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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Luwilt (talk | contribs) at 01:33, 21 February 2011 (→‎Unelected status). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

.de wikilink

I think the German article has been deleted...? doktorb wordsdeeds 19:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Education requires clarification

"Ashton studied a broad degree in economics... graduating with a BSc in sociology in 1977". What on earth does this mean? A degree in sociology is a degree in sociology, a degree in economics is a degree in economics..... Nandt1 (talk) 12:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Experience before appointment to the Lords?

Nothing is said in this article about her experience before being appointed to the Lords. – Kaihsu (talk) 11:02, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

She needed to belong to the same party as the PM, but also/maybe be disliked by him. Have it done before the Tories even get it, the fact that they have a favourite enemy. In she goes to the House of Lords, and none of us are any the wiser. Most importantly the Tories. In she goes to the EU, and only the Tories are even more clueless.(83.108.30.141 (talk) 20:53, 8 July 2010 (UTC))[reply]

Unelected status

This sentance:

It is a prominent aspect of Cathy Ashton's political career that she has been appointed to several senior ministerial appointments in the UK and EU governments, without ever actually being elected to to any public office. [1]

is original research (specifically synthesis); the source does not reach the conclusion that she has been appointed without ever being elected. it should be removed. ninety:one 20:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. It is a fact, and I have tried to give references to support it (as you previously asked for). Daniel Hannan's cited article states "she was appointed to the House of Lords without ever having faced the voters", and the cited biography at dca.gov.uk confirms this, if only by omission. Admittedly, Hannan's article is only a blog, but he is an MEP writing in his professional capacity, so this should count as a reliable source. This is the same article that criticises Ashton's lack of trade experience, and I meant it to serve the purpose of supporting both points at once, but subsequent edits to the text have detached it from the "unelected" point.

I do agree that there is room for debate about how "significant" her unelected status is; so we could perhaps compromise with wording such as:

"During Cathy Ashton's political career she has been appointed to several senior ministerial appointments in the UK and EU governments, without ever actually being elected to to any public office."

79.79.71.5 (talk) 10:52, 26 October 2008 (UTC) Many of the occupants of the House of Lords have never been elected. It is an unelected house - people get there by heredity or by appointment. Ashton is not at all unusual. --Red King (talk) 13:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are missing the point. Most members of the House of Lords are not ministers. Many have been elected to office in the past. This woman has had an entirely non-democratic career, no electorate has ever been given the chance to reject her, and now she is supposedly the second most important person in a wannabe superstate which claims to be a democracy! Luwilt (talk) 01:32, 21 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Political views?

Interesting for Non-british : For what stands she? Is she a "real" socialdemocrat or a liberal like Mandelson? Is she part of any wing of the labour party? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.121.38.42 (talk) 18:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

More like an easily manipulatable pawn. No international experience, a non elected MP. Bah. Jezwales (talk) 22:11, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If she is unable or "unable" to do a good job, she claims that the EU is a male chauvenistic agency. I for one, was convinced that the EU were a bunch of PC dogoodies.(83.108.30.141 (talk) 20:17, 8 July 2010 (UTC))[reply]

'Foreign Minister' of the EU and we don't know a thing about her...

Which school did she go to. What did her parents do for a living. Where was she brought up. The PR stuff is fine but that doesn't tell me much about the person. Who is this person. What did her friends at university have to say about her. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.233.172 (talk) 23:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article does not mention her parents at all, a major omission for any biography. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 23:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can only guess that both Blair and Brown were pleased to hear less of her. Speaking of what someone has not heard of, please dont tell her that Britain has voted in favour of replacing tridents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.30.141 (talk) 20:20, 8 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Languages

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union#Languages, "Besides the 23 official languages, there are about 150 regional and minority languages, spoken by up to 50 million people." How many of these does the Foreign Minister master? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.214.17.105 (talk) 08:40, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

LoL: Linkfix to democraty needed by now

She must be drunk herself by now. Could anyone put some reasoning in here? After all, this is an encyclopediahaha. Linkfix democraty needed. -DePiep (talk) 03:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article title

