This thread exists to discuss British politics.
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Recent political stuff:
- The vote to see if Britain should adopt Alternative Voting has failed.
- Lib Dems lose lots of councils and councillors, whilst Labour make the majority of the gains in England.
- The Scottish National Party do really well in the elections.
A link to the BBC politics page containing relevant information.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 3rd 2023 at 11:15:30 AM
Oh, bother.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
And Thatcher was not left-wing. *shudder*
Reminds me a lot of how I feel about the USA right now. I wasn't kidding when I said I'd rather vote for a zombie Nixon than for Trump. Even if part of his platform included having brains from cadavers delivered to him on a regular basis. 
edited 19th Jan '17 6:30:13 PM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised
Hell, I'd rather vote Zombie Buchanan over Trump!
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Oh, bother.
Wow, that is some Epic Fail right there.
Tief girl with eartude
According to the article it wasn't even the first time it happened. 
Indeed, she was not. She was so right-wing compared to the rest of the party (at the time) that she wasn't considered a serious contender for party leader - the Tory Party didn't think so one so extremely right-wing could ever be electable.
Cameron himself took the party further right than Thatcher did, and May is much more right-wing than Cameron is.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Opinion polling for the next general election (YouGov/TheTimes 17th-18th January)
- Conservative & Unionist 42%
- Labour 25%
- United Kingdom Independence 12%
- Liberal Democrat 11%
- Scottish National 6%
- Green 3%
On the day that whitehouse.gov is reset to blank and Obama's stuff archived I also noticed that at some point between now and last October Theresa May has been doing her website up a bit. I don't like it.
edited 21st Jan '17 4:28:34 AM by TommyR01D
May refuses to confirm whether she knew about Trident 'malfunction'
An unarmed Trident II D5 missile veered in the wrong direction towards the US when it was launched from a British submarine off the coast of Florida in June last year, the Sunday Times reported.
It quoted an unnamed senior naval source as saying that the “disastrous failure” caused panic in Downing Street, which feared it would damage the credibility of Britain’s nuclear deterrent and so decided to cover it up.
In July, weeks after the test and days after May became prime minister, M Ps voted overwhelmingly to spend up to £40bn on replacing Britain’s Trident programme. May drew gasps during the parliamentary debate when she made clear she would be willing to authorise a nuclear strike killing 100,000 people. However, she made no mention of the test and both Labour and the SNP have demanded to know why.
Appearing on BBC 1’s Andrew Marr Show, the prime minister repeatedly declined to answer whether she knew about the test when she addressed parliament during the debate. She was asked by Marr on four separate occasions whether she knew about the alleged misfire.
She said: “There are tests that take place all the time, regularly, for our nuclear deterrents. What we were talking about in that debate that took place was about the future.”
The report says that the missile fired from HMS Vengeance was supposed to hit an intended sea target off the west coast of Africa. It states that the cause of the problem is unknown but that it suffered an in-flight malfunction after launching out of the water.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong campaigner against nuclear weapons, said the incident should give everyone pause for thought.
“We understand the prime minister chose not to inform parliament about this and it’s come out through the media some months later,” he told Sky News’s Sophie Ridge on Sunday. “It’s a pretty catastrophic error when a missile goes in the wrong direction and whilst it wasn’t armed, goodness knows what the consequences of that could have been. I think we need a serious discussion about that.”
The shadow chancellor, John Mc Donnell, told Marr May was wrong not to inform M Ps. “People on both sides of the argument will have expected that to be reported to parliament,” he said. “The fact that [May] didn’t is extremely worrying.”
Brendan O’Hara MP, defence spokesman for the SNP, which is opposed to Trident’s renewal, said it would be a “sickening betrayal” if the government covered up safety concerns. “We urgently need to know exactly what happened – and who knew what and when they knew. The Mo D must come clean if there has been a cover-up of any kind – that would be utterly unacceptable.”
HMS Vengeance, one of the UK’s four Vanguard-class submarines designed to carry the UK’s Trident ballistic missiles, returned to sea in December 2015 after a £350m four-year refit programme, which included the installation of improved missile launch equipment and upgraded computer systems.
