Talk:Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Harold Saxon's Party
It is never state that Harold Saxon leads a coalition government. It is stated that MPs from other parties are serving in Saxon's government, but that they jumped ship to Saxon. My guess would be that Saxon forms a 'Harold Saxon for PM' party (or perhaps takes over a smaller party) and then following his popularity he makes other MPs, fearful for their seats, jump to his party. I've edited it appropriately.

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Is this actually stated anywhere in-universe? Or is the position just called "British Prime Minister" or indeed neither of these? "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" is the title of the Wikipedia page at least, but we don't always follow how Wikipedia names things.

I agree with that, but if you think of the President of the United States it's like saying, American President which doesn't sound as it should. But the in-universe you do make a point but we haven't hear neither of these in the past 5 years of Doctor Who but both of them where used in the Last of the Time Lords for Harold Saxon. The mysterious 17:47, May 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * That's not to say that the leader of the United Kingdom's position hasn't been name checked in other sources, text based sources, audio, comic, and any other stuff that hasn't been broadcast in the past 5 years.
 * President of the United States though, I think has been named. --Tangerineduel / talk 18:12, May 15, 2011 (UTC)

Acting PM
Would the "by default" role of Jocrassa Slitheen count as prime minister or not? Did the episode go into detail as to whether acting prime minister "counted"? -- [[User:Tybort|Tybort (talk page) 00:42, September 5, 2011 (UTC)]]

LIST
Ok I was busy adding sources to the list I created, like I was asked to. But then I went back and it seems someone else had already started an edit war. Here's what I came up with. Obviously the page has now been locked, but it'd be nice if someone could add this in.

List of known Prime Ministers

 * Robert Walpole (PROSE: Time Wake)
 * Lord North (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
 * Rockingham (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
 * Shelburne (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street)
 * William Pitt the Younger(AUDIO: Upstairs)
 * Arthur Wellesley (AUDIO: Other Lives)
 * George Canning (AUDIO: Upstairs)
 * Earl of Rosebery (PROSE: The Singular Case of the Time Machine)
 * Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (AUDIO: Upstairs)
 * Arthur Balfour (PROSE: Assassin on the Railroads)
 * Herbert Asquith (AUDIO: The Suffering, PROSE: Birthright)
 * David Lloyd George (TV: Aliens of London)
 * Ramsay MacDonald (AUDIO: Storm Warning)
 * Stanley Baldwin (PROSE: Players)
 * Neville Chamberlain (PROSE: Illegal Alien, One Wednesday Afternoon)
 * Winston Churchill (TV: The Beast Below)
 * Anthony Eden (TV: Knock Knock)
 * Harold Macmillan (AUDIO: The Pelage Project)
 * Alec Douglas-Home (AUDIO: The Pelage Project)
 * Harold Wilson (AUDIO: State of Emergency)
 * Edward Heath (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
 * Jeremy Thorpe (PROSE: Interference - Book One)
 * Shirley Williams (PROSE: No Future)
 * James Callaghan (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure)
 * Margaret Thatcher (TV: Tooth and Claw)
 * John Major (PROSE: Interference - Book One)
 * Margery Phipps (AUDIO: Council of War)
 * Unknown (PROSE: The Dying Days)
 * Terry Brooks (PROSE: Millennium Shock)
 * Tony Blair (TV: World War Three)
 * Kenneth Clarke (PROSE: Interference - Book One)
 * Unknown (AUDIO: The Longest Night)
 * Harriet Jones (TV: [The Christmas Invasion]])
 * Harold Saxon (TV: The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords)
 * Aubrey Fairchild (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos)
 * Brian Green (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
 * Unknown (COMIC: After Life)
 * Felicity (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn)
 * Unknown (AUDIO: Project: Destiny)
 * Mariah Learman (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks)
 * Hawthorne (TV: The Beast Below)

Mysterious Editor ☎  17:26, April 16, 2018 (UTC)

Lists and edit wars
Regarding the unfortunate incident on this page, there are several points to consider. First of all, all users have equal right to edit the page, whether they have a username or prefer to edit under an IP. Secondly, the final determination of what is a good and a bad edit comes from the policies. Tardis:Administrators are responsible for ensuring that policies are followed. This means that an IP should not be trusted less just because they are an IP. However, it is a good indication of who follows policies and who doesn't when only one side of the argument cites a policy in their favour, while the other side admits that it is them who violates the policy.

