Talk:Margaret Beckett/Archive 1

Margaret Beckett's official biography (at, for example the Defra website) states that she was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, not Salford. So I've put Ashton back in the article. --rbrwr

Labour Party

By the Labour constitution, Margaret Beckett was leader of the Labour Party, not acting leader - I think the preceded-by-in-role-succeeded-by-in-role table should be included.

someone update the table at the bottom to reflect her new position someone has, brilliant

I have removed references to 'acting' Leader of the Opposition. There is no such office in the United Kingdom. When Beckett became leader of the Labour Party in 1994 she also became Leader of the Opposition. There was nothing 'acting' about it. Tgsh2005 13:50, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but out of interest consider the case where the real Leader of the Opposition isn't available. For example, William Hague did PMQs when Cameron's wife had just given birth - it's not relevant to Beckett, but is there any official term for this job of standing in for an absent Leader? I'm guessing there is, since whoever's at the opposition dispatch box gets to ask the PM a certain number of questions. Onebyone 02:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Margaret Beckett

I must agree with a former editor of this article.

Adding a photo doesn't do her any justice what so ever..

She's certainly in the right party along with the other 'interesting facial features’ of other party members..

Hayday 09:43, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

190 tons

Please state some authoritative source for that. It's inconceivable that the amount of fuel used/ pollution generated (191.08 tons) can be accurately stated to the nearest pound given that we're talking about 134 flights on many different planes. The figure is absurd. No scientist capable of enstimating such fuel use would claim to be able to give a figure with such precision - it must be something that some journalists calculated by multiplying some average estimate per mile by a number of miles (the number of miles is also suspect) and such a method could never be accurate and may be on a completely different scale. If you know differetly please expand. I can't find the figure on the BBC's site, or anywhere for that matter - search Google for "Margaret Beckett" and "190 tons" and you get this page and nothing else.--Lo2u 19:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

421 votes

Did Beckett really win two entirely separate elections by exactly the same (and very small) margin? I find that very difficult to believe - does anyone have a citation? - Further to this, I've looked it up and she won in 1974 by 984 votes. I've made the change -UmbertoM

Deputy Leadership

The article says "In order to stand for the leadership she had to resign the deputy leadership so that the two posts came up for election at the same time; in this contest she lost to Prescott." Surely she didn't run for the leadership and put in a "just in case" bid for the deputy leadership too? Or was the deputy the person who came second in the leadership battle? (I'm sorry, I did of course follow these events at the time but my memory is fading... Anyway, perhaps this could be made a little clearer in the article since I don't think I'll be the only person confused by that statement.) --kingboyk 15:29, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Appearance

She is quite ugly. Perhaps that should be mentioned in the article.

She is a politican, not a supermodel, so this is irrelevant. Steve 22:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Date became Foreign Secretary

OK, this has been changed twice recently so I will clarify:

The 2006 Local Elections were on May 4, 2006. She was appointed Foreign Sec the next day [1] (i.e. May 5). I think the editor who is changing this to May 6 is confusing these elections with the 2005 General Elections where the election was on May 5 of that year, and a reshuffle happened on the next day (i.e. May 6). WJBscribe 20:00, 4 December 2006 (UTC)