitchell10 (talk) 19:56, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for tagging me. I support this move. As far as I can see, there isn't any information on List of government ministers of the United Kingdom that can't be found on this page, the various ministry articles (for example, Second Johnson ministry) or Secretary of State (UK). FollowTheTortoise (talk) 21:06, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the ping (I don't watch this page, just come back every once in a while to update it). You're absolutely right when you say that a government frontbencher is essentially the same as a government minister (although you could be über-pedantic and say that the House of Commons whips don't tend to sit on the frontbench and aren't ministers either, but I'm straying from the point). I have no objection to the merge as proposed, unless there's a compelling reason posed. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks for the notification. I created the List of government ministers of the United Kingdom article as my understanding was that British Government frontbench is for the current frontbench; mainly the politicians that are part of it in 2021 rather than the ministerial offices they hold. List of government ministers of the United Kingdom is more about the historical ministerial offices and titles that have been in use in the past, as the defunct offices are not listed on this page. I would be interested how the pages would be merged as they are both different lists. One is a list of ministerial offices ever to exist in the UK government, by policy portfolio/department, and the other is the current holders of ministerial office in the UK government which changes ministry by ministry. Moondragon21 (talk) 16:30, 29 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks. It does seem that British Government frontbench is for the current group of ministers. And I think that’s a sensible approach - it’s helpful to have an article with just the current set of ministers. There's presumably dozens of previous ministerial positions, so listing them here as well could make it unmanageable. Therefore, happy to cancel the merge. I think it's reasonable to expect the article on the frontbench to include historical frontbenches, so I've had a go at a hatnote. I also have a separate query about the List of government ministers of the United Kingdom article, but I’ll raise that on the talk page for that article. Cheers. Mmitchell10 (talk) 17:40, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 8 November 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Per consensus (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 14:28, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

British Government frontbench → UK Government frontbench – While both are used equally, according to the artcile United Kingdom, 'the UK Government prefers to use the term "UK" rather than "Britain" or "British"'. Vesuvio14 (talk) 10:27, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per ngrams which suggests that "British Government frontbench" would be the WP:COMMONNAME. BilledMammal (talk) 14:54, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I’d suggest that it would still be better to use UK government (or United Kingdom) so as to be consistent with other articles such as Government of the United Kingdom and 2022 United Kingdom government crisis. Vesuvio14 (talk) 17:45, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose. Using "UK" (or even United Kingdom) adjectivally is not good English and is best avoided. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)