Talk:Churchill war ministry/Archive 1

Comment

It would be useful if this article could be expanded to include cabinet posts that were not in the War Cabinet and junior ministers. Peterkingiron (talk) 11:01, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Thats covered by United Kingdom coalition government (1940–1945). GraemeLeggett (talk) 12:51, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

You are no doubt right. The problem with this article is perhaps the lack of an adequate lead, which would set out the relationshop of this article to the two articles that currently only appear as "see also". I came to this article looking for the fuller list, via a category on British ministries. I suspect that there is a defect in the categorisation of the various articles, or is that this oght to be merged with the one you cite? Peterkingiron (talk) 14:53, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Merger

The article United Kingdom coalition government (1940–1945) has been merged into this one, addressing the problem named above. This name follows consistent usage, and the two pages were redundant together. RGloucester (talk) 18:38, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Cabinet and War Cabinet

The list of Cabinet ministers is wrong and needs to be completely re-written. It confuses the members of the War Cabinet (about five very senior ministers) with membership of the full Cabinet (about 20 ministers). They both met throughout the war. Matt's talk 11:38, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

It merely needs a way to distinguish between the two. Perhaps italics for the war cabinet and bold print for the regular cabinet? RGloucester — 📬 12:27, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

(no) Party members

At Party, it reads National with a link to National Government. But one of those politicians is called 'a nominal non-party supporter of the National Government' Sir John Anderson. And the period of National Government had ended. This seems confusing. --129.69.140.138 (talk) 11:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Duff references

Resolved

Reference 8 "Wheeler-Bennett 1958, pp. 433–434." and 10 "Gilbert 1983, pp. 299–314." refer to works which are not listed. DuncanHill (talk) 18:42, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I forgot to add them. They are in now. No Great Shaker (talk) 20:08, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 20:09, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

List of Ministers

Currently, there appears to be no list of ministers available for the Churchill War Ministry - the link in the See Also section just links to exactly the same page. This means that unlike the preceding and proceeding administrations, there seems to be no article or table listing the various non-cabinet rank ministers. I have found a category page, but of course it does not list the post they held, party affiliation or length of time served etc and meaning the Churchill war ministry article is rather less useful than those for almost every other British government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ministers_in_the_Churchill_wartime_government,_1940%E2%80%931945 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Porphrogenita (talk • contribs) 15:49, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Porphrogenita: the list has temporarily been shifted to draft form, which changes the name, because it has no citations yet. I'll make an amendment. Thanks for pointing it out. No Great Shaker (talk) 17:14, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

All the members already listed in the War Cabinet are covered by earlier citations? GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:47, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

GraemeLeggett, I'm not sure if you're asking a question here but, no, the war cabinet table is completely unsourced and there are no earlier citations. The references it contained were footnote information only, not citations. I've transferred all those points into the notes and citations column and tagged the section for sourcing. If you've seen the book by Roger Hermiston, that will cover most of these and I'll get around to it shortly. Still some work to do on the outer cabinet members first. Thanks for your help with the Hansard sources. No Great Shaker (talk) 15:55, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Moving forward

The full protection lock will be here for a while. Which means time to talk about the content.

I'd like to suggest getting more eyes and opinions on the article. There are two projects tagged at the top of this talk page - Military History and Politics of the United Kingdom. Anyone have any views on flagging this issue up at either or both projects? I see that Politics of UK wikiproject does have its own guidelines on ministry content/style GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:51, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Graeme, I have asked Ymblanter to adjudicate here. I think you should definitely raise this discussion at the project talk pages and also involve known interested users such as DuncanHill and Paulturtle (deliberately unlinked here). I would prefer you to do it as I want to make a statement and then step aside.

I first edited the article in April 2019 when I found that it was desperately short of sources and in a pretty poor condition, as I think you will agree if you look at the 16 April 2019 version. My edit then was to place the refimprove banner. I decided to expand and, hopefully, improve the article by making several edits over the next month to 17 May, and I think I can say that I made some positive and meaningful contributions, especially as no one took issue with anything I built in. After that, I drifted away from the article and then I was out of action for several weeks because of serious real life issues. The article remained on my watchlist and I came back to it in late November, making more extensive changes up to 7 January when I set it aside again until last week.

Okay, the edit summary on 24 November, when I removed the outer cabinet table, was a poor one based on frustration rather than reason. I apologise for the frustration but the reason was a good one because there remained a massive undersourcing problem and I thought the table should go into its own space so that it could be worked on as a designated list article and then, perhaps, be reintroduced to the parent. The list article was later draftified by another editor because of no sources, by the way.

