So, David Laws appears to have been a member of the Cabinet for 18 days.

But whose was the shortest stint? There’s a lot of history to sift through, but Twitter has come to my aid.

Fox Maule was President of the Board of Control for 16 days in 1852 (5th to 21st February)

Thomas Milner Gibson was President of the Poor Law Board for 16 days in 1859 (24th June to 9th July), but then went on to become President of the Board of Trade, so stayed in the Cabinet.

Sidney Herbert was Secretary of State for the Colonies for 15 days in 1855 (8th-23rd February).

James Waldegrave, 2nd Earl Waldegrave was de facto (though the term did not yet exist) PM for 4 days in 1757 (8th to 12th June).

Earl Temple was Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary for 4 days in 1783, two of which were spent finding his successors.

William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath was de facto PM for 2 days with Carteret as Secretary of State in 1746 (10th-12th February). According to Wikipedia, the exact figure is 48 hours, 52 minutes, 11 seconds.

However, the unclear winner seems to be Robert Peel in 1839. He certainly accepted the Queen’s invitation on 8th May, but she asked Melbourne back the following day when she refused his proposed changes to the Royal Household. He would thus have been PM for about a day, and thus a member of the Cabinet.

The problem with this episode, as well as the 1746 Bath ministry is that they hardly count. Depending on your pedantry however, the safest winner would be Earl Temple with his 4 days in control of two of the largest departments. Poor guy.

According to the excellent Tim Roll-Pickering, the briefest ministerial (if not Cabinet) career was that of Lord Frederick Cavendish, appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland on 6th May 1882, and murdered that same afternoon.

A similar ministerial non-Cabinet career was that of George Cowper, who was Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Foreign Office from 13-14th November 1834.

(Thanks go to Tim Roll-Pickering, James Burdett and Ian Burgess for helping me out via Twitter)

Did you see it? No, of course you didn’t, because you’re not a geek like me, but David Laws’ defence yesterday of the £6bn cuts this year was masterful.

One Conservative MP was relieved to see the return of Gladstonian liberalism to the treasury. Laws accepted the compliment and then added that he hoped to bring social liberalism to the job as well. Conservatives and LibDems all seemed to murmur in contentment.

With his blonde LibDem hair, his dark blue Conservative shirt and his Coalition green tie, Laws epitomised the spirit of the coalition, giving an assured and confident delivery. He batted away Labour objections, channelled comments from his own side against the opposition, and dealt calmly and confidently with an absolutely fuming Dennis Skinner. At one point he even managed to defend localism and attack Big Government.

Labour was clearly in disarray, although without the need for patronage and no clear leadership, their MPs should have been on top form at holding the government to account. As individuals they were, but they could not land a single blow on Laws. Poor Darling was reduced to making his main criticism (rather hypocritically) the fact that the announcements had not first been made in the Commons.

Laws is one to watch. I wonder if next time he’ll wear a blue tie with a green shirt… or maybe dye his hair?

A very early issue I’m having whilst trying to write about our new government is a simple but quite irksome one: What exactly should we call them?

Had the Conservatives won outright, or formed a minority, it would be ‘our new Conservative government’. Likewise for Labour. A Labour-Liberal government could have laid claim to ‘The Progressive Alliance’ (Frankly, they’d be welcome to it). As it is, we’re left with a choice of numerous bewildering and long-winded phrases, any of which might roughly describe the government, but none of which manage to sum it up in a easy and obvious phrase. Off the top of my head, here’s some options I’d put forward for consideration:

• The Con-Dem Coalition 
• Liberal Conservatives
• The Change Coalition (hat-tip to Guido Fawkes for that one)
• The Tory Liberal Alliance
• The Freedom Alliance
• Libservatives
• Conservative Liberal Unionists
• Government of all the Liberals (GOAL!)

Of course, the naming carries a significance – are we suggesting that this is a Conservative government with a flavour of Liberal Democrat policy? A Liberal government with a blue tinge? Names can have power and relevance, describing subtle divides and demonstrating where the real power lies. I just wish the negotiating team had sorted this one out in advance.

Any thoughts on what it should be? This is important, dammit!