Tests are rare as the missiles each cost about £17m. When trials have been carried out in the past they have been publicised, in some cases with accompanying video footage, but this is the first time last year’s exercise has been reported.
Responding to the report, the Ministry of Defence did not deny that the missile had veered off course but described the test as a success. A government spokesman said: “The capability and effectiveness of the Trident missile, should we ever need to employ it, is unquestionable. In June, the Royal Navy conducted a routine unarmed Trident missile test launch from HMS Vengeance, as part of an operation which is designed to certify the submarine and its crew.
“Vengeance and her crew were successfully tested and certified, allowing Vengeance to return into service. We have absolute confidence in our independent nuclear deterrent. We do not provide further details on submarine operations for obvious national security reasons."
Captain of the Dead City
Her blatant Ad Hominem against Jeremy Corbyn riled me up to no end. She's deliberately conflating "anti-nuclear" with "doesn't want to defend this country", which is a huge logical leap, as well as pulling out Michael Howard levels of "I ain't going to answer that question", (but far, far more serious than that particular incident) and using Corbyn to deflect.
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
Oh, bother.
Man, the more I learn about Theresa May, the more abhorrent she seems to me.
Captain of the Dead City
Oh aye. I remember back in uni when Theresa May wanted to pass a surveillance law that would allow the government to read anyone's e-mails (I think?) - the protest against was a day when everyone would CC all their e-mails to Theresa May.
I also remember two brothers who were friends of mine in uni (college), American-born but raised in Poland - they'd both built lives and circles of friends and finished uni with good degrees, and I guarantee they'd have been a fine addition to this country. But no, because they didn't get a job that earned them £35,000 a year straight out of uni, back to Poland they go. To put it in perspective, I've got a skilled office job, and I don't earn that much. I won't earn that much at the very top of my pay band. My manager (one band above) would only reach that level at the very top of that pay band. Hell, the next band above that starts below £35k! So it's just moving the goalposts to keep immigrant graduates out of British jobs, and it's disgusting.
To be fair, one highlight she had was blocking Gary Mc Kinnon's extradition, but then again, that took about ten years of struggle and uncertainty for Gary, and public opinion in the UK was overwhelmingly against the move.
edited 23rd Jan '17 8:27:59 AM by GoldenKaos
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
So, which state was lucky enough to snatch your friends up?
Captain of the Dead City
They're both in Poland at the moment, with full residency and everything. One of the brothers actually had a girlfriend through most of uni, but once he was deported, that came to an end. 
Still, the other is engaged now, so life goes on.
edited 23rd Jan '17 8:27:03 AM by GoldenKaos
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
This law has now been passed. The media barely covered it.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Looks like the government lost and parliament will debate Article 50.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Good news.
I have the feeling that the cowards in the parliament won't stop this madness either. But it was nevertheless an important decision to protect the constitution.
Not that the pro-Leave parts of the press will see it that way. Presumably tomorrow we're going to see a reprint of that ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE cover.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Captain of the Dead City
The thing is, I think that Jeremy Corbyn's priorities are more along the lines of "protect democracy" over "remain in the EU" and therefore, he's honouring the referendum's result even though he disagrees with it, but at least he's digging his heels in when it comes to staying in the single market.
"...in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
The Supreme Court judgement also confirms that triggering Article 50 is irreversible. This explains a lot of Labour's current stance - they have no means to stop Brexit between now and March (they don't have the numbers in the House of Commons, and the electoral map for a snap election looks disastrous), which means that after March, Remain is no longer a viable political option - and if May doesn't overturn the FTPA, the next general election will happen a year after negotiations have finished and we've officially left the EU. That's what they're angling for - playing Brexit as a good idea that the Tories were entirely responsible for ruining, secure in the knowledge that they would never have had to put their money where their mouths were and done it better.
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
I'd say something about the sheer amount of people having second thoughts about Brexit calling the democraticness of the decision into question, but I think my vehement and persistent disagreement with the Stop The War types probably prevents me from getting anywhere near that inner circle anyway.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
It'll be interesting to see how well that strategy actually works. I wouldn't get your hopes up. Labour's polling since May 2015 has been some of it's worst on record. If you compare this parliament to the previous one you'll see that throughout 2011 and 2012 Labour had a near-permanent lead over the Conservatives. Now they're sixteen points behind.