Now the question of the two tables. I see there is only one table at present. The war cabinet one has gone altogether, which cannot be a good outcome because key information has been lost. The purpose of these two tables is to provide summarised at-a-glance information for the readers about which ministers were in the war cabinet and which were in the outer cabinet only. Because there were so many ministers, it makes sense to use two tables and the existence of the war cabinet means that this article is different to other ministry articles: Johnson, for example, doesn't have a war cabinet. I can see no good reason whatsoever why tables in this article should look like tables in other articles. It is a question of imparting information and I believe that the method I was developing entirely succeeded in achieving that aim. The main difference is the use of a notes and citations column so that more information can go into the table without needing to use footnotes, as had been done in the war cabinet table, involving the reader in considerable toing and froing instead of having the information there in the same row where it is easy to read.

The work I have done here has, I believe, greatly improved this article and made it much more useful for the readers. I do not see how I can be said to have vandalised the article and I strongly resent the accusation. I have nothing further to say about this matter and I will not take part in this discussion again. The article remains on my watchlist and I will probably see the outcome in due course.

I say probably because I am, frankly, absolutely disgusted with the way this farce has developed. I have been subjected to provocation and am now being cast as a villain despite having done so much work to improve this article, not to mention my contributions elsewhere. I am going to take a lengthy "wikibreak" which may become permanent. No Great Shaker (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Just to mention that I added the page to my watchlist, though I have no expert knowledge, and ideally I will not even contribute to the discussion. Whereas the situation was indeed not particularly nice, I am sure that your work is being appreciated, and I think the best is to discuss at the talk page (here) what should and what should not be in the article.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, Ymblanter, the first thing to be done is to take note of the fact that SallyWho carried out three reverts in the space of a few hours. I did two restores of the ongoing version and, after Sallywho's third revert which breached the 3RR rule, I stood back – in fact I closed everything down for nearly four hours to see what else might happen. You have frozen the article with the 3RR breach in situ: the war cabinet table has been completely removed, having been in the article for several years; and all the valid information which I input in the last 24 hours or so has been suppressed. Instead, we are left with a single table which is in need of repair and improvement. How exactly does this version help a reader who may currently be using the article for research?

I don't demand or even expect to be "appreciated" on a site like this but I do expect to be trusted. I became a member for the first time 16 months ago, having been a long-term guest editor while I was in full-time employment. Since I became a member, I have created three GAs with two more pending review; I have completed 50 GARs; I have been an active reviewer and rollbacker. If you compare my last version of this article (before the 3RR edit) with the April 2019 version, I think you will agree that there has been considerable improvement. As for SallyWho, a new editor who arrives on the run reverting content and shouting about consensus and vandalism – not many newbies do that. I have proved that I am a bona fide editor who has made a significant contribution to the site. You have given SallyWho what they want, you have alienated a bona fide editor and you have left this article, which was being improved, in a state that doesn't help its readers at all. No Great Shaker (talk) 05:37, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not going to talk in this tone. It was not me who called an editor who has not vandalized an article a "vandalism-only account". I am unwatching the page, and you are welcome to do whatever you feel necessary. I am by the way active here since 2008, and all this time I have a full-time (and a pretty demanding) employment. Have a nice day.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:44, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

This may not be the best place but since the issue was brought up here and it sounds like more than one editor is inexperienced I just want to point out that 1) WP:3RR requires more than 3 reverts for a bright line violation. Three reverts, or even less than 3 reverts can be problematic edit warring, but it isn't a bright line violation. 2) From a 3RR standpoint, only very few sorts of reverts are "special" such as reverting clear cut vandalism or BLP violations. Otherwise a revert is a revert and it's not likely useful to think of what you're doing as a "restore" instead of a "revert". Nil Einne (talk) 01:01, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

As GraemeLeggett stated here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard?markasread=192108292&markasreadwiki=enwiki#, “The Churchill war ministry page had since 2013 and until a while back had the same section ("List of Ministers") as other ministries from 1707 to 2007 - a list of the positions and the ministers who filled them.” This was because all other articles including the most recent ministry Second Johnson ministry follow the same pattern which is: Office, Name and term started, indeed the UK government itself follows this pattern on its government website, for example: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/full-list-of-new-ministerial-and-government-appointments-july-2019. This is so it’s easy to see who replaced who within a specific role.

By changing the layout to one of his own design, No Great Shaker will confuse readers, as on the list they created it starts with name first [[1]],so the first name on the list is William Murdoch Adamson. It says he was a Lord of the Treasury from 1941-1944, but since the Churchill war ministry was till 1945, who replaced Adamson in 1944? On the original [[2]] you can see that William John replaced him, but on No Great Shaker’s Version you have to scroll around the entire article to try and find a name and match it up to the relevant role.

