UK Politics Thread IX: Try turning the UK off and on again.

[San Lumen]

Did it cut off for you after a few hours on polling day? That's what happened to me. I wasn't able to access it again after that.

They only have the special coverage for a few hours on polling day, it's not like a general election or anything.

Oh? I thought they do it for the duration of counting and only allow international viewers for a few hours.

[Celritannia]

US watches on UK local elections: This is exciting.
UK watches of local elections: So how will my wheely bins be collected after the election?

[San Lumen]

US watches on UK local elections: This is exciting.
UK watches of local elections: So how will my wheely bins be collected after the election?

Our national news stations don't cover local elections in other parts of the country on election day in off years except in select major cites. Yours does the whole country.

What's a wheely bin?

[Shrillland]

US watches on UK local elections: This is exciting.
UK watches of local elections: So how will my wheely bins be collected after the election?

We have no lives and are incredibly dull people, what can I say? Most of us are just interested to see if the Tories lose enough to spur the 1922 Committee to get out of its war-induced stupor and give Johnson the boot.

[Shrillland]

US watches on UK local elections: This is exciting.
UK watches of local elections: So how will my wheely bins be collected after the election?

Our national news stations don't cover local elections in other parts of the country on election day in off years. Only those in the local area. Yours does the whole country.

What's a wheely bin?

Just a garbage can. Plus, local elections here don't have the same reflection on national issues as they do in Britain, one of the foibles of unitary government....which Britain needs to get rid of, honestly.

[Philjia]

US watches on UK local elections: This is exciting.
UK watches of local elections: So how will my wheely bins be collected after the election?

Our national news stations don't cover local elections in other parts of the country on election day in off years except in select major cites. Yours does the whole country.

What's a wheely bin?

A bin, with wheels on. IE, the bins we fill with rubbish which get emptied by the council, using bin men with a bin lorry. These days a lot of places have one bin for landfill waste, one for recyclables, and possibly one for garden waste.

[Celritannia]

Our national news stations don't cover local elections in other parts of the country on election day in off years. Only those in the local area. Yours does the whole country.

What's a wheely bin?

Just a garbage can. Plus, local elections here don't have the same reflection on national issues as they do in Britain, one of the foibles of unitary government....which Britain needs to get rid of, honestly.

Yes, federalise the UK.

[The Archregimancy]

MP Neil Parish implies that he may have 'opened porn by mistake'.

The interview is excruciating, and more than a little reminiscent of this.



Meanwhile (stealing someone else's joke), I propose a new campaign slogan for Sir Keir Starmer's party: Labour isn't wanking.

[Vassenor]

MP Neil Parish implies that he may have 'opened porn by mistake'.

The interview is excruciating, and more than a little reminiscent of this.



Meanwhile (stealing someone else's joke), I propose a new campaign slogan for Sir Keir Starmer's party: Labour isn't wanking.

Opened by mistake but kept watching rather than immediately shutting it.

Pull the other one, mate. It rings.

[Concejos Unidos]

MP Neil Parish implies that he may have 'opened porn by mistake'.

The interview is excruciating, and more than a little reminiscent of this.



Meanwhile (stealing someone else's joke), I propose a new campaign slogan for Sir Keir Starmer's party: Labour isn't wanking.

As an American, I could feel my approval of the US Congress going up while I listened to that interview.

"I will await the inquiry to determine what I myself did."

[The Huskar Social Union]

US watches on UK local elections: This is exciting.
UK watches of local elections: So how will my wheely bins be collected after the election?

Our national news stations don't cover local elections in other parts of the country on election day in off years except in select major cites. Yours does the whole country.

What's a wheely bin?

Its a bin with wheels.

[The Archregimancy]

MP Neil Parish implies that he may have 'opened porn by mistake'.

The interview is excruciating, and more than a little reminiscent of this.



Meanwhile (stealing someone else's joke), I propose a new campaign slogan for Sir Keir Starmer's party: Labour isn't wanking.

Opened by mistake but kept watching rather than immediately shutting it.

Pull the other one, mate. It rings.

Well, the credibility of his laughable excuse isn't really his worst problem. It's this bit further down the BBC story:

On Wednesday, it emerged that a female minister had reported a male colleague for viewing pornographic material while sitting beside her in the Commons chamber. The female minister said she had also seen the MP watching pornography during a hearing of a select committee, The Times reported.

A second female Tory MP said she had tried but been unable to capture video proof of him doing so.

So that's at least two eyewitnesses - both of them Conservative Party MPs - one of them a government minister who asserts that she saw Mr Parish watching porn twice; once in the Commons, and once in a select committee hearing.

