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Lord Privy Seal

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The Lord Privy Seal or Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal is the fifth of the Great Officers of State in the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord President of the Council and above the Lord Great Chamberlain. The office is one of the traditional sinecure offices of state. Originally, its holder was responsible for the monarch's personal ("privy") seal (as opposed to the Great Seal of State, which is in the care of the Lord Chancellor). Today, the holder of the office is invariably given a seat in the Cabinet.

Though one of the oldest offices in government anywhere, it has no particular function today; thus the office has generally been used as a kind of Minister without Portfolio. Since the premiership of Clement Attlee, the position of Lord Privy Seal has frequently been combined with that of Leader of the House of Lords or Leader of the House of Commons. The jocular clarification that the office holder is neither a lord, nor a privy, nor a seal, though sometimes credited to Edward Heath, was attributed by him to Ernest Bevin.

The term "Lord Privy Seal" (as in "not bad, but it's a bit Lord Privy Seal") is used in the British television industry as shorthand for associating pictures too closely and literally with every element of the accompanying spoken script. The origin is a TV comedy sketch in The Frost Report taking the practice to an extreme, which backed a "news report" mention of the Lord Privy Seal with images, in quick succession, of a lord, an outdoor toilet, and a seal balancing a ball on its nose.

English Lords Privy Seal, 1307-1707

British Lords Privy Seal, 1707-present

Other countries

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Last updated on Wednesday February 13, 2008 at 22:48:12 PST (GMT -0800)
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