en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law
3 corrections found
Since Parkinson wrote, the size of the Cabinet has grown to 27 members in 2025.
The official 2025 government list shows 22 Cabinet ministers, not 27. The extra five listed in 2025 were ministers who attended Cabinet but were not full Cabinet members.
Full reasoning
This sentence appears to count ministers who attend Cabinet as though they were members of the Cabinet.
The UK government's own 2025 List of Ministerial Responsibilities separates these categories. Under "List of Cabinet Ministers" it names 22 people (from the Prime Minister through the Leader of the House of Lords). It then has a separate heading, "Ministers who attend Cabinet", listing five more people.
That distinction matters. The Institute for Government's explainer on the Cabinet says that some junior ministers attend cabinet but are not full members. So while 27 ministers may have attended Cabinet meetings in 2025, the Cabinet itself did not have 27 members.
A more accurate wording would be something like: "In 2025, there were 22 Cabinet ministers, plus five ministers who attended Cabinet."
2 sources
- List of Ministerial Responsibilities (HTML) - GOV.UK
The 2025 list has a section titled "List of Cabinet Ministers" with 22 named ministers, followed by a separate section, "Ministers who attend Cabinet", listing five additional ministers.
- Cabinet | Institute for Government
"Some junior ministers also attend cabinet but are not full members." The explainer also says Keir Starmer's cabinet contains five attendees.
The first cabinet was the Council of the Crown, now the House of Lords, which grew from an unknown number to 29, to 50 before 1600, by which time it had lost much of its power.
The House of Lords was not the first Cabinet. Parliamentary sources trace the Lords to the medieval Great Council, while the Cabinet emerged much later, in parallel to the Privy Council, in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Full reasoning
This sentence conflates two different institutions.
UK Parliament's history pages say the House of Lords grew out of the medieval Great Council (magnum concilium), a larger body of nobles and churchmen summoned by the king. That is the lineage of the upper chamber of Parliament.
By contrast, the Cabinet is a much later executive body. A House of Commons Library briefing says the Cabinet "actually developed in parallel" to the Privy Council, and notes that the monarch stopped regularly attending Cabinet meetings by 1721. Another Commons Library briefing says political authority shifted from the Privy Council to the Cabinet in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
So the medieval body that evolved into the House of Lords was not the first Cabinet, and it is inaccurate to describe the House of Lords as though it were simply an earlier Cabinet body.
3 sources
- Anglo-Saxon origins - UK Parliament
After the Norman Conquest, the larger group of noble advisors was known as the Great Council (magnum concilium) and 'formed the basis for the modern Upper House of Parliament - today the House of Lords'.
- The Crown and the constitution - House of Commons Library
The briefing states: "The Cabinet has been called the 'executive committee' of the Privy Council, although it actually developed in parallel to it," and notes that by 1721 the monarch's place at Cabinet meetings had been taken by a senior minister.
- The Privy Council: history, functions and membership - House of Commons Library
The Privy Council was originally the executive arm of English government, and its powers declined as political authority shifted to the Cabinet in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
he showed that it had its greatest number of staff when it was folded into the Foreign Office due to a lack of colonies to administer
The Colonial Office was not folded directly into the Foreign Office. It merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office in 1966 to form the Commonwealth Office, which was merged into the Foreign Office only in 1968.
Full reasoning
This sentence compresses two separate reorganisations into one and gets the institutional history wrong.
The National Archives records show that the Colonial Office existed until 1966. In that year it was merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office to create the Commonwealth Office. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office did not exist until 1968, when the Commonwealth Office was then merged with the Foreign Office.
So the Colonial Office was not "folded into the Foreign Office" at the point when it reached its highest staff total. The direct successor in 1966 was the Commonwealth Office, not the Foreign Office.
2 sources
- Records created or inherited by the Dominions Office, and of the Commonwealth Relations and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices | The National Archives
Creator history lists: Colonial Office, 1854-1966; Commonwealth Office, 1966-1968; Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1968-. It adds that the Commonwealth Office was created by the merger of the Colonial and Commonwealth Relations Offices.
- Records of the Colonial Office, Commonwealth and Foreign and Commonwealth Offices, Empire Marketing Board, and related bodies | The National Archives
The National Archives states that in 1966 the Colonial Office was merged with the Commonwealth Relations Office to form the Commonwealth Office.