Great Offices of State

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The Great Offices of State in the United Kingdom are the four most senior and prestigious posts in the British government.

They are Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary. As of May 2006, these postings are held by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Reid and Margaret Beckett 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.

These should not be confused with the Great Officers of State, which are mostly ceremonial positions dating to the Medieval era.

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, Harold Macmillan and John Major served as Chancellor and Prime Minister, Churchill previously serving also as Home Secretary, and Macmillan and Major as Foreign Secretary.

So far, only two women, Margaret Thatcher and the aforementioned Margaret Beckett have held any of the Four Great Offices of State.

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