Talk:11 Downing Street

Gordon Brown or Alistair Darling?

According to the Reuters and BBC references listed at Talk:Chief_Mouser_to_the_Cabinet_Office, Gordon Brown is now living at 11 Downing Street, and Alistair Darling at 10 Downing Street, but this article disagrees. Could someone with some actual knowledge of British government residences (or at least a better grasp of what sources are reliable in this area) please check on this and correct whichever articles need correcting? John Darrow (talk) 04:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

He is still in number 11, according to people who work there —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.160.97.55 (talk) 14:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

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Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Request received to merge articles: Cash for curtains disputed allegations into 11 Downing Street; dated: May 2021. Proposer's Rationale: Small amount of readable prose, could be reduced down to a paragraph or two on a dedicated section on the target page. Discuss here. SɱαɾƚყPαɳƚʂ22 (Ⓣⓐⓛⓚ) 22:31, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

• Delete there's not enough weight currently to support inclusion of this unsubstantiated accusation in this article, let alone to support a stand-alone article covering it. -- DeFacto (talk). 23:06, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
• Keep The refurbishment definitely occurred, that is undisputed by every media source. The refurbishment cost in excess of £80,000, that is undisputed by every media source. The Prime Ministers allowance is £30,000 which is a matter of public record. The £58,000 shortfall is clear. The £58,000 donation by Lord Brownslow is a matter of public record. The Electoral Commission inquiry is ongoing. User DeFacto doesn't know the outcome yet, regardless of his political opinions. He can't keep trimming the article, and reverting all edits and merging to make it go away.
• Keep Independently notable. ~ HAL333 04:04, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Keep Independently meets WP:GNG. Range of coverage in all British broadsheets and some international outlets. An Electoral Commission inquiry into the conduct of a Prime Minister regardless of outcome would appear to be notable. RoanokeVirginia (talk) 20:19, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment why do people thing just because it's notable it deserves it's own article? *Everything* on Wikipedia has to be notable, that is not an argument to not merge. – SɱαɾƚყPαɳƚʂ22 (Ⓣⓐⓛⓚ) 15:14, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

  Per WP:MERGEREASON, "merging should be avoided if the topics are discrete subjects warranting their own articles, even though they might be short". The investigation(s) and political controversy surrounding the allegations/financing of the renovations are a distinct topic from the history of the building 11 Downing Street. RoanokeVirginia (talk) 18:42, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• If it is merged (no strong opinions on whether it should be or not), it should really be merged into the article about Johnson or his premiership, not this one - it seems a more relevant place for it. Andrew Gray (talk) 18:53, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Coverage of "cash for curtains"

The User Defacto clearly doesn't want any reference to the current "cash for curtains" investigation. The user removes citations, then claims there is no evidence for the use of the term. The £88000 financing of the refurbishment of 11 Downing Street is in the public interest, regardless of political leanings. Can anyone else offer any support for a neutral pov here?

@167.98.181.52: this is the edit I made, and that sentence ("known in the press as the Cash-for-Curtains scandal") was not in any of the sources you cited, full-stop, so I removed it. Per WP:VER you need sources saying that that's what it's known as by the press, if it's just your opinion of what the press says it fails WP:OR. Please don't misrepresent my actions. -- DeFacto (talk). 15:36, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

@167.98.181.52: I see you've added that sentence back again with 7 references this time. Can you please tell us which of the 7 supports the sentence, and perhaps remove the ones that don't per WP:OVERCITE. -- DeFacto (talk). 15:49, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, after you pressed undo how many times saying unsuported, without seeing that citations all had the words 'cash for curtains scandal' in their title or body? I'll work on the article some more later today.

If you think that even now any of the current crop of "overcites" support the sentence "This is known in the press as the Cash-for-Curtains scandal" per WP:VER's "all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources" (i.e. we need sources that say something like "known in the press as the Cash-for-Curtains scandal"), then please give the quote here and the link. If you think that you can write your own POV or draw your own generalised conclusion after cherry-picking a couple of sources that happen to mention the term then you need to read WP:OR and WP:SYNTH again. Thanks. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:51, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

I really am trying to understand. So, many but not all newspapers use the term. Many but not all TV news reports are using the term. What sentence structure would you suggest to say this? I have suggested renaming the Cash-for-curtains article page to "Cash for Curtains Inquiry" as that is neutral, ongoing, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.12.252.167 (talk • contribs) 2021-05-03T14:15:53 (UTC)

It's subjective though isn't it. I'd say a few foreign outlets have used the term, but I don't have a source supporting that, it is my personal original research based on opening a few articles on the web (the ones cited actually) and reading them. We can't assert any such personal views in Wiki's voice though as that would fail WP:OR. We could say "xxx and yyy called this the 'cash for curtains scandal'" and source it to xxx and yyy (assuming they are reliable sources and notable for comment on this type of political controversy in the UK). -- DeFacto (talk). 15:23, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Of course you'd say "a few foreign outlets" in order to mean "respectable and more important British ones aren't using it". I cited four foreign outlets (The week, Bloomberg, Business Day and The Global Herald) precisely to expose your bias. Not only are British (FT, Independent, Guardian, BBC) all using the term, the foreign outlets are less likely to be politically aligned, and they're using it just as much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.12.252.167 (talk • contribs) 2021-05-03T19:08:42 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly the point I was making - that this is subjective. So, we should only use reliably sourced, notable and attributed opinion as to what this is being called, and not a given Wiki editor's personal opinion, and certainly not one based on a cherry-picked selection of sources found by using the editor's preferred term in the search string. There is an article in The Guardian here discussing how it is referred to, so that could possibly be used by saying something like "The Guardian suggest that the terms 'cash for cushions' and 'wallpapergate' are being used...".

I notice too that neither the FT or BBC sources you mention were cited, that one of the other sources (The Metro) is banned as being unreliable and that the Independent one doesn't use the term in its own voice (it uses "cash for cushions"[1]), but attributes its use to Sky News, The Guardian also uses "'cash for curtains' row",[2] the FT uses "'cash for curtains' saga",[3] The Scotsman uses "'cash for curtains' affair"[4] and that only 2 of the foreign sources you gave used the term (hence my xxx, yyy example). -- DeFacto (talk). 07:07, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, that's why I proposed changing 'scandal' to 'inquiry'. Inquiry is NPOV. Google Trends suggests Cash for Curtains is still the dominant term.

References