Template talk:British ministries

Overhaul needed
This template is messy and inconsistent with List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. Anyone feel brave enough for a total overhaul? Timrollpickering 14:21, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

How about we remove all ministries before Robert Walpole (1st PM), as the ministries before this point or historically harder to compare to ministries after?

Then we change some of the names, we change all first, second, etc ministries into Wellington I, Wellington II and so on, this would bring it into line with the format used for european govts. How does that sound Johnny32 (talk) 19:04, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Also what is the criteria for a ministry. Why do Churchil & Eden share one but Blair and Brown dont? Johnny32 (talk) 19:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

A mess!
This template is a mess, in that it includes two separate types of articles interchangeably, and without noting that there are two separate types of articles. On the one hand, we have the "British Governments" series of articles, which are always in a tabular format, ordered by offices, and list all members of the government. On the other hand we have the "Ministries" series of articles, which list only cabinet members, which were generally split off from non-tabular lists on the individual prime ministers' pages (some of which, it should be noted, have never been split off and are still at the individual's page), and which generally lists an initial cabinet, and then notes changes below by date. I think that both of these are useful - it's obviously good to know who all the ministers in a government were, but the more limited list is useful for not cluttering the cabinet lists with other people and for allowing for an easy grasp of the whole composition of a cabinet at any given time. But the current set-up encourages a) people to turn the pure cabinet lists into redirects to the more complete pages as well as making it frequently unclear what needs to be added.

Another problem, noted above, is the pre-1721 ministries. The ones starting from Harley seem more or less accurate in their designations, but I don't understand why Godolphin's ministry is referred to as Coalition Ministry, nor am I certain that the so-called "second Junto ministry" should be considered distinct from it, given that the key figures in both were Godolphin and Marlborough, and that Sunderland had joined the Godolphin ministry well before his Junto colleagues. The supposed "ministries" before 1702 seem like a total mess to be, perhaps because the very idea of a ministry was problematic under William III and his uncles. Certainly Clarendon and Danby more or less acted like prime ministers under Charles II, but neither really led a "ministry" in anything close to the modern sense. For most of the rest of the period, the situation is even more problematic, and frequently the individuals listed as heading ministries (Pembroke? Really?  Belasyse??) pretty clearly were not doing so. It might make more sense to list "cabinet level ministers" under each king before 1702, rather than based on supposed "ministries," if we're going to list them at all. john k (talk) 16:08, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Glad to see nobody cared! Wikipedia forever!! john k (talk) 15:30, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Dead Links
I propose to replace the following dead links with links to the following sections of the relevant PMs' pages. I realise that it is inconsistent, but when a 'Ministry' page does not exist, I feel that such a link is better than none at all.

1. Devonshire/Pitt  -

2. Chatham -

3. Second Portland  -   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alekksandr (talk • contribs) 23:29, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Now done.

Alekksandr (talk) 12:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Suggesting change
It seems silly to have two successive, but seperate entries which lead to the same article on the same government, which happens in quite a few cases. eg Law and Baldwin I both lead to Conservative Government 1922-24. Would it be better to change this so we have Law & Baldwin I, Gladestone IV & Rosebery etc? Dunarc (talk) 18:44, 6 April 2017 (UTC)