Talk:Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom)

message: Reverted what appear to be unilateral changes. Please ask for consensus.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ancheta Wis (talk • contribs) 00:07, 27 November 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled comment

message: Couldn't work out any other way to do this, and when I removed a test, the table of contents vanished again! Carcharoth 13:57, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding comment to generate list of contents! 

message: What about creating an infobox for Leaders of the Opposition, just like Prime Ministers?Mathsguy 17:30, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox for Leader of the Opposition 

message: I think perhaps we need to have an introduction explaining that many of our listings pre-1832 and for some time afterwards are best guesses in a time when clear leaders as opposed to various faction leaderd within each party were the exception not the rule. Alci12 16:10, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guidance 

message: Believe it or not but people are most interested in the most recent leaders of the opposition.  That's why I've reversed the order, so that it is most recent to oldest.  CaptainJ (t | c | e) 21:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Believe it or not, but people generally like to read lists in chronological order.  john k 12:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  At the moment we seem to have a sort of compound order - leaders of the opposition since 1905, in chronological order; followed by leaders of the opposition from 1807 to (bizarrely) 1915, in chronological order.  I can see why this is done (though the article isn't clear what determines when the post became "official"), but the result is a little odd. TSP 23:35, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Order reversed 

message: Is this really true? "He or she is normally viewed as an alternative Prime Minister ... "? Surely it is only true during a general election when he/she is indeed an alternative, but after the election surely not - other members of the cabinet then become alternative PMs. Abtract 18:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative PM?

message: I have recollections of successive Lib Dem leaders being described as "the Leader of Her Majesty's Other Oppposition" at the Remembrance Sunday ceremonies (and this predates all this "Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet" stuff) but a quick Google doesn't show anything - am I just misremembering? Timrollpickering 16:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Third party leader 

message: Erskine May confirms that the Leader of the Opposition was first given statutory recognition in the Ministers of the Crown Act 1937. I have looked at the text of the Act. Section 5 states that "There shall be paid to the Leader of the Opposition an annual salary of two thousand pounds". Section 10(1) includes a definition (which seems to codify the usual situation under the previous custom) -" "Leader of the Opposition" means that member of the House of Commons who is for the time being the leader in that House of the party in opposition to His Majesty's Government having the greatest numerical strength in that House".
The 1937 Act also contains an important provision to decide who is the Leader of the Opposition, if this is in doubt. Under section 10(3) "If any doubt arises as to which is or was at any material time the party in opposition to His Majesty's Government having the greatest numerical strength in the House of Commons, or as to who is or was at any material time the leader in that House of such a party the question shall be decided for the purposes of this Act by the Speaker of the House of Commons, and his decision, certified in writing under his hand, shall be final and conclusive".
Subsequent legislation also gave statutory recognition to the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. I have looked at the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975. Section 2(1) provides "In this Act "Leader of the Opposition" means, in relation to either House of Parliament, that member of that House who is for the time being the Leader in that House of the party in opposition to Her Majesty's Government having the greatest numerical strength in the House of Commons". Section 2(2) is in exactly the same terms as section 10(3) of the 1937 Act (apart from substituting Her Majesty's for His Majesty's). Section 2(3) is a corresponding provision for the Lord Chancellor to decide about the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords.
This information confirms that Leader of the Opposition is, strictly, a Parliamentary office; so that to be Leader a person must be a member of the House in which he or she leads. I would suggest that whilst there had been generally recognised Leaders of the Opposition in each House for more than a century before 1937, it is only from 1937 that they could be said to be official in the sense of having statutory recognition. I suggest we need to list Leaders of the Opposition separately for each House both before and after 1937. Although the Leader in the House of Commons has been pre-eminent for the last century or so, the leaders in the House of Lords are still a type of Leaders of the Opposition. I can draft a brief introduction explaining how the idea of a recognised Leader of the Opposition arose and the above statutory provisions about an official Leader of the Opposition. Do others agree this is the way to develop the article? --Gary J (talk) 16:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This sounds like a good plan to me. john k (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have more or less implemented the text part, although there are a few inconsistencies between my sources and the existing lists, which may need a bit more research. --Gary J (talk) 00:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legislative Provisions 

