h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: How best to Prepare Yourself to Become Prime Minster of the United Kingdom - A758469
Author: St Demon Drawer (100 entries!!)[Now leading Fantasy Football! Faint!!!] - U104826

I think this is ready or at least the content is. So here is the companion peice to how to become American President. For all you UK residents out there.

DD

Hate to say this... but you managed to loose me within the first paragraph


When you're talking about people holding the post X N° of times - are you saying they were appointed PM, lost the position and then were re-appointed, or simply that they won X General elections in a row?


<-- and I bet they never turn _that_ one into a smiley

OK Whiskey point taken. Try that for size.

I might be thick, but the bit that looses me is...

"Many of these and some of the others others have retained the position following a successful election victory."


to me, the word 'retained' implies that they were already _in_ the position and were then 're-elected' - but then that clashes with the 'some of the others'

You are *so* going to hate me even more now

I'm going to start at the beginning. If you rearrange the first sentence so that it reads: '50 men and one woman have held the position of Prime Minister since the post was first created.' you simplify the entire meaning. You can then pop a footnote on the end to explain that the post was created during blah though the title 'PM' wasn't used until blah.

You need to look at what you're trying to say and then work out the best place to include the details as it's getting most of your sentences horribly confused, DD. For instance, it's not necessary to explain who the one woman was who was a PM, it's just extra detail that's getting in the way of your main point.

I think that's the main problem really; you've become a little too proud of all the research to work out whether all of it is necessary, or where the best place to put it all is. One of the most painful things I encounter after doing research is realising that I don't actually have a good place to include it. In those cases, the best thing to do is ditch it, or save it for a list at the end. In discussing how to prepare yourself for becoming PM, how much of this detail is actually relevant and how much is, well, just info-dumping?

I'm not sure whether you're saying that Edward Stanley - the 14th Earl of Derby - served three consecutive terms (like Margaret Thatcher did), or that he was called to be Prime Minister, served x-amount of terms, then left the position, then returned and served some more terms, etc. I'm also not clear how this information would help a prospective PM to prepare for the job

Perhpas you could have a think about a proper intro, to explain the role of the PM and how much of it is connected to the heritage attached to the role. Then you can have a header explaining a potted history of Premierships in British politics, which is where the infodump comes in handy.

Your next section should look at statistics to show how likely it is that a given person might become PM, based on age, name, education etc.

The main problem we have though is that after all this info, we still don't know anything that might prepare us for becoming a PM, like traditional foreign policy or economic prowess. Might 'The Statistical Probability of Becoming Prime Minister in the UK' be a more accurate title?

My mind's boggled by all the facts - I love it! I'm just not sure that they're all pulling together just yet. But they will be - HO yes! They will be!

Jimster

Jimster as for title compare and contrast with mt article on becoming American President if you are changing the title of one surely you are looking at changing the title of both.

As for the opening para I'll hop to it. SUH!

You're never going to get in all the detail one might like; for example, the Liberals began as a sort of Whig-Pelite conglomeration, and Pitt the Younger regarded himself as an 'independent Whig' rather than a Tory, but to clarify stuff like that would be unrealistic. Maybe some sort of health warning would be useful, though.

However, I probably would have read the Entry more attentively had it treated the P.M.s as human beings as well as stats. (I'm thinking of Paxman's 'The Political Animal', which comments on things like the number of bereaved P.M.s.)

The 'most popular mane' typo is lovely and I hope it stays in the unedited version.

The summary doesn't contain anything about region represented, even though that's a significant chunk of your article.

Thank you Sea Change I'll get that added.

I'm guessing you still have to complete the list of PMs though?

One other query: "The current Prime Minister was elected only after turning that milestone age of 30, in fact only a few weeks shy of 31." I know what you're saying, but it's still a bit confusing - if you could change that to "The current Prime Minister was first elected to parliament..." it'll be clearer.

Oh, and just for layout purposes, pop ... tags inside your ... ones to make them look nicer.

Much, much better, by the way. Easier to read and much clearer as to the intent of the entry now. Still think you could think about a name-change though - and if you come up with a decent one we could alter the American President one so they still match if you like

Yes still woking on that list. I believe I'm at Peel now.

Where do you want me to put the tags inside the tags?

As for the name change It was good enough for Ashley the Pedant!

It should read:

Blah blah blah

And as for Ashley, well... it would be, wouldn't it?

I'm working on those para's now I worked it out for myself.

I've thought of the idea title.

How to access your statistical changes of becoming...

Really, the information here could be much more simply covered by 'Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. You've offered brief biogs of a lot of them, you're listing them all and you're providing a comprehensive overview of the office....

Boring!

Hi DD

It is a long entry with pots of info . Personally I tended to skim over the details and find the introductions to each section most interesting, with a glance to the most popular results.