It’s not just the UK who uses the original form of Office, Name and Term for their cabinet: The Canadians 29th Canadian Ministry, The Americans Political appointments by Donald Trump and The French Second Philippe government to name just a few also use that format. So there is no reason to change this article, when until 2019 there had never been any issue with the way it looked.

Whilst I have no problem with No Great Shaker adding sources, as the article really was lacking them, I did have a problem with him fundamentally changing the layout to make it harder to find Information or to delete the table altogether as he did in 2019. I note that Politics of UK wiki project has its own guidelines on ministry content/style and it points to the original format of this article as the correct way to set out a table about the ministers, indeed it specifically highlights the Lloyd George Ministry, which as you will see uses the Original style of table, similar to the one that was originally here.

I believe that the original table is the best way for the reader to get all the information they desire, especially since all UK ministry articles from the first of Godolphin-Marlborough ministry in 1702 to the Second Johnson ministry of 2020 follow that same pattern.

Kind regards SallyWho (talk) 09:54, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• Update: The result of the sockpuppet investigation is positive and the SallyWho account has been blocked indefinitely because its controller is a serial offender. Under the terms of WP:BANREVERT, "anyone is free to revert any edits made in violation of a ban, without giving any further reason". I think, however, that the argument presented above, albeit struck through, should remain visible while this discussion is in progress. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

An investigation which you initiated (Beware Wikipedia:Casting aspersions) And SallyWho could be a sockpuppet AND correct on matters of policy. GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:45, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

GraemeLeggett, it doesn't matter one jot who initiated the SPI. As for "casting aspersions", reporting a suspect to an official investigation is the antithesis of that. If I see someone commit a crime and report them to the police, is that casting an aspersion? It is true that a sockpuppet may be right on matters of policy so I have left their argument visible in case they have said something that another editor might find useful, but the credibility of a serial offender is dubious to say the least. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

SallyWho is right; the current version looks awful and it should be changed back to the office-name-term format. It would be very easy to make the table sortable so that the list could be rearranged by name if required. As for the supposed lack of sources, the source is Twentieth Century British Political Facts, 1900–2000 which is listed under "Further reading". I have a copy and I can give page references for each office-holder if needed. Opera hat (talk) 01:43, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Opera hat, and thanks for offering to supply the citations because that is the main thing needed. The lack of sources is not supposed. The table as it was until recently was completely unsourced and it contained some glaring errors – hence, it was "horrendous" and that is why it was put into its own space, though I was surprised when someone else draftified it for being unsourced. I have corrected several of the known errors but I suspect there are others and, if you add the citations, you may well identify some. I believe the edit freeze ends tonight.

I should point out that the table was a work in progress when the edit freeze was imposed but I had tested it in sortable form. It was temporarily made unsortable while I was doing some research, but I think that ultimately it should be sortable. Having it in office key is fine for that view but there were so many role transfers in this period that we need minister key too. Thanks again. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:17, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Update: The article is now pending changes protected. No Great Shaker (talk) 08:22, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Restoring old version content

Just to weigh in on the content dispute;

• The article previously contained two lists; a list of those in Cabinet and a full list of ministers. This was changed to two lists; those in Cabinet and those not in Cabinet. The full ministers list was loosely sorted by government department and was based on the Butler & Butler source (although the citation should have been clearer). I'm of the opinion that the previous version was significantly more useful, and would be in line with others in this 'series' of articles, e.g. Chamberlain war ministry and Churchill caretaker ministry.
• The lists were previously in the format of office-name-term; this was also in line with others in this article series. It was changed to name-office-term, which arguably is a worse way of presenting information. This represents the difference of 'who filled which role vs what role did a person fill'. As the article is about the government and not the individuals, the former is more appropriate here. It has been pointed out that making the table sortable may be beneficial for those who desire the latter way of displaying and finding information.
• The "War Cabinet members" table has had an extra column added with notes. This mostly duplicates information above or adds new unsourced information. Though I don't object to the addition of the column, some citations should be added here.

