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Great Offices of State
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Great Offices of State in the United Kingdom are the four most senior and prestigious posts in the British parliamentary system of government.
They are Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary. Since July 2006 these posts have been held by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Margaret Beckett and John Reid respectively.
According to convention, when the Prime Minister names his or her Cabinet, either after a general election or mid-term reshuffle, the first three announced Cabinet ministers will be the Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, and usually in that order.
James Callaghan is the only person to date to have served in all four positions. In the past hundred years, several other people came close to approaching this distinction: Winston Churchill served as Chancellor, Prime Minister and Home Secretary while Harold Macmillan and John Major served as Chancellor, Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary.
As of early 2007, only two women, Margaret Thatcher and the aforementioned Margaret Beckett have held any of the Four Great Offices of State.