Could we stop alternating back and forth? It's really a pain to fix the redirects. Therequiembellishere (talk) 01:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I will take a side. This article should be at Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland. It is ludicrous to say she is better known by her pre-title name. She wasn't really known at all before joining the House of Lords, and until recently was best known for having been Leader of the House of Lords. What's more, her title has been ubiquitous during the coverage of her elevation to High Representative. The "royalist" argument made in the last move's edit summary is silly in the extreme. -Rrius (talk) 02:10, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ashton is most well known for her position as the Foreign Minister of the EU rather than as a leader of the obscure House of Lords, and of course she is not a baroness of the EU, so including the royalist title is now unnecessary. --Tocino 03:04, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rrius is correct. Move back to original title. Google hits in the news confirms. Kittybrewster ☎ 06:19, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong. "Catherine Ashton" = 11,000 hits [1] "Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland" = 190 hits [2]. Google hits is not a good barometor anyway. --Tocino 07:03, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: In every single other language Wikipedia, "Baroness Ashton of Upholland" is NOT used in the article title. --Tocino 07:07, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd remind you that other-language Wikipedias do not necessarily imply what we should do here. They may have different standards for naming articles or there may be circumstances that apply in English but not in other languages.
For example, the government of Belarus has stated that the name of their country is Belarus in all languages. English-language usage has followed, but German-language usage has not. The German name for Belarus is thus Weißrussland - literally "White Russia", a name formerly applied to Belarus in English as well. Both articles are in the appropriate places, even though one follows the Belarussian government's convention and the other does not.
As I'm sure you've noticed, I've filed an WP:RM below. I suggest that people make their arguments there and allow the closer to come to a conclusion. Pfainuk talk 09:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stop the back-and-forth moves

Whatever your view about the article title, please discuss it here rather than engage in a disruptive page-move war. I have listed this article at WP:RFPP, requesting move-protection, until this is sorted out. --RFBailey (talk) 07:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2009

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was keep page at Catherine Ashton. Arguments seem to weigh more heavily on keeping the article as it is. PeterSymonds (talk) 20:13, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Catherine Ashton → Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland — Procedural request.

Page is currently subject to an move war as to whether the page should be titled Catherine Ashton or Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland (currently protected to the Wrong Version). So far as I can tell, both versions are claimed to be the most common name per WP:COMMONNAME, and those who prefer the version with the name in place also cite Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(names_and_titles)#British_peerage (point two, as the subject is a life peer).

