This thread exists to discuss British politics.
Political issues related to Northern Ireland and the Crown Dependencies (the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) are also considered on-topic here if there's no more appropriate OTC thread for them.
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As with other OTC threads, off-topic posts may be thumped or edited by the moderators.
- There is a dedicated thread to discuss LGBTQ+ rights in the United Kingdom. That doesn't mean it's always off-topic here, but unless something's directly linked to political events, that's probably a better thread for it.
- There's also a separate thread to talk about your favourite British Prime Ministers.
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
Ed Milliband has his own Tumblr/Twitter fandom.
This is it.
This is how the election will go down.
Through irony.
Tief girl with eartude
He's an adorkable Briton who's on TV a lot, of course he has a Tumblr fandom.
edited 21st Apr '15 12:08:42 PM by Bisected8
TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer
Millibabe. ❤
HGW XX/7
He's bonny enough. If he came to the door after his Nat King I wouldn't say no. 
Also, read it and boak.
Followed 
PM pledges UK 'contribution' to Mediterranean searches. The airquotes are the BBC's, not mine.
Election 2015: Labour v Tories row over SNP intensifies.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Well, if you believe the tabloids, Ed has already bedded half the country. Might as well hop on that bandwagon.
What's precedent ever done for us?
Tief girl with eartude
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
And his connections with unions are "sinister".
That headline seems too TDMish for TDM. ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
House Lewis: Sanity is Relative
A sexual confession about Ayn Rand (5th down in that Tumblr blog, as of the time of writing).
Pass the Brain Bleach please...
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.
Did anyone catch Miliband's speech in Manchester yesterday? Apparently it was quite good but I missed it.
"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost."
So it seems that the Mail has gone back to claiming that Ed's in bed with the unions, while everyone else seems to be focused on the Tory chairman allegedly conducting a smear campaign over on The Other Wiki.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
So, yesterday, a Twitter account started posting as David Cameron's Fandom using #cameronettes. This is in response to the growing popularity of the #milifandom, started by a Twitter account that has existed since 2011.
Reaction? Not quite as the Tories hoped, according to the Huffington Post and The Verge.
I had a read of the two hashtags. The difference in tone between them is phenomenal.
edited 22nd Apr '15 9:25:44 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.
Farage admits to being an attention seeker.
On a lighter note,
One sheepdog today made the mistake of driving tractors instead of livestock!
(Disclaimer: no-one was injured, including the dog. Maybe he was trying to enact Edinburgh's 20mph speed limit policy?)
On a heavier note:
Jeremy Hunt (not getting the warmest welcome in Wales), has yet again been raising the issue of how the NHS performs in Wales and England.
Except that Full Fact has already fact-checked this claim that Wales is doing much worse than England, and the story is much more complicated (and interesting) than the Tories are trying to claim (they're claiming that Welsh Labour has ruined the NHS).
Edited to add:
Welsh leaders debate is a laugh (and not in a good way). We've got Stephen Crabb (Conservative, but not the Leader of the Welsh Conservatives) denying there's been a record increase in food banks in the last couple of years (it's all Labour's fault). Leanne Wood (PC) and Kirsty Williams (Lib Dem) keep attacking Owen Smith (Labour, but not the leader of the Welsh Labour) over Labour vetoing Plaid's amendment to end exploitative zero hour contracts in the care sector as evidence that Labour has no interest (no matter what it says) in ending zero hour contracts. Owen keeps denying that's the case because Labour is never in favour of exploitative zero hour contracts.
There's a problem with this fight: all three of these leaders are both right and wrong. Wood and Williams are completely right - Labour did (alongside the Tories) veto the amendment. However, Smith is right when he says Labour has never supported exploitative zero hour contracts.
What happened on this occasion was that Plaid was persistently trying (this was third veto of the same amendment) to get through an amendment that went beyond the scope of AM powers. The Welsh Assembly simply does not have the devolved power to make the Plaid amendment actually happen. So Labour vetoed the amendment on the grounds that they needed to focus their efforts on the amendments that AMs actually have the devolved power to address.
It seems to me that they need to stop fighting over the veto of this amendment (seriously, this particular fight over this particular amendment has been going on for over a year now - we're all sick of it) and actually unite to fight for increased devolved powers so that things like this can actually be addressed. After all, all three parties claim they want increased devolved powers for Wales. Then we'll see if Labour supports or vetoes an end to exploitative zero hour contracts in the care sector.
edited 22nd Apr '15 2:27:57 PM 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.
