Unlike MPs, who stop being MPs from the day Parliament winds up its business before an election, ministers carry on being ministers through the election.
It had been run for the previous 10 years by Samuel K Doe, an illiterate army sergeant who ended more than 100 years of rule by the True Whig party - by parading government ministers through the streets of Monrovia, naked, and then shooting them dead on the beach.
The service is headed by a director general, who reports to the prime minister through the home secretary.
This protest epitomised what Benn stood for throughout his political life: the massive patronage afforded to a prime minister through the Crown.
Margaret Thatcher, prime minister through the conflict-ridden 1980s, was careful to have the cops on board when she confronted unhappy workers.
Spokesmen for Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who alternated as prime minister through the 1990's until both were deposed and charged in corruption scandals, were more vehement.
Having served as a Cabinet minister through the entire 13 years of Labour rule, Jack Straw spent his first few months in opposition shadowing Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, while Labour was choosing a new leader.
For nearly 30 years, Mr. Berlusconi has helped shape Italian public opinion through his private Mediaset broadcasting network and Mondadori publishing empire, and, as prime minister, through the Italian state broadcaster, RAI.
The Federals refused to let a minister through the lines to officiate at the burial, so the service was conducted by the women of Westwood and nearby Summer Hill.
This critique, compressed into 14 constitutional articles, aims to expose the rotten character of a political system that blends the continuation of ancient pre-democratic practices with modern anti-democratic measures designed to maximise the powers of a prime minister through the fusion of the executive and legislative branches of government.
After a prolonged standoff, the two governments propose a compromise to the Simpson family: one kick from the Prime Minister, through the gate of the embassy, with a regular shoe, believed to be a wingtip.