The (understandable) fury of female Conservative MPs means the government can't just hope this goes away, and the timing, both in terms of following on so quickly from the Angela Rayner story and its proximity to this coming week's local elections, is more than a little awkward.

Note that I'm not claiming that other parties are somehow innocent of sexism; only noting the particular awkwardness of this specific case for the government.

[Mtwara]

Its a bin with wheels.

They're also very good for getting about if you are mechanically inclined.

[The Huskar Social Union]

So turns out Survation has also done a poll for the NI assembly election as well for Good Morning Britain. Their first ever NI Assembly poll i believe.

SF: 22.2% (-5.8)
DUP: 20.2% (-7.8)
APNI: 14.1% (+5.1)
SDLP: 13.3% (+1.3)
UUP: 10.9% (-2.1)
TUV: 6.5% (+3.9)
PBP: 3.2% (+1.4)
OTH: 9.5% (+3.9)

Numbers are in comparison to the 2017 Assembly election.

Much closer race between the DUP and Sinn Fein where as other polls have given Sinn Fein a more comfortable lead, Alliance remains on a similar level to the most recent lucidtalk and Social Market Research polls. The Big difference though is the SDLP and UUP, the SDLP seemingly sitting on just over 13% where as the UUP have fallen down to under 11%, thats a big difference as the SDLP have remained stagnant in the polls for over a year and have declined recently where as the UUP have been neck and neck with the Alliance party for a while now.

TUV gains are also not as strong as they are in lucidtalks polls, instead are a bit similar to that of the Social Market Research polls and PBP gets a big jump in support as do Others, of which i imagine a big chunk of that is for the Greens.

[The Archregimancy]

So turns out Survation has also done a poll for the NI assembly election as well for Good Morning Britain. Their first ever NI Assembly poll i believe.

SF: 22.2% (-5.8)
DUP: 20.2% (-7.8)
APNI: 14.1% (+5.1)
SDLP: 13.3% (+1.3)
UUP: 10.9% (-2.1)
TUV: 6.5% (+3.9)
PBP: 3.2% (+1.4)
OTH: 9.5% (+3.9)

Numbers are in comparison to the 2017 Assembly election.

Much closer race between the DUP and Sinn Fein

I've been wondering if there might be a last-minute Unionist shift to the DUP on the basis that most Unionist voters would rather hold their nose and have a DUP First Minister than find themselves enabling a Sinn Fein First Minister.

[The Huskar Social Union]

And we have another spot of political violence for this years election with People Before Profits candidate in East Belfast Hannah Kenny being assaulted by three men where she was grabbed by the throat and threatened if she was to ever return to the area

Unfortunately its a paywalled article so i only have a small snippet of info from it. If i can get more ill edit the post later.

So far, off the top of my head the following incidents have happened:

Elsie Trainer of the SDLP was assaulted in South Belfast and called a Republican Bastard after chasing youths who tore down her election posters.
Cara Hunter of the SDLP was corned at her car by multiple men who tore up her leaflets and threatened her in East Derry.
Paul Doherty of the SDLP was threatened on the Shankill road whilst out canvassing in West Belfast.
Eóin Tennyson of the Alliance Party was threatened when he was canvassing in Lurgan and told to leave because he was in a "Protestant Area".
Stephen Donnelly of the Alliance Party was followed and harassed whilst out canvassing in Omagh.
And now a PBP candidate has been physically assaulted and threatened if she should ever come back to the area

What a fucking mess, this is completely unacceptable.

edit: Article is no longer paywalled

[Vassenor]

Note that I'm not claiming that other parties are somehow innocent of sexism; only noting the particular awkwardness of this specific case for the government.

Someone else who absolutely needs the book thrown at them.

[The Huskar Social Union]

So turns out Survation has also done a poll for the NI assembly election as well for Good Morning Britain. Their first ever NI Assembly poll i believe.

SF: 22.2% (-5.8)
DUP: 20.2% (-7.8)
APNI: 14.1% (+5.1)
SDLP: 13.3% (+1.3)
UUP: 10.9% (-2.1)
TUV: 6.5% (+3.9)
PBP: 3.2% (+1.4)
OTH: 9.5% (+3.9)

Numbers are in comparison to the 2017 Assembly election.

Much closer race between the DUP and Sinn Fein

I've been wondering if there might be a last-minute Unionist shift to the DUP on the basis that most Unionist voters would rather hold their nose and have a DUP First Minister than find themselves enabling a Sinn Fein First Minister.

