A Shadow Home Secretary in US terms: think a Senate committee leader, with policy-making roles as well, but from the minority party, put there by his own party to poke holes in the home secretary's plans. The Home Office is roughly analogous to the Department of State in the US. A shame that on this one, they agree on the Orwellian approach- when I say "Senate committee leader", it misses the aspect that the Home Secretary can basically do what he likes, since dissent is basically impossible in the UK system.
I'm not sure your analogy is correct. If the Home Secretary were analogous to the US Department of State that would make it responsible for Britain's relations with foreign governments. And the US equivalent of your Home Secretary would be Hillary Clinton.
The British Home Office is more akin to the US Justice Department, and the equivalent head would be the Attorney General.
The word 'shadow' in the UK denotes that the person is part of the opposition monitoring what his counterpart with the actual power is doing, if they had it in the US mccain might be the 'shadow president' right now.
According to Wikipedia, the UK Home Office is most similar to the US Department of Homeland Security, with some of the responsibilities of the Justice Department.
I also suspect that many of the things the Home Office deals with are dealt with at the state rather than federal level in the US.
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A Shadow Home Secretary in US terms: think a Senate committee leader, with policy-making roles as well, but from the minority party, put there by his own party to poke holes in the home secretary's plans. The Home Office is roughly analogous to the Department of State in the US. A shame that on this one, they agree on the Orwellian approach- when I say "Senate committee leader", it misses the aspect that the Home Secretary can basically do what he likes, since dissent is basically impossible in the UK system.
I'm not sure your analogy is correct. If the Home Secretary were analogous to the US Department of State that would make it responsible for Britain's relations with foreign governments. And the US equivalent of your Home Secretary would be Hillary Clinton.
The British Home Office is more akin to the US Justice Department, and the equivalent head would be the Attorney General.
the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw is the head of the Justice Ministry so the Home Office is more like whoever deals with domestic affairs in the US.
The word 'shadow' in the UK denotes that the person is part of the opposition monitoring what his counterpart with the actual power is doing, if they had it in the US mccain might be the 'shadow president' right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_minister
According to Wikipedia, the UK Home Office is most similar to the US Department of Homeland Security, with some of the responsibilities of the Justice Department.
I also suspect that many of the things the Home Office deals with are dealt with at the state rather than federal level in the US.