As SallyWho (despite being a sockpuppet) and Opera hat point out, this current version doesn't represent an improvement on older versions. As a side, I would recommend looking at some of the 19th century ministry articles, most of which are very well done. Editing with Eric (talk) 09:43, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Eric. I'm rapidly coming around to the view that the default key should be office, especially as a clear consensus is now emerging, but I do think the tables should be sortable in case of a need to research by minister, especially as there were so many role changes during the war. I'm doing a bit of work in Excel at the moment to shift office into column one as the default key so bear with me and it should soon be ready. Thanks again. No Great Shaker (talk) 10:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Status quo

@No Great Shaker: Do you have any reasons why such an excessive amount of images should be kept, other than an undisguised appeal to tradition? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 05:44, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Lets see what other editors think, shall we? The images have been there a very long time and so it seems there is a tacit consensus in favour of their retention. The article concerns a government which had numerous members. I don't know what you mean by an undisguised appeal to tradition, so please explain that expression. No Great Shaker (talk) 05:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:APPNOTE members of the two interested projects have been invited to join this discussion if they are interested. No Great Shaker (talk) 05:58, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

You mentioned WP:NOTGALLERY in an edit summary. This says (leaving out the bits about copyright): Photographs or media files with no accompanying text. If you are interested in presenting a picture, please provide an encyclopedic context. All the images have captions which relate to people who are discussed in the article where the necessary context occurs: i.e., they were all members of the Churchill war ministry. No Great Shaker (talk) 06:28, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Appeal to tradition is what you're looking for; since your argument very much sums up as this is right because we've always done it this way. Something not having been discussed only means there is silent consensus (the weakest kind of consensus) for it, and if somebody objects, the material should not be included again unless it can be shown that an explicit consensus for it exists. As for NOTGALLERY, with no accompanying text clearly is not simply "depicting something which is mentioned in the article" (otherwise, Winston Churchill would have pictures of the landings at Gallipoli, the House of Commons, and plenty of other stuff which is mentioned in that article). WP:IUP has further information, and states, quite explicitly, that The purpose of an image is to increase readers' understanding of the article's subject matter. Simply giving a boatload of portraits does not increase reader's understanding. Selecting only the most important figures, as I was saying, would be better, as that would clearly indicate to the reader which are more significant. MOS:IMAGES also has However, not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting. (and I hope I've made the point about this being too many rather clearly). There's also consensus for not including large amounts of pictures (of members of a group) when depicting a large group of people - while this might not be the same kind of "large group" discussed there, the idea that indiscriminately depicting members of a numerous group does not improve an article is still valid. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:31, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

I'll also note that the claim that these images have been here "a very long time" is at best misleading. They were added back in January 2021 ([3]), by none other than you... A year is not "a very long time" under almost every definition of what "very long" is. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 13:37, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

This matter is bound by WP:BRD after you made a bold edit (B) by removing the images and I reverted (R), at the same time asking you to open this discussion (D). In doing that, you have tacitly agreed that the matter shall be settled according to the principles of BRD which are therefore current until either we reach agreement between ourselves or CONSENSUS is reached after other editors have had their say. The discuss part of BRD specifically states: instead of one of the many legitimate and policy-approved alternatives, you must not restore your changes, make other edits to the page, or engage in back-and-forth reverting. Your rollback at 14:42 today is a clear breach of BRD and so I am restoring the first revert (at 06:25 this morning). I must advise you that a repetition of your restoration will be considered edit warring.

You have cited appeal to tradition as if it is a policy here. It is not, and trying to use something like that as an argument amounts to WP:WL. While WP:ONUS is part of WP:V, it doesn't carry the same weight as WP:BURDEN because the images are already verified – for example, Ernest Bevin MP.jpg has been verified as a portrait of Ernest Bevin who, incidentally, is generally regarded as the third most significant war cabinet member after Churchill and Attlee, so removing his image doesn't exactly tally with your "only the most important" argument. ONUS is concerned with disputed content that has recently been introduced, not content that has been in the article unchallenged for 14 months. Removal of established content is a question for WP:PRESERVE, an integral part of the site's editing policy. Another part is WP:EPTALK which, inter alia, recommends BRD as a means of settlement.

As you have obviously noticed, I've recently started working on this article again because it's incomplete. It is actually my intention to reduce the number of images, especially of the parliamentary secretaries and junior ministers and whatnot. Not all of them because a few like Ellen Wilkinson and Duff Cooper were significant, as were some of the CDC people, especially Ismay and Brooke. I was going to attend to the images after I've decided what to do with all the massive tables and fleshed out the chronology sections. I'll continue tomorrow, perhaps. For now, I've reduced the number of images to those who were especially significant for one reason or another and I'll decide in due course where to place them.

Some people might think your arrival at this article, being the most recent I've worked on, was quite a coincidence given that it was within minutes of the argument about NSPORTS. Others of a more suspicious mind might construe your action as a first step on the road to WP:HA. I'll be generous and call it a coincidence.