Note that for the purposes of determining the prior consensus, the first move was this one (see full history) and thus the last consensus version was at Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland. Pfainuk talk 09:19, 21 November 2009 (UTC) Added for clarity as there have been many edits to this article since I filed this and you may not want trawl through the history: move log of Catherine Ashton, move log of Catherine Ashton, Baroness of Upholland Pfainuk talk 18:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. The naming conventions are clear: holders of British peerages normally include their peerage in the article name, save where they are overwhelmingly better known without it (typically where they have become notable before they were ennobled). Baroness Ashton's senior political career began only after she was elevated to the peerage. Peerage titles are not 'royalist' in any meaningful sense; Baroness Ashton received her peerage on a list of 'working peers' as the nominee of her political party. Sam Blacketer (talk) 12:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Catherine Ashton seems to be overwhelmingly more common. The alternative title is obviously not a common name as it is two names, not one — Baroness Ashton would be more sensible as an alternative which is also in common usage. But, as her position in the British peerage is now secondary to her roles as EU trade minister and now foreign minister, it should not be given undue weight in the article's title. If you look at the other UK EU Commissioners, you can see that they are usually peers but that our article titles do not include their title. Colonel Warden (talk) 12:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In response, I think it's worth going through them. The ones whose titles are excluded in their articles (excluding Ashton) are Jenkins, Brittan, Kinnock, Patton and Mandelson. All five were well known before joining the Commission (as high profile members of government or opposition) and all were Commissioners before they were ennobled - thus there's a good chance that all are better known without their titles. Of the remaining articles on British EU Commissioners, one former Commissioner is not a Lord, and the six other articles include the titles.
Ashton's case is a bit different. She was little known before her ennoblement (or indeed after it) and as Leader of the House of Lords she was more likely to be cited as Baroness Ashton than as Catherine Ashton - simply by convention. WP:PEERAGE seem to have decided to give peers in general double names - presumably for convenience when dealing with hereditary peers.
That's not to say that the article shouldn't be at Catherine Ashton IMO. I'm not that bothered either way (I opened the RM because I felt this article needed it from a procedural point of view). But I don't think we can reasonably call on out treatment of Kinnock and Jenkins as precedent for Ashton. Pfainuk talk
The High Representative is linked to the Commission and not the Council, though. Assuming she doesn't leave, she could be there for five years (longer if she gets reappointed). I don't have a particular viewpoint (I lean slightly toward support) I just want a fixed name. Therequiembellishere (talk) 16:05, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment And what does "frequently" mean? Google news search for the last 24 hours shows:
"catherine ashton" gives 9,671 hits
"baroness ashton" gives 933 hits
- SSJ ☎ 20:36, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
and "Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland" gives just 2 hits
- Colonel Warden (talk) 21:04, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While 'frequently' is somewhat ambiguous, 'exclusively' is not. She's certainly not exclusively referred to as Catherine Ashton, per your own research. Anyanghaseyo (talk) 12:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Comment sorry but that's not quite right: all three German newspapers I have seen today refer to her as Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland or mention her full name including the title somewhere in the text (for other examples see [4] or [5]). ~~ Phoe talk ~~ 22:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment She is also a citizen of the European Union, and Wikipedia is supposed to have a global point of view. In the EU context (which is overwhelmingly dominant in this case), the title is not used. And it's not just in Brussels she isn't referred to as baroness; the google news search results seen above speak for themselves. - SSJ ☎ 12:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Yes, generally, but not for all of them. But even if everyone but Catherine Ashton had their titles in their article names, one wouldn't have a superior justification for placing Ashton's title into the name of this article, as styles are not regulated by Wikipedia policy. The normal way to do things would be to find out what she's most commonly called. The google news search results shown above put beyond doubt that "Catherine Ashton" is most common. And I suppose the baroness title will be even more forgotten when the media begin to know her and don't have to introduce her personal life and career in every news article. - SSJ ☎ 12:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Doing the same thing with Google News restricting to exact word order (Order is the same as above): 9,973 results, 308 results, 951 results, 1 result and 4 results. Adding on, "The Baroness Ashton of Upholland" gets 1 result, "Baroness Ashton of Upholland" gets 339 results, "Lady Ashton of Upholland" gets 8 results and "The Lady Ashton of Upholland" gets 1 result. Therequiembellishere (talk) 16:26, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's not a valid argument; she would also be notable for her UK career and as House of Lords president (where I assume titles matter a lot). What matters under our guidelines is the version of the name most commonly used when referring to her.  Sandstein  16:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Hmmm. These articles prefer "Catherine Ashton" as opposed to "Baroness Ashton", let alone "Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland". Reuters [6], New York Times [7], RIA Novosti [8], Globe and Mail [9], Wall Street Journal [10], The Independent [11], The Irish Times [12], The Financial Times [13]. --Tocino 21:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nearly every one of those articles uses both. I'm sure it wasn't your intent but it does clearly show that both forms are in use and generally that would mean WP:NCBRITPEER would apply. --Labattblueboy (talk) 15:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Every article linked predominately uses just "Catherine Ashton" as opposed to "Baroness Ashton of Upholland", with some of them briefly mentioning her formal title to give context, while others don't mention the title at all. The NYT even mostly refers to her as "Ms. Ashton". --Tocino 04:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

COMMENTARY: Someone should ask her- I would think she might have an opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.52.201 (talk) 18:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ashton CND activist

