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Talk:Gordon Brown

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	Gordon Brown has been listed as one of the Social sciences and society good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassessit.
Article milestones Date Process Result February 26, 2006 Good article nominee Listed July 18, 2009 Good article reassessment Kept
	Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on May 11, 2023, and May 11, 2024.
Current status: Good article

This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into the Top 50 Report annual list. This happened in 2007.

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

The infobox is wrong to state that Ed Miliband succeeded Brown as Labor Leader.

As it was Harriet Harman instead serving for an interim period pending the election of the new permanent leader which turned out to be Miliband.

Harman's interim leadership should count for something. 49.3.72.79 (talk) 13:14, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Done This has now been corrected. -- Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:16, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. 49.3.72.79 (talk) 13:31, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It still says Ed Milliband at the bottom. 49.3.72.79 (talk) 13:33, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also  Done. -- Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:37, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Emir of Wikipedia: Actually let's put the breaks on that since consensus has yet to be established. This is, in fact, a common misconception which does not pay credence to article precedents nor internal party rules. This is reflected on Harman's page where it states that her role as Leader of the Opposition was ratified but her role as acting Labour leader was merely a pragmatic move due to her role as deputy. Ditto for Margaret Beckett's article. Alex (talk) 13:58, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This has nothing to do with the position of Leader of the Opposition as I just stated elsewhere on this page that Brown did not serve in that position after losing the election.49.3.72.79 (talk) 16:30, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Whether it is called pragmatic in regards to Harman the fact still remains is that Miliband wasn't leader in the immediate period after Brown's resignation, readers might be misled in thinking that Miliband succeeded Brown when the latter's resignation came into effect.49.3.72.79 (talk) 16:35, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

the fact still remains is that Miliband wasn't leader in the immediate period after Brown's resignation Correct but neither was Harman. I know it's quite confusing but my above reasons are why we have this precedent.

readers might be misled in thinking that Miliband succeeded Brown when the latter's resignation came into effect I think a main text clarification is what is needed to address that rather than making the infobox inaccurate. Alex (talk) 19:27, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It should be stated in the article that Brown became the first defeated Prime Minister who did not then serve as Leader of the Opposition. 49.3.72.79 (talk) 13:15, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We would need a WP:RS to make that claim. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:38, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you want reliable sources how about Wikipedia itself. I cross referenced this with the Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom) and the UK election articles to find that all other Prime Ministers who were voted out then served as Leader of the Opposition. Brown however did not serve as Leader of the Opposition after losing the election, a fact of which is presented in this article itself.49.3.72.79 (talk) 16:28, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a reliable source, but thank you for trying to help. -- Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:36, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly this is no different than being asked to provide evidence to an answer for a simple math problem. It simply isn't needed. I asked that you don't quote me with anymore Wikipedia rules because I don't feel you understand what I am getting at by doing that. It seems to me there are one of two reasons why are a defeated Prime Minister would serve as Leader of the Opposition. The first is the belief that a former Prime Minister can reclaim the premiership. The other reason is to fill in the position for a stop-gap period until his party chooses his successor as leader. Whether it is for one of the two reasons I have just outlined, a former Prime Minister as Opposition Leader would use this position to defend against criticism from the current Government on what he did when he was Prime Minister. Brown evidently expressed no interest in reclaiming the premiership and chose not to wait for his party to choose his permanent successor hence not becoming Leader of the Opposition in the meantime. 49.3.72.79 (talk) 13:01, 31 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Gordon Brown is the 74th Prime Minister. To those of you saying "nobody keeps count", how can you argue with a government source? This website is based on verifiable evidence, well, there it is. ^[1]DaleYorks (talk) 16:57, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

DaleYorks, that source only says here are 76, it doesn't say there are only 76 or give each an index number. It certainly doesn't support changing the office names of individual prime ministers by adding numbers to them. And WP:BRD says wait for a consensus if challenged. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the response. It's a bit of common sense to know when someone was first (and so forth). DaleYorks (talk) 17:12, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of whether he is 74th or 76th, the fact is that, in the United Kingdom, we do not "count" our prime ministers in the way that Americans count their presidents. To say that someone is the 76th or whatever prime minister looks a bit weird, and is not what most readers would expect. So my vote is to delete the count.

Mike Marchmont (talk) 17:44, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Per UK style. Alex (talk) 11:59, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why no mention? 86.147.59.195 (talk) 04:40, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why is "First Secretary"/ Mandelson in the summary box for Brown's term as Prime Minister? 146.199.63.69 (talk) 09:00, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As a guess i'd say it's probably because the First Secretary is basically the PM's deputy. We have Deputy PMs listed in other PMs' info boxes too so I personally don't see any problems with Mandelson's inclusion as FS here either. ThatRandomGuy1 (talk) 22:32, 28 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]