We never learn the name of the Muggle Prime Minister who meets with Fudge and Scrimgeour in Chapter 1 of Half-Blood Prince, but we do know that that meeting occurred in 1996. In real life at least, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was John Major.
While nothing in the Potter canon outright disproves the idea that this Prime Minister is Major, it is worth noting that another detail in this chapter indicates that the book does not track exactly with real history. The previous Prime Minister is referred to as “he,” but in our reality John Major was preceded by Margaret Thatcher, the U.K.’s first female Prime Minister.
Regardless of who the Prime Minister was, it’s easy to feel a bit sorry for him in this circumstance. It’s also fun to imagine how Theresa May, the current Prime Minister, is getting on with the current Minister for Magic … Hermione Granger!
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Notes
In the Harry Potter Lexicon Minute podcast you’ll hear the voices of our editors sharing some of the many little things which delight us about the Wizarding World. In each podcast, just a couple of minutes in length, we’ll talk about anything from cool trivia and interesting canon passages to the latest Wizarding World news. We hope you’ll join us! And we’d love to hear from you as well. Feel free to use the comment section on the blogpost for each podcast to post your thoughts.
Special thanks go to Felicia Cano who gave us permission to use her amazing artwork of Hermione reading a book for the logo, which was created by Kim B.