She joined the organisation at Communist

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230097/Revealed-The-CND-past-new-EU-Foreign-Minister-Baroness-Ashton.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.47.5.44 (talk) 20:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please let's be precise in what we say here. What the above source actually conveys is that she represented CND at Communist Party meetings. Nandt1 (talk) 02:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let's face it, no one really believes that the Soviet's didn't support the CND and other "peace" movements in western Europe. Of course Moscow did.
source->"Better red than dead?" The Economist, 26-11-09


source->"Questions over funds from Lady Ashton's past" The Times, 26-11-09


source->"Baroness Ashton questioned over CND and Soviet money", The Daily Telegraph, 25-11-2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.203.72.209 (talk) 05:26, 29 November 2009
So we have an amazing dicovery by an entirely non-neutral source (UKIP) that nobody has ever heard before. Conversely, we see that 'Reds under the bed"/"funs from Moscow' smear has been around before; the Tory Gov't put in MI5 moles who never found anything definite - Heseltine would certainly have publicised it if they had - so they were left with innuendo. Three million people turned out in CND and CND-like rallies all over Europe in the 80s - 300,000 of them in the UK. The most likely effect of the UKIP campaign is to assure Lady Ashton's tenure in office.--Red King (talk) 02:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Still 'Designate'

Ashton is still "High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (Designate) until the Parliament approves her appointment (or not! they have rejected a candidate before). --Red King (talk) 19:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The website of the European Council lists her as the current High Representative though: [14]. And she already published her first press releases as HR there. Furthermore, there is this document from December 1, 2009:
source->[15]
So, I dont know what the European Parliament says about this, but the European Council and Catherine Ashton herself seem to assume that she is in office since December 1. User:Der_Hans 11:29, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality

The tone of this article seems to be very much against Ashton and her appointment, I would question the article's neutrality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.131.146 (talk) 13:22, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, with the amount of sentences starting "She was criticised" (in some form or the other) I'd call it unbalanced at least, not necessarily lacking neutrality. On second thought: with the section on her as High Representative filled with criticism but lacking information on her work as High Representative, I tend to agree. --Completefailure (talk) 16:38, 20 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2010