Women strongest in this debate again - Leanne Wood (PC) and Kirsty Williams (Lib Dem) by far the strongest two debaters. If the Lib Dems had Williams in charge instead of Clegg, they might actually come across better (well, if we could ignore their involvement in the Coalition, that is). Pippa Bartolotti (Green) - generally good points, the audience responded quite strongly to her, but she sounded so shrill sometimes. Needs to work on her delivery, but she did seem quite relaxed on the stage.
By contrast, the men were all much weaker. ITV showed Twitter's reaction as the debate continued which was quite interesting. The hashtag is #walesdebate.
Overall, 2015 has turned out to be quite a good election for female politicians.
Quotes of the night.
'The assembly are not children, Nathan' - Wood to Gill (UKIP) after his argument against Welsh devolution consisted of him talking about his children asking for more food and him telling them to eat what's on their plate first.
'You can vote for a Coalition of the Damned, or you can vote Green.' - Pippa's one of those off-the-wall weirdos who has a really colourful and wacky way of talking, but that's the funniest description of the current Government I've heard in this entire election to date.
edited 22nd Apr '15 2:18:00 PM 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.
House Lewis: Sanity is Relative
12 British Politicians - if they were Pokemon trading cards.
Love it!
My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.
V
BREAKING NEWS — Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman found guilty of electoral fraud
Judge Richard Mawrey QC handed down his verdict on Thursday after a 10-week hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice. A group of four residents had called for last May’s mayoral election, in which Rahman triumphed over Labour rival John Biggs, to be declared void and rerun. Rahman - who is Britain’s first directly-elected Muslim mayor - won the ballot after a campaign of “intimidation and corruption”, the petitioners alleged. Mawrey was asked to consider if the election was fraudulent and should be rerun. If Rahman was found to be responsible, he faced being banned from office. The mayor denied the allegations, which he dismissed as cynical and politically motivated.
During the course of the hearing, the court heard evidence from a handwriting expert that hundreds of ballot papers carried marks suggesting they could have been filled out by the same person. Muslim voters were told it would be “un-Islamic” not to support Rahman in last May’s ballot, it was alleged during the hearing.
Rahman was also accused of making false statements about the personal character of Biggs. The Bangladesh-born mayor was accused of “undue influence” by “means of spiritual influence” during the campaign and on polling day.
It was claimed that a Bengali newspaper, The Weekly Desh, published a letter signed by 101 Islamic leaders which was “intended to have undue influence on the Muslim population of the borough”, Hoar said. Their pronouncements had been used to cajole and control many within the local 65,000-strong Muslim community, it was claimed.
The court heard that one of the petitioners saw a voter crying outside a polling station after allegedly being told by a supporter of Rahman that it was “un-Islamic” not to vote for him, and that if you did not vote for him you were “not a good Muslim”.
Bribes were also used to win over voters, the court heard, with meals given out on election day. Hoar said that there was evidence of “interference with voters” – including in polling booths.
Rahman won the poll in the first round of the election, with 43%, and Biggs was second on 33%. In the runoff round he beat the Labour candidate by 52.7% to 47.7%.
The long-awaited verdict comes after the communities secretary, Eric Pickles, ordered a team of commissioners to ensure the council is properly run after a PwC report last year found it flouted spending rules.
Pickles took control of key functions of administration when he appointed three commissioners to oversee grant-giving, appointments, property deals and the administration of future elections in the borough.
Other functions such as education, social care provision, street cleaning, housing and homelessness services are unaffected by this move. Rahman denied any wrongdoing in council spending, as well as the allegations surround last year’s mayoral election.
The Daily Telegraph's take on the same story, and the same from The BBC.
edited 23rd Apr '15 7:33:39 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On
Must be a slow news day for The Sun; their entire front page is dedicated to a story about pensioners doing cocaine in bingo halls.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Tief girl with eartude
Does the article make loads of puns on bingo terminology, or would that be too clever for their readership?
TV Tropes's No. 1 bread themed lesbian. she/her, fae/faer
No idea. Just saw it on the stand when I was going to get lunch.
Like I'd actually read that crap.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
So that's what this does
Newsnight proves the BBC election coverage is in no way dumbed down.
Possibly Not safe for work or humanity warning.
...
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK I JUST WATCHED.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Did you know this section has a character limit?
-opens link-
-One Direction starts playing while badly photoshopped half-naked men come on the screen-
-closes link-
So that's what this does
According to wikipedia, "a weekday BBC Television current affairs programme which specialises in analysis and often robust cross-examination of senior politicians"
Bring back Paxman.
'Politics' and 'sense of adventure'... nah, can't compute that.