Talk:James Callaghan

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Contents 1 Father's death 2 FAC? 3 Unemployment Soaring?! 4 Addition of Flanders and Swann Reference 5 Name 6 Edit 7 Height 8 Edit

[edit] Father's death

His early life has his father dying at age 9. Can you please correct it to say his father died when Callaghan was aged 9? Thanks.

[edit] FAC?

Is this good enough for WP:FAC? Should I WP:PR it first? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:27, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Unemployment Soaring?!

Towards the end of this article it states that during the winter of discontent that Unemployment was soaring but this is not the case. Between 1977 and 1979 when Mr. Callaghan left office UK Unemployment levels fell slightly. Unemployment only started soaring after Mrs. T got in and it hit 3 Million in the early '80s.

                                         Holden 27

[edit] Addition of Flanders and Swann Reference

Some six months on, author of below comment notes: the below comment was made by me some six months ago, and then at a later time I felt embarrassed by it and tried to retract it (this time not logged in properly to wikipedia, but just making an edit as an anonymous IP address.) Another user "un-did" my retraction and restored it. To this day I have no way of knowing on which level my "un-redactor" was being kind to me or just perhaps preemptive of some other potential censor's work, but a half a year on may I say that learning more of the UK's political history has been absolutely instructive for me in all sorts of ways. So that I am now doubly embarrassed for ever having raised a peep. But there are those of us in the 'States who know where our system of government (good or ill) originated. Still trying to improve our International Relations. Alan Canon 09:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

A perfectly strange thing just happened to me. James Callaghan's photo, but not his article, rated the front page of the English language edition of Wikipedia as a featured article. The article was on the United Kingdom corporation tax.

I looked at the photo of Callaghan, without recognizing him, and glanced at the article, and thought "Now, that's just a perfectly fine and typical-looking British Cabinet Minister, like that Harold Wilson and what's his name that Flanders and Swann used to sing about. So I decided to look up Harold Wilson, and from there was able to recover the name of James Callaghan, his Chancellor of the Exchequer and also mentioned in the song by Flanders and Swann.

The strange thing is that when I jumped from reading about Wilson to reading about Callaghan, Callaghan's picture looked familiar. I knew I'd seen that face before...no, wait a minute, it was the very picture from the featured article on the Wikipedia home page (at the time of writing, June 7, 2005.)!

What makes it strange is that I'm an 36-year old American who has only been to England for two weeks of his life, my only time out of the States. There's no particular cultural reason for me to remember these names aside from the Flanders and Swann reference. I just tangentially browsed my way into a little vortex of references, and it was "pot luck" that the person the picture reminded me, stereotypically, was none other than the person I was thinking of.

And how sad to hear that he's just passed away, after all this time. Rest in Peace, Hon. Mr. Callaghan. This Kentucky boy salutes you, and thanks to Wikipedia will remember now a little more about you.

I added a reference to the Flanders and Swann song to the page at the very end with a "James Callaghan in Popular Culture" section (but above the See Also section. I should like best for any person offended by my doing so, especially any British person who is so offended, to redact or eliminate this section. What I added is true, but I leave it to others to decide if it is appropriate. Alan Canon 02:28, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Is the "g" in "Callaghan" stressed or silent ? How is the name pronounced in Ireland? Bastie 17:12, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, in the UK, it is almost invariably "Ca-la-han" with three shorts "a"s, primary stress on the "Ca" and secondary stress on the "han". -- ALoan (Talk)

Interesting, I've just heard Bernard Ingham pronounce the name Callag-an, and it's not the first time I've heard that pronounciation used. Bastie 03:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC

[edit] Edit

I have added some extra information on Callaghans early years before he was MP for Cardiff. I have also made a new subsection on his personal life - moving paragraphs on his wife and children etc into this section. LordHarris 15:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Height

An unsigned user added this comment in the main text which I RVed: I think this is incorrect. According to Andrew Robert's biography, Lord Salisbury was 6ft 4in. Don't know if this is true, any thoughts? MarkThomas 09:31, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

It's possible this might be due to the source in the Callaghan article being 10 Downing Street. Although Salisbury was PM, he wasn't first lord of the treasury (I'm not 100% on this), the traditional occupant of number 10, he was in fact foreign secretary. So if there is an official 'downing street tailor' or something who provides the stats, it may be that Callghan is the tallest ever first lord of the treasury, but not tallest PM. But I dunno.

Why not just rephrase it to say that he was one of the tallest Prime Ministers and not theactual tallest? Think the unassigned user was me. LordHarris 11:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I was the person who added to the main article, I wasn't aware of the 'wiki-quette', and frankly can't be bothered reading about it, so thanks to Mark Thomas for pointing it out to me. Lord Harris' suggestion seems like a good one to me. And, incidentally, if you're interested in British Prime Ministers, Roberts' biography of Lord Salisbury is superb.

[edit] Edit

I have just purchased the new biography of Callaghan and will be adding lots of new info to the article. I have already made additions to his parents, his time in the royal navy, his standing for MP in Cardiff and his subsequent landslide election. I have also added references to support some of the new information. As I continue to read the biography I will make new additions to the article. If anyone is interested in working together to make the article on Callaghan more accurate, more academic and in more depth I would welcome the opportunity; especially on his years as Prime Minister (the section is very short giving his time and impact (winter of discontent) at Number 10. LordHarris 16:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I have now made new additions to early life and to his years as Chancellor, expanding the section to its own sub section in its own right. LordHarris 17:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Have finished expanding the Chancellor section (though the PM section now needs a lot of work). Have started expanding the home secretary section and added a few more references, including some sourced written statements. LordHarris 15:38, 1 February 2007 (UTC)