Finally, btw, there is no hyphen in status quo. No Great Shaker (talk) 19:36, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

When I come upon an obvious problem in an article (and having so many images that they extend well beyond the article text is an obvious problem), I fix it, doesn't matter who wrote the article or how I came upon it (and I didn't even know you were the one who added all those images in the first place until after I had removed them). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:58, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Comment: There is no doubt this article has too many images, and it had way too many images before this discussion. With approximately 82 images (with no great rhyme or reason) in the article when RandomCanadian made his first image-removal edit, his changes were well beyond justifiable.

That being said, RandomCanadian did violate WP:BRD. I think the article still has too many images, but at this point, it is a preference thing since the image count has been trimmed down to a reasonable number (about 20 or so) since this discussion began. It appears both editors are taking all the rules literally and are neither applying common sense (82 images?!?) nor being completely civil, depending on how you use the word: One has made a case for why the other might start harassing them, while the other has applied legal terminology to prove their point. I will give my opinion on neither argument except that they shouldn't be here.

Finally, this was stated: "Something not having been discussed only means there is silent consensus (the weakest kind of consensus) for it, and if somebody objects, the material should not be included again unless it can be shown that an explicit consensus for it exists." If someone objects to something, then shouldn't it be talked over first before not including the material again? A weak consensus is still a consensus, and a consensus of any kind has to be built to challenge the former status quo. This goes back to the D of BRD. FredModulars (talk) 01:33, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Fred, and thanks for your assessment of the situation. I've been thinking about the images in the light of what you say and I agree we can reduce the number still more. We need Churchill at the top and, somewhere, the group photo. As for the individuals, I would ideally like each of the original five except that we don't have a contemporary one of Arthur Greenwood, so I think he should go (he is in the group, anyway). Otherwise, I think the ones who had real significance were Bevin, Eden and Woolton. I would include Ellen Wilkinson too, but I think we can leave out the likes of Anderson, Cooper and Cripps who were not really that significant. Of the service people, the one who was of special importance to the ministry, setting military prowess aside, was Ismay. If I've counted right, that would give us a total of ten. What do you think? And thanks again. No Great Shaker (talk) 09:39, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I will be candid with you and say that, as someone "across the pond," I know little of British history. I trust in you more to decide who is important and who is not to illustrate. That being said, I have read the article's mentions of the people you have mentioned. I'm not sure how important Bevin and Wilkinson are to have images. Again, I have no idea of British government, so I don't entirely understand what Anderson's prerogatives were, but he doesn't seem that important in relation to everyone else. I agree with excluding Cooper and Cripps, too.

I appreciate the thanks, but at the end of the day we're all just trying to contribute to Wikipedia here. You have done a great job on this article from what I've seen in the history, and I thank you for that. One more thing: I believe that the count is a one or two more than ten with Wilkinson. But as I have said, since the number has been trimmed from 80 to 25ish, it's now a matter of preference. Anything below fifteen or twenty is good, at least to me, so I wouldn't worry. FredModulars (talk) 21:37, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello again, Fred. Ernie Bevin had enormous influence as Minister of Labour and National Service because his department marshalled the whole population by calling up anyone and everyone, not just for military service but also for agricultural and industrial service. Ellen Wilkinson was one of only two women in the entire ministry and she was easily its most left-wing member – despite that, Churchill admired her and even sent her off to San Francisco for the United Nations conference. There are now eleven images and I think that will do. Anderson is borderline so, if I were to add another, it would be him. Thanks very much for your help. All the best. No Great Shaker (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The (parliamentary) Official Opposition during the war

I'm not sure where the best place to put info about this topic on Wikipedia would be (probably not notable enough for a standalone article), but I figured that a section on this article with a brief outline about the state of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition during the war might be worth considering adding here (after all, it's something that people probably would find mildly interesting). However, with the minimal information I have worked out about it so far, there's probably not enough for me to meaningfully make a start on this hypothetical section just yet, so I'm discussing it here in case anyone wants to chip in.

It appears that the Leaders of the Opposition during the war were all part of Labour, with the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party (starting with Hastings Lees-Smith) being given this role, to allow the procedural 'parliamentary rules were written under the assumption that there was a parliamentary opposition with a leader of the opposition to do the things' to continue. With this role (and the seat of the speaker) accounted for, it appears that there were 9 (or 10 if the leader's seat was miscounted as part of the coalition within the infobox) seats of actual 'opposition' - 3 of which being the Independent Labour Party - so who were the other opposition parties, and what oppositioning did they actually do? 🔥HOTm̵̟͆e̷̜̓s̵̼̊s̸̜̃🔥 (talk・edits) 23:06, 10 May 2024 (UTC)