Talk:Roy Hattersley

Tub of Lard

For clarity, the Tub of Lard incident was nothing to do with Spitting Image, or his manner of speech. He had been invited to appear on Have I Got news For You and failing to appear for the third time, "He was replaced with a tub of lard, something “imbued with much the same qualities and liable to give a similar performance”, according to the producers.". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stub Mandrel (talk • contribs) 20:55, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

References

Father's death year (Early Life section)

I note two cited sentences give differing death years for his father. He is initially referred to with parenthesised life years as '(1902-1972', yet a final sentence in the same section of the article says he 'died in atheist in 1973'. Which year is correct?Cloptonson (talk) 15:55, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

National Service

Did he do national service, as a young man in the 1950s would normally have done? None of his obituaries mention it. Not trying to score points, I'm genuinely interested. Paulturtle (talk) 01:10, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

sfn etc.

@Jon698: the sfn template is used when there is a need to cite several different pages from a single source. It's unclear why you've decided to use it for every citation in the article. Regarding your comment about the removal of sourced content, the only content I removed was the note on Frederick and his brothers' names, the name of the bishop who sent Hattersley the condolence letter, and the note on illegitimacy legislation. My other edits involved rewriting and rearranging content in order to improve the article's style. Undoing this wholesale seems unnecessary. Zacwill (talk) 02:13, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

The note on Frederick and his brothers' name is necessary as that explains the entirety of Roy Hattersley's names. The name of who actually informed Hattersley about his parents' relationship is also important. That legislation pertains to Hattersley and is sourced by his own book so it clearly must be important. Jon698 (talk) 02:17, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

The sfn template makes reading and editing the source text far easier, especially for long articles. It becomes impossible to parse the source text as you add more and more references. I currently have over 100 sources listed in a document for use in expanding this article. There is also no prohibition on using sfn in this way as used. Jon698 (talk) 02:18, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

I have never seen another article use the template in this way, and don't find that it makes reading and editing easier, but fine. If I leave your citation scheme alone, as well as the information that you feel to be important, will you stop reverting my edits? Zacwill (talk) 02:30, 18 July 2026 (UTC)

That is satisfactory. Jon698 (talk) 02:36, 18 July 2026 (UTC)