page_title: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
section_title: Loyal Opposition
hierarchical_section_title: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom / Primus inter pares / Loyal Opposition
caption_attribution_description: The House of Commons at Westminster: This engraving was published as Plate 21 of Microcosm of London (1808) (see File:Microcosm of London Plate 021 - House of Commons.jpg).
context_page_description: The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister directs both the executive and the legislature, and together with their Cabinet is accountable to the monarch, to Parliament, to their party, and ultimately to the electorate, for the government's policies and actions.
  The office of Prime Minister is not established by any statute or constitutional document but exists only by long-established convention, whereby the reigning monarch appoints as prime minister the person most likely to command the confidence of the House of Commons; this individual is typically the leader of the political party or coalition of parties that holds the largest number of seats in that chamber. The position of Prime Minister was not created; it evolved slowly and organically over three hundred years due to numerous Acts of Parliament, political developments, and accidents of history. The office is therefore best understood from a historical perspective. The origins of the position are found in constitutional changes that occurred during the Revolutionary Settlement and the resulting shift of political power from the Sovereign to Parliament.
context_section_description: The modern British system includes not only a government formed by the majority party (or coalition of parties) in the House of Commons but also an organised and open opposition formed by those who are not members of the governing party. Called Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, they occupy the benches to the Speaker's left. Seated in the front, directly across from the ministers on the Treasury Bench, the leaders of the opposition form a "shadow government", complete with a salaried "shadow prime minister", the Leader of the Opposition, ready to assume office if the government falls or loses the next election.
  Opposing the King's government was considered disloyal, even treasonous, at the end of the 17th century. During the 18th century this idea waned and finally disappeared as the two party system developed. The expression "His Majesty's Opposition" was coined by John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton. In 1826, Broughton, a Whig, announced in the Commons that he opposed the report of a Bill. As a joke, he said, "It was said to be very hard on His Majesty's ministers to raise objections to this proposition. For my part, I think it is much more hard on His Majesty's Opposition to compel them to take this course." The phrase caught on and has been used ever since. Sometimes rendered as the "Loyal Opposition", it acknowledges the legitimate existence of the two party system, and describes an important constitutional concept: opposing the government is not treason; reasonable men can honestly oppose its policies and still be loyal to the Sovereign and the nation.
  Informally recognized for over a century as a convention of the constitution, the position of Leader of the Opposition was given statutory recognition in 1937 by the Ministers of the Crown Act.
caption: The House of Commons early 19th century. The Loyal Opposition occupy the benches to the Speaker's left. Seated in the front, the leaders of the opposition form a "shadow government", complete with a salaried "shadow prime minister" ready to assume office if the government falls or loses the next election.
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