Labour really are screwed with regards to the EU. The Conservatives have always had trouble with their Euroskeptic wing (a minority of parliamentarians but a majority of supporters), but after the referendum it was a politically (and practically) expedient move to put Johnson, Davis et al in the foreign affairs positions to show the party meant business. Labour's problem is that apart from a small cluster of outliers (Skinner, Stuart, Mann, Corbyn himself originally) they really don't have any equivalent. Nearly their entire parliamentary party is on what their ilk are prone to calling "the wrong side of history" and a great many of them find themselves at odds with their constituents.
This then leads to even more problems when you look at the left's current obsession with staying in the single market - to a lot of leave voters this sounds like a dog-whistle for undermining the whole process. We would still be bound by EU regulations and we still wouldn't get control of European immigration, so nothing of substance would actually be accomplished.
Labour's chances of winning back the forty Scottish constituencies they lost in 2015 are negligible - many polls over the last year have had them slipping into third place and the "Corbyn bounce" which many had awaited was non-existent. If the party doesn't get its act together soon they risk the same thing happening in England and Wales also. Professional analysis of the general election suggested that, ultimately, the Conservatives' victory was based not on fear of the SNP but on the fact that they offered a referendum on the European Union whereas Labour didn't. UKIP supporters who had defected from the Conservatives largely jumped back when it mattered, but those who had defected from Labour held their nerve. Immediately after the referendum Farage said UKIP were attracting the old Labour vote, and everything since then indicates that this remains their priority for the next election.
edited 24th Jan '17 9:56:40 AM by TommyR01D
A procrastination in of itself
If Corbyn votes for the envoking of Article 50 than he's done as leader, the party won't stand us being made into a pro-Brexit party, he's gotten as far as he has on the back of the youth vote and we will dessert on mass if he does anything but oppose Brexit.
I won't be part of a party that supports taking my home from me, that's my line and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
No, she achieved that on the day she became prime minister. What I expect us to eventually be able to say is that she is 'the PM who made Thatcher look left-wing'.
I only wish I was joking, but she's already well on the way there.
There were no irregularities that we officially know about from the Scottish referendum, and that's from both the Electoral Commission and independent international observers.
The Electoral Commission's report on the Scottish Referendum
(direct link
).
Main summary of reported opinions of how polling proceeded (pg 69):
4.32 2.9 million people chose to vote in their local polling station on 18 September. In our opinion research 94% of those who voted in a polling place said they were satisfied with the process. 59% of polling station voters found the assistance of staff useful, while 36% stated they did not seek assistance from staff, or need it. 78% of 16-17 year olds indicated they found the help from polling station staff useful.
4.33 Polling day was very busy for the staff who administered the polling stations. Observers and C Os reported that it was common to find a queue outside the polling place of 20-30 people when they opened at 7am. Polling staff experienced a steady stream of voters throughout the day, who wished to have their say in what was an important event in Scotland’s electoral history. Reports from observers, C Os and Police Scotland indicated that the atmosphere in the polling places was business-like and well-natured and there was no general sense of intimidation in or around polling places as had been raised in the media prior to polling day. There was one incidence of graffiti vandalism outside a polling place, which the relevant council dealt with shortly after being made aware of the situation. That should be contrasted with reports of a positive and engaged atmosphere outside polling places in some areas. Organised walks to polling places arranged in a few areas passed off peaceably and were good-natured.
Voting fraud actually occurs in very small amounts. There are isolated pockets within England where voting fraud is a more regular concern, due to very specific, localised issues. The main pockets of concern for the Electoral Commission and police are in and around the Midlands, and in and around east London, the most notorious (and the places where the majority of the fraud allegations come from) being Bradford and Tower Hamlets.
For example, the Electoral Commission's 2015 report
on electoral fraud:
The outcomes (as of the publication of the report - March 2016)
Nature of the offences:
edited 19th Jan '17 11:29:52 AM by Wyldchyld
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.