message: Can we take it that Harriet Harman now holds this post? PatGallacher (talk) 18:57, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  New leader 

message: Can someone remove Herbert Morrison from the table? He is inserted in November 1955, but was never Leader of the Opposition. When Attlee stepped down Gaitskell was elected as Leader. See Oxford DNB if confirmation needed, here:
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35121 I don't want to mess around with the table in case the formatting goes awry. Thanks. --gobears87 (talk) 23:44, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding was that when Attlee retired, Morrison, as deputy leader of the party, took over for a couple of months before Gaitskell was elected.  Is that not accurate? john k (talk) 03:44, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  H. Morrison 

message: Corbyn is not yet Right Honourable because he has not yet become a member of the Privy Council and may well not do.
I am not quite sure that it is correct to say that he is the Leader of the Opposition yet, just because he is Leader of the Labour Party, unless and until he becomes a Privy Councillor.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.46.119.94 (talk) 15:56, 12 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Ramsay MacDonald was considered Leader of the Opposition between the general election of 1922 and when he became PM in 1924, and he was not a privy councillor. john k (talk) 15:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Right Honourable 

message: Hey mate, 
Bit confused by your recent revert. Your summary includes "the old image is being used temporarily ", but the image you're reverting to is not the old image. It's the new image. Am I missing something? NickCT (talk) 14:52, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  @Hazhk 

message: Obviously, Labour did not have a leader in the Lords, because there were basically no Labour peers at that point. But does that mean that the position was vacant? Weren't Crewe, and then Grey, as Liberal leaders in the Lords, effectively functioning as Leaders of the Opposition there? john k (talk) 15:16, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  1922-1924 

message: Please share your input in an RfC relating to what image should be used in the infobox at the Wikipedia page for the Leader of the British Labour Party (and at this page) AusLondonder (talk) 09:24, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Please comment on a RfC at [[Talk:Jeremy Corbyn#RfC on infobox image]]

message: just wondering if adding the exact period in office is a good idea 95.145.155.227 (talk) 19:04, 26 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  period in office 

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message: The article on the 1975 Conservative Party leadership election states that "After his defeat in the first ballot [Edward] Heath asked Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Robert Carr to "take over the functions of leader" until a new leader was elected." Carr's own article also includes this detail and I have seen it referred to elsewhere. Heath's article states that he immediately resigned after his defeat. Taken together this would imply that Heath resigned as Leader of the Conservative Party on 4th February 1975 and Carr held that role on an acting basis until Margaret Thatcher was elected on 11th February 1975 at the second ballot. However I am unclear if this means Heath also ceased to be Leader of the Opposition on the 4th or if he remained in that post until Thatcher was elected. If he did resign as LotO presumably someone had to take his role at Prime Minister's Questions and I would guess that would most likely to be Carr? What ever the guess if Heath was not LotO 4-11 February 1975 then the list needs to be amended (though it would be good to establish if the post was vacant or if Carr held the role). Dunarc (talk) 19:17, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: As an update it looks from Hansard as if Carr took the Leader of the Opposition's place at Prime Ministers questions on 5th February 1975 (and Harold Wilson referred to Heath's departure during this session), though this would not automatically mean he officially held that position. Dunarc (talk) 20:54, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  February 1975 - who was Leader of Opposition 4-11 February? 

message: I thought it made more sense to have this by years and days, rather than just days. However, the problem is that some leaders of the opposition served more than once, and I don't know how to combine multiple dates for a calculation. So in those cases, I just wrote "x years, y days" instead. That still sorts, except when it comes to leaders who served for less than a year. Their service is "x days", and this doesn't sort properly. I can change it to "0 years, x days", but that doesn't look right to me, and the dates which do have a calculation are sorted separately. Can someone help it get sorted correctly please? There must surely be a way to sort manually added durations of days within a list like this.--TrottieTrue (talk) 19:15, 26 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorting by tenure for manually added durations is (hopefully) now fixed by replacing e.g. 265 days for Harriet Harman with  instead. -- AJP (talk) 10:56, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  List sorted by tenure