It goes against the grain but what do you think about deleting specific detail where it isn't worthy of comment, just leaving the headline results? This defeats the comparison an individual could make to see if, say, they have a PM alumnus from their school
I found the two small tables (the length of tenure by country of Birth and Region represnted by Commoners) did not add value to the entry.

You could mention which PM's were left handed (only Churchill and Callaghan)
http://www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/fam_history.html#politicsuk




There are some typos to correct eg
Disreali > Disraeli (several times throughout)
MacMillan > Macmillan (ditto)

in Prime minister list:
Spencer Comptom > Spencer Compton
Duke of Protland > Duke of Portland
William Wydham Grenville > William Wyndham Grenville
Robert Gasgoigne-Cecil> 'Robert Gascoyne-Cecil' or simply 'Robert Cecil'

in siblings section:
Wellingtom > Wellington

in Education: please add note that in this, next section and under previous posts (a) and (b) suffixes indicate the order schools/universities/ministerial posts were attended/held.
in intro to Education 1:
'all required a university education of a family stipend' of > or

Who went to Drainie Church of Scotland School? (every other school notes their alumni)

in education (2):
could you add numbers of PM attendees to top results, for consistency with schools?

Palmerston should have a (b) suffix under Cambridge, since he gets an (a) for Edinburgh

Under career:
You have listed alphabetically rather than in numerical order of top results - I'd prefer to see the most popular career first, as done with school and university.
typo: unknwown > unknown

In Region represented:
This needs overhauling . The introduction is convoluted, and the specifics horribly confusing - many PMs have no italicised region, several typos eg universtiy, Unkown, Buckinhamshire, footnote 15: MacMillian > Macmillan

In previous cabinet posts:
intro: Home of Foreign Secretary > Home or Foreign Secretary
Scotish > Scottish
Chacellor > Chancellor

Hope you find most of this useful

Pimms

nice entry

you said the earl of aberdeen was independent but in the table it says he was tory, which is right? did you get the info from different sources?

you also failed to mention the current prime minister is clearly independent and just used labour as a route to power, and would have made a better tory leader, because he uses traditional tory policies whilst at the same time undoing every good thing the the tories ever did. you should also mention that hes a complete prat who should be voted out immediately.(go on, you know you want to)

because there is an emphasis on males, maybe you could do a thing on prime ministers wives(e.g., if you want to be PM you should marry someone from cornwall or something!)

disappointed to see there were no sams as PM's, never mind, i can be the first

your sentence structure gets very confusing,

why was the post of 1st lord blah blah created?

when was the first election?

do something like if you want to serve a second term you will have to blah blah blah

what about looks e.g. you have to be tall/short, blonde/dark, thin/fat

anyway, ive run out of things to complain about now, so i'll be going

nice entry again

SuperSam

I did try and locate appearance info but this was hard to come by.

I found the first paragraph a little confusing too

"50 men and one woman have held the post of Prime Minister since the post of Prime Minister since Sir Robert Walpole served as First Lord of the Treasury from 1721-1742."

The whole "since" thing makes it a bit confusing

Ooh, and if you are planning to mention who was left-handed, I would love to advertise an excellent link: A625501

Hi DD, interesting entry My friends and I tried listing as many British PMs as we could remember the other day - I got 35, but am planning to learn them all. Right then:

- "men and one woman have held the post of Prime Minister since the post of Prime Minister since". Repetition of "the post of Prime Minister since ".
- Is it be correct to refer to the pre-1800 PMs as 'of the United Kingdom'? The Act of Union didn't create the UK until 1800, making Pitt the Younger the first technical PM of the UK.
- It might be worth discussing whether Pitt the Elder can be considered a Prime Minister. Although some consider him a PM, he was Lord Privy Seal, not First Lord of the Treasury. This is a notable exception to the definition provided in your introduction.
- PMs in the EG: Lord Liverpool (A1004428), Gladstone (A757361), Blair (A873821). There are several other entries in C862 that you should reference. Also: European Nobility (A2791929).
- The table of PMs currently stops at Ramsay MacDonald.
- 'Party Allegiance' section, "Liberal Democrats , the Tories now". Unnecessary space before comma.
- Commas needed: "The two big parties the Conservatives and Labour have traditionally" --> "The two big parties, the Conservatives and Labour, have traditionally ".
- 1920's --> 1920s.
- "Wales' most famous Prime Minister". I think this should read "Wales's..." as 'Wales' is not a plural. That's the system that I usually use.
- "The current leaders of all the major parties ". This information is liable to become obsolete. Perhaps start the sentence with 'At the time of writing...' or 'In 2004...'
- I'm not sure that it's necessary to put the dates of each PM's ministries when you mention them, as you've already included the information in the big table. It breaks up the flow of the text, somewhat.
- "The Earl of Liverpool". Lowercase 'the'.
- "The most popular mane for Scottish". Typo. The rest of this sentence doesn't read properly.

They're enough comments for now, I think. I'll read a bit more later, when you've had time to make the suggested changes