The polling i shared yesterday shows the majority of unionists are gona transfer to eachother quite heavily where as nationalists and others are a lot more mixed. So that will be the mentality of a lot of them going into it. Unfortunately.

Its a symbolic difference, practically there will be no difference at all between a Sinn Fein FM or DFM but cant let the Nationalists take that title or the end is near etc etc

The DUP are openly threatening to undermine democracy if they dont end up the largest party. Jeffrey Donaldson had a trainwreck interview on the Nolan show yesterday about it.

Stormont is broken, it needs changed, especially with how the offices of FM and DFM work and the community designation system.

[The Blaatschapen]

Our national news stations don't cover local elections in other parts of the country on election day in off years except in select major cites. Yours does the whole country.

What's a wheely bin?

A bin, with wheels on. IE, the bins we fill with rubbish which get emptied by the council, using bin men with a bin lorry. These days a lot of places have one bin for landfill waste, one for recyclables, and possibly one for garden waste.

Garden waste?

Are you telling me, that councils collect my food and put it all in one place? Where's this magical buffet?

[The Archregimancy]

Mr Parish has bowed to the inevitable and has announced his resignation:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61245456

However, he's still being cagey about what actually happened, blaming the initial accidental porn-watching on his love of tractors (Mr Parish is a farmer), but then conceding that he deliberately did it a second time.

In an exclusive interview with BBC South West, he said: "The situation was that - funnily enough it was tractors I was looking at. I did get into another website that had a very similar name and I watched it for a bit which I shouldn't have done. But my crime - biggest crime - is that on another occasion I went in a second time."

Asked if that was deliberate he said: "That was deliberate... that was sitting waiting to vote on the side of the chamber."

He added: "What I did was absolutely totally wrong."

However, he still denies watching porn where other people could observe him doing so, which seems like a denial of reality under the circumstances.


There will now be a by-election in the seat. The LibDems will be looking at it very closely, and while it's right to point out that they came third in the 2019 general election, and that Mr Parish won 60% of the vote in that election, the party are in a stronger position in Tiverton & Honiton than they were in North Shropshire; and they have a pre-coalition tradition of doing much better in the seat (though only came close to actually winning it in 1997).


Edit:

My wife and I were just discussing how on earth a website about tractors could have a similar name to a porn site. Mrs Arch (jokingly) suggests 'plough hard'.

We've decided not to check this via Google.

[Nationalist Northumbria]

Tiverton and Hornyton.

[The Archregimancy]

Tiverton and Hornyton.

'Tory Neil Parish' is an anagram of 'parties hornily'.

[Philjia]

Mr Parish has bowed to the inevitable and has announced his resignation:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61245456

However, he's still being cagey about what actually happened, blaming the initial accidental porn-watching on his love of tractors (Mr Parish is a farmer), but then conceding that he deliberately did it a second time.

In an exclusive interview with BBC South West, he said: "The situation was that - funnily enough it was tractors I was looking at. I did get into another website that had a very similar name and I watched it for a bit which I shouldn't have done. But my crime - biggest crime - is that on another occasion I went in a second time."

Asked if that was deliberate he said: "That was deliberate... that was sitting waiting to vote on the side of the chamber."

He added: "What I did was absolutely totally wrong."

However, he still denies watching porn where other people could observe him doing so, which seems like a denial of reality under the circumstances.

This is all getting too silly.

[The Archregimancy]

Mr Parish has bowed to the inevitable and has announced his resignation:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61245456

However, he's still being cagey about what actually happened, blaming the initial accidental porn-watching on his love of tractors (Mr Parish is a farmer), but then conceding that he deliberately did it a second time.



However, he still denies watching porn where other people could observe him doing so, which seems like a denial of reality under the circumstances.

This is all getting too silly.

Look, just because you don't get hot and horny over heavy farm equipment doesn't mean you should judge the silent Devon majority who fantasise about their brand new combine harvester.

I, for one, support the rights of tractor fetishists to explore their preferences, as any social liberal should be willing to do.

Just so long as the tractors and combine harvesters are over 16, mind; there are limits.

[Glevenschester]

This is all getting too silly.

Look, just because you don't get hot and horny over heavy farm equipment doesn't mean you should judge the silent Devon majority who fantasise about their brand new combine harvester.

I, for one, support the rights of tractor fetishists to explore their preferences, as any social liberal should be willing to do.

Just so long as the tractors and combine harvesters are over 16, mind; there are limits.

No, combine harvesters mature later than people, they have to be over 21.