I think this article is wrong in saying that Seamus Close is the leader of the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland. Seamus was its deputy leader under John Alderdice, but as far as I can remember he was beaten in the recent leadership election. (But then for some reason, all the recent leaders have been bearded guys who are psychiatrists. And no I'm not making it up. I once had a meeting in their headquarters and joked about there supposedly being quite a few psychiatrists in the party. The result was embarrassed silence. Of the twenty-four there, nineteen were psychiatrists, three were psychologists, one a psychotherapist and one a mere doctor! Weird!) So if you just put down 'bearded psychiatrist' for leader, the odds are you are right! JTD 06:09 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)
- David Ford, according to http://www.allianceparty.org/html/who_s_who.html. He's a bearded social worker (http://www.davidford.org/dford.htm ), so you're not far off. --rbrwr
--- I have moved the text from the article 'British Politics' back here as this closer resembles the standard title for articles on the political systems of individual states and countries. (JDH)
- JDH Please log in. We get nervous when anonymous IPs start doing heavy lifting. Mintguy
- Also are you going to fix the double redirects that have now been created. Mintguy
- ...and if you log in, you will be able to use the "Move this page" function, which keeps the history of the page coherent. --rbrwr
There is no 'strict convention' that the Prime Minister should be in the House of Commons - for almost all the 20th Century it has been a memeber of the Commons (but Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury was PM from 1896-1902) - it is, however, almost inconveviable that a modern prime minister would not be from the Commons dmp
- But isn't that what a "strict convention" is - not written as a rule but it would be "almost inconceivable" to do anything else? --rbrwr
Zoney wrote: "*N*ationalist is a title"
It is the title of a doctrine not a political party. Capitalising "nationalist" of the SDLP variety is certainly not the practice in any news media or political science source ive read. Not so sure about "unionist" though as this derives from the Union.
Under wikipedia naming conventions: "most names of doctrines shouldn't be capitalized".
193.203.156.240 06:09 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)
- Agreed. 'Unionist' in this context ought to be capitalised because it refers to the particular Union which itself has a capital U; 'unionism' as a general (worldwide) doctrine would have a small u. Toby W 13:38, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- I guess you're right. Oh well. (I bet our Irish press capitalise it!) Zoney 16:48, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I guess Tony Blair will be relieved to see that Iraq & terrorism isn't a major issue in UK politics! David Thrale 21:16, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Point taken, but this brings up a more general discussion about what this page is for. Is it a 'current affairs' page, changing to reflect current political topics, controversies and developments in the UK, as I think David is hinting? Or is it a rather more static page, describing the political systems of the UK, its institutions, and the perennial issues and discussions that surround them? I think at the moment it's more like the latter, though perhaps in that case it could do with a title more like Political constitution of the United Kingdom or similar. And we could add a link to another page, something like Current political issues in the United Kingdom (or maybe List of current political issues in the United Kingdom), which would indeed include terrorism and Iraq as one of today's political 'hot potatoes'. Just me 2p's worth. Toby W 09:39, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)