Ministerial span - four decades between appointments
I remarked last week on the fact that Ken Clarke is now back in government, 38 years after first serving as a whip in the Heath government.
But David Howell, or Lord Howell of Guildford, can do even better. He is now a minister of state at the Foreign Office, having joined Heath's government in 1970, as a whip and junior minister as the old Civil Service Department. That's a ministerial span of 40 years.
The biggest post-war ministerial span I can think of is Quintin Hogg, 42 years, between 1945 and 1987. Winston Churchill had almost 50 years - from 1905 to 1955.
But William Gladstone, as usual, trumps them all, with an incredible ministerial span of 59 years, from 1835 to 1894.
Lord Howell first became an MP in 1966, before David Cameron was born.
He is also George's Osborne's father-in-law, but in ministerial terms, junior to his son-in-law.
I'm Michael Crick, and I'm Newsnight's political editor. My guiding rule is that in any story there's usually something the politicians would prefer the world not to know. My job is to find that out. Follow me on
Comment number 1.
At 17th May 2010, barriesingleton wrote:KENNETH CLARKE IS ANOTHER
Reason why we should inspect the PERSON not the POLICY.
The propriety oh his appointment to governance evokes: 'CLOSE - BUT NO CIGARETTE'.
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