ABSTRACT
This chapter examines apprenticeships for ministerial office in Great Britain and, in particular, the training of the junior minister, whose experience constitutes the most important of these apprenticeships. The complex career ladder extends, of course, all the way from the back benches to the cabinet. On the back benches are those who take up the informal role of "ministerial aspirant" and spend their time seeking strategies by which they might rise to the next rung. The role of the junior minister emerged in its modern form during the middle of the nineteenth century. Its predecessor, the "parliamentary secretary," was not separated from the permanent secretary, and the parliamentary secretary was not, therefore, a candidate for promotion to minister. Junior ministers may make a few new contacts with leaders on the other side, but on the whole, service as a junior minister in the House of Commons is a narrowing experience.