Secondly, let me remind you that Tardis:Edit wars are good for absolutely nothing. No one can be forced into an edit war. If one thinks they are engaged in an edit war and continues undoing edits, they have admitted their own guilt and have no one else to blame. In all situations, talking on a talk page yields better results than fighting. Like most wars, edit wars have no winners, just blocked unhappy users.

But an even more serious offence is threatening other editors. Personal attacks are not tolerated in principle. But direct threats like "Now you must pay the price" will earn an immediate block. It does not matter that an editor was impotent to execute their threat from the very beginning. It does not matter that the threat was vague. And it does not matter why it was issued. Editors who communicate using threats are not welcome in this community. Period.

Now, for the matter at hand. To list, or not to list. OncomingStorm12th was right to delete the list. As explained at Tardis:Lists, "[E]ase of creation does not mean that [lists] should be over used. Especially within in-universe articles, it's often better to find a way to present the material in normal paragraphs."

In this case, the material was already there, meaning that a list was simply redundant. In fact, lists are considered so undesirable that there is a special template asking to get rid of them (click on it to see how it looks). The documentation for it provides further reasons why lists should be avoided "Bulleted lists should be avoided, particularly on in-universe pages. One very good reason for this is that bulleted lists do not display properly on wikiamobile, the skin seen when using mobile devices."

This is the policy. Policies can be changed, but until such a change takes effect, Tardis:You are bound by current policy. Thus, the list of Prime Ministers will be removed and should not be reinstated.

One final note. This is an old wiki with many devoted editors. If you need particular info, chances are, it already exists, though it may not be where you expected. The information on prime ministers, more detailed than the proposed list, can be found at Template:Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. This template is also present at the bottom of the page for each individual prime minister, so that it is easy to navigate between them. And, not surprisingly, the same template is also present at the bottom of this page. Thus, the list was doubly redundant.

To summarise, please use talk pages. They provide for a much better communication medium than the "one-liners" accompanying edit reverts. Amorkuz ☎  18:42, April 16, 2018 (UTC)


 * Who decides that lists are meaningless? They provide an overview of an article so that people don't have to trawl through tonnes of info. This wiki is designed for fans is it not? Doctor Who fans in particular like their lists. The average viewer comes to pages like this looking for an overview first, and if they like what they see, they will read more in-depth. I understand that my opinions will of course be neglected, but I thought I should voice it nevertheless. Mysterious Editor ☎  19:53, April 16, 2018 (UTC)


 * Policies on this wiki are decided by the community and codified by the admin, as explained in Tardis:Who writes policy. This wiki is 14 years old, so there are dozens of forum discussions and precedents. You should always assume that things are the way they are for a reason, even though you might not know what this reason is. In this case, the reason has been explained above.


 * Please do not presume to speak on behalf of "Doctor Who fans" or an "average viewer" (whatever that might mean). You are speaking on behalf of yourself and yourself only. Your opinion is valued as much as the opinion of any other editor. However, you cannot expect an opinion of any one editor to negate 14 years of precedent. As I said earlier, policies can be changed by the community, if a consensus for that is reached in a Panopticon discussion.


 * Finally, you did not acknowledge the fact that the list you are interested in is already present on the page. Perhaps, for others to have a better understanding of your personal position on this, you should explain why this is not sufficient for you. Amorkuz ☎  21:07, April 16, 2018 (UTC)