British Politics Thread

He looks like Paul Bearer without the stache.

It seems we've had one of those pre-release leaks and the top income band marginal tax rate is due to decrease from 50pc to 40. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/15/george-osborne-top-tax-rate.

Well, if you wanted a birds-eye view of the debt.

$1,000,000,000. Whew.

And now they're cutting taxes! On the richest tax bands! Genius.

Every time I see the word "tax cut" I'm going to link to that site from now on, ok?

Voters in the North of England are shunning the Conservative Party – threatening its victory chances at the next election – because they see the Tory leadership as "Southern, posh, white men" who are not "one of us", an influential MP has warned.

I totally agree with this assessment because around these parts, the Tories are seen as a party for the home counties at the expense of everyone else

Oh yeah, that reminds me. I saw something about a plan to try to set up a super long term gilts (something like 100 years) in order to extend the advantage of current low interest rates in the long term. The advantage for the seller (that's us) is clear but not so much for the buyer. Temporary conditions that push the demand up won't be around in a decade, never mind a hundred years, in fact the end buyers might not even be around a hundred years from now.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has announced he is to stand down in December.

The front runner is the Archbishop of York who recently said that Cameron was a "dictator" for trying to redefine marriage

Sentamu is full of it. Apparently Parliament needs the approval of the Church of England before legalising same-sex marriage. Theocracy much?

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/12/archbishop-of-york-church-would-need-to-approve-gay-civil-marriage-law/

Bitch got owned! http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/16/video-the-uk-same-sex-civil-marriage-debate/

Read the comment sections here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9147559/Gay-couples-are-just-lifelong-friends-says-Catholic-leader.html?

... Excuse me after I finish seething with anger I have some heads to knock together. The sheer ignorance and lack of compassion is just blinding horrific. I'm tired of hearing people without a clue what it's like being gay dictating to us what it's like, telling us that the people we have a bond with is nothing but depravity no matter how genuine the feelings are. More and more I lose faith with people.

edited 16th Mar '12 6:43:31 AM by PiccoloNo92

My parents have the great luck of being under that idiot's wings. (They live near York.)

Dad takes a book and earplugs to any sermons of his he is forced to endure. He can't stand him. Mum can't stand his attitude, either. But, prefers to listen to the drivel so she can take it apart later. Whilst applying the correct amount of acid.

PS: She is a Telegraph reader. And, not just for the crossword. Or, in this case, cross words.

edited 16th Mar '12 8:28:24 AM by Euodiachloris

I don't know what's more arrogant: that what Archbishop Nichols said is coming from someone who has intentionally avoided any sort of romantic intimacy their entire lives, or that they think that anyone gives a shit about whether or not they approve of anything.

Because it has nothing to do with them. They aren't involved. Their opinion is not requested, wanted or relevant. No one wants or needs their approval to do anything. Their consent, or lack thereof, isn't important to anyone other than themselves. They don't matter. Nobody cares.

Protip, Your Eminence: If you have some sort of obsessive moral objection to two people of the same sex expressing their love in the same manner as anyone else then that's your problem - all you have to do is make sure that you don't accidentally marry someone with a beard and you're all set.

Beyond that, what anyone else does with their life is no business of yours, or anyone elses. If a gay couple want to get married then they don't need your fucking consent. If they want to love each other they don't need to ask for permission nor do they need to the approval of a sexually repressed old man in a dress to live their lives the way they want to.

If you don't like it you can outside of the ceremony in the pishing rain spitting hatred to your hearts content. That's your lifestyle choice and you're entitled to it. The rest of us can grab some wedding cake instead.

edited 16th Mar '12 8:40:34 AM by TheBatPencil

What I think is interesting is that a lot of them are, or claim to be, absolutely fine with homosexuality in general and civil partnerships. But gay marriage - even civil marriage, which is a legal construct entirely independent from all religions other than Anglicanism and only tenuously connected to that*

It's the tried and tested method of rallying the troops: give them something to rally against.

Did you know that the change won't empower religious institutions to actually be able to perform homosexual marriages? To be more precise, the proposal as it stands now only says it will change the powers of the register office but then that may change after consultation.

Isn't the whole idea of the Church of England being at all political entirely medieval in nature? We still have Priests in the House of Lords. If we really want these people to shut up about politics, it'd probably be best if we completely separated them from Government?

Indeed, we must. Either that, or we get heads of the other religions in the Lords (which probably won't go down too well with the Tories, but meh).

It's ironic when Parliament itself doesn't conform to workplace legislation.

In what way, if I may enquire?

"Shouldn't some atheist organisation get to nominate some representatives of their own to the House of Lords if religious groups get to do that?" prbably.

But the Commons and the rest of the Lords act secularly anyway.

What? Secular != atheist. You want to give some segments of the population special representation beyond what they already have, while denying the same to other population segments - Exactly what you complained about.

Of course, atheists themselves have many varied philosophies and viewpoints. There'd need to be a humanist representative, an agnostic, someone who is a lapsed Christian, a lapsed Jew and lapsed of all the other religions, people who just don't believe in God, people who believe there is no God, anti-religionists, rationalists, those guys who follow religions but just don't follow the actual literal God interpretation...

If you set a one representative minimum for each perspective, the unbelievers would be a quarter of the House.

And if you do that, you'd need a representative of every sect of every major (and minor?) religion — you could fill an entire House full of Religious and non-Religious Representatives!

edited 17th Mar '12 2:56:54 AM by Greenmantle

I think this does present a very interesting idea; can the House of Lords ever be truly representative? The House of Commons is unlikely; I believe free and fair elections are too random to ever consistently pump out a legislature that has, say, 50% women, 50% men, i.e. fits with the population demographic.

But the House of Lords isn't directly elected. Isn't there a good case for saying "Alright, in order to make the scrutiny process have a view from all sides, we require you to have 60% of Lords be of a working class background." That's just an example.

I believe including or excluding someone based on their personal philosophy is an outdated idea; it reminds me of Catholics being unable to own property or join the Army in Ireland.

To have a high percentage of the Lords be working-class would be a nice idea in principle, but there's the stumbling-block that we want the people passing our laws to be highly educated, and, sad as it is, people from a working-class background are much less likely to be. Of course, if we made any significant progress on getting more working-class people into university, many of them would stop being working-class in the sense people usually think of it.

And more fittingly, they'd stop thinking of themselves as working-class, because they haven't got a working-class education or job (hopefully).

If only it was that simple