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page not moved Arbitrarily0 (talk) 14:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Catherine Ashton → Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland — There was a move request on this in December, but certain issues were not addressed. Most importantly, many argued that "Catherine Ashton" is the name she is most commonly known by, but WP:COMMONNAME does not apply. Rather, the appropriate naming convention is WP:NCROY, which says she should be listed as "First Last, Rank Title" unless she is exclusively known by some other name. WP:Article title, the source of COMMONNAME explicitly establishes these carve outs as exceptions to She does not fit that bill. What's more, even if COMMONNAME were still relevant to deciding whether she is better known with or without the title, the title still wins. "First Last, Rank Title" is a usage particular to Wikipedia meant to address problems probably unique to us. As a result, the proper search is not "Catherine Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland". Rather, to establish whether she is better known with or without the title, the proper search is 'ashton baroness OR lady', which yields 14 million results. The alternative, '"catherine ashton" -baroness -lady' yields 1 million. All but 50,000 of those are since Aston went to Brussels, but during the same time links to the version with her title outnumber those without by more than 2.3 to 1. Finally, the current title also creates the anomaly of a former Leader of the House of Lords not having a peerage noted in the article title. -Rrius (talk) 02:01, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Comparing a search for every site, which has "baroness" or "lady" just anywhere along Ashton, to a search for the particular "Catherine Ashton", where neither baroness nor lady may appear on the same page is in my opinion misleading. To me the search results provided in the previous discussion establised clearly that "Catherine Ashton" is the more commonly used name. As whether WP:NCROY should beat WP:Article title (especially when her worldwide notability doesn't come from her UK but EU career), well that's a different matter. --Completefailure (talk) 18:26, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's simply not correct. The previous searches, for one thing, grossly understated the number of articles. There are millions of hits involved, not thousands. For another, not excluding "baroness" and "lady" from the "catherine ashton" search inflates the "catherine ashton" results. There aren't a lot of reasons for "baroness" and "lady" to appear alongside "ashton" without referring to her title, so it is not clear why it would be a concern that it casts the net too wide.
Well, it includes any page where she is mainly called "Catherine Ashton" and which just states something like "oh, by the way, she is a baroness".--Completefailure (talk) 11:40, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I realise that I have sometimes criticised people for attempting to overturn naming conventions on a case-by-case basis. However I question the naming convention on this point, we have a number of British politicans with obscure titles, it would be better to refer to them by their ordinary name. I will raise this on WP:NCROY. PatGallacher (talk) 11:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Why should this article be an exception, though? She is widely known as "Lady Ashton" or "Baroness Ashton", so it is clearly she is well-known with the title. As such, she should fall within NCROY, whatever NCROY happens to say at any given time. -Rrius (talk) 18:35, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure what the aim is here - if we want to move to a title by which she's better known, why not simply Baroness Ashton? The name+comma+title form is little known or used; nor is there even any compulsion for us to do so on the grounds of any naming convention (making ourselves slaves to our own imperfect conventions would be highly irrational in any case). We have Peter Mandelson, Margaret Thatcher and so on, without their titles in our titles.--Kotniski (talk) 11:30, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • The aim is exactly what I said it is. She is well-known by her title, so she fall under NCROY. Margaret Thatcher and Peter Mandelson fall under an exception that Ashton doesn't: They are really only by their pre-peerage names. -Rrius (talk) 18:35, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • No-one has to "fall under" any naming convention if it would be silly for them to do so. These conventions are guidelines (and NCROY is particularly well-known for its failings) that we can ignore where appropriate. Anyway, it's said that the Baroness title is falling out of use in EU circles, so there seems to be no need to rename the article at all. Oppose. --Kotniski (talk) 12:12, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I note that EU websites describe her as plain Catherine Ashton. PatGallacher (talk) 13:15, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Why would we place the EU website above all others? "Catherine Ashton" would still redirect to the article, so it's not as though people who heard of her at the EU website would end up in the right place. -Rrius (talk) 18:35, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is a frivolous point. Everybody accepts that we should have redirects from all sensible names which she might be known by. Official EU websites are a serious guide to how she is usually known in the EU. PatGallacher (talk) 10:30, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Oppose: I'm not a fan of moving pages to include peerage titles unless the peer has a common name and would otherwise have their page name as something like First Last (politician) or First Last (UK).-[[User: Duffy2032|Duffy2032]] (talk) 02:56, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - she doesn't use her title in Brussels, she is known known as Baroness as a hangover from her HoL days. Now the press are getting used to her new position, it is falling out of usage. And title is not relevant at all, it is just going to give the article an unnecessarily long winded and obscure title.- J.Logan`t: 09:07, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - there are plenty of examples of politicians listed under name rather than title. Deb (talk) 10:23, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. Per Nom. Kittybrewster ☎ 10:32, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per JLogan. - SSJ t 12:42, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -- As long as the present version "Catherine Ashton" is retained as a redirect, but I could live with the article being moved with a redirect from the standard WP form (the present target). There are precedents for this with hereditary peers and baronets who decline to use their title. As long as one form redirects to the other there is no difficulty. Peterkingiron (talk) 20:49, 30 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose WP:TITLE ; WP:COMMONNAME ; The suggested name contains excessive unnecessary disambiguation, that is neither concise, nor easy to find. Further it is not the form commonly used. Further, WP:NCROY is only a guideline, while the first two are policy. Policy trumps guidelines, per WP:POLICY. 76.66.193.224 (talk) 04:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment "Official EU websites are a serious guide to how she is usually known in the EU", How many British newspaper sources are going to refer to the "Official EU websites" to decide on how to name someone? If she is British then it fall under British English usage. How do UK source name her? -- PBS (talk) 09:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good point; well, a bit of Googling reveals that Catherine A., Cathy A., Baroness A. and Lady A. are all common - this recent newspaper article uses three different forms. The proposed title, though, is hardly ever used, so if we think that our conventions forbid titles like "Baroness A.", then the only way to provide a recognizable name is to retain the present title, which is perfectly unobjectionable.--Kotniski (talk) 09:44, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

There is a discussion taking place at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility) which has some bearing on the issues raised in the recent move discussion. PatGallacher (talk) 20:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ [16]
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