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It’s May and you know what that means, yes it’s time for local council elections! Local elections are held every year in different parts of the country, every 4 years for any given part, except where it's more complicated than that, which is most places. Go here to see what’s up for grabs this year. The vote is on 22 May and things to look forward to include the Liberal Democrats shrivelling up and dying and this face. But that’s not all! Coinciding with these local elections is the European Parliament election which comes every five years. This one’s going to be a doozy because Britain’s place in Europe has been the centre of attention for some years now, with the Tories promising a referendum on membership and the Ukips stealing all their thunder and generally being the one-issue party of getting out of Europe. Given their current popularity, UKIP is likely to do well in these elections. The dedicated Euro election thread is here. Parties in play this year include:  *I couldn't find a funny picture of Clegg because I guess he's just that bland) And here is your guide to voting courtesy of  European Parliament elections So what's this European election poo poo all about then? The main thread covers the grand scheme of things but for the UK all you really need to know is:
Wikipedia has an excellent breakdown of what you need to know. You can see which of our national parties join which supranational parties and how many seats are up for grabs in your home electoral region. Click through to see election results for your region from 2009, which may help inform how you should vote if you want to keep certain bastards out (the form of PR used reduces the relevance of tactical voting but it is not completely off the table). Of course that was five years ago. User Alecto made an excel spreadsheet that uses polling and turnout data to estimate how the regional seats will be distributed this time around. Local Council elections Gonna do this section later. Recent poo poo We Should All Be Angry About
Previous UK Megathreads March 2014 - in which Seaside Loafer tells us about going to a train station and taking a steamer Feburary 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 May / June 2013 April 2013 - Thatcher came to this thread to die. Also features Ninpo’s effortpost on the poverty trap that exists for people working less than 16 hours a week. February / March 2013 Warning:  December 2012 / January 2013 featuring Zero Gravitas's terrible landlady stealing his underwear to make sure he returned the keys and Trickjaw's fight against the bastards of the Work Program. October / November 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 featuring Iohannes’ effortpost on minimum alcohol pricing October 2010 - April 2012 Other threads of interest for citizens of the UK  Hackgate scandal thread - now with even more prosecutions! UK Marriage Equality thread Scottish independence thread The EDL/UK Fascist watch thread Remember: * These threads are being watched by the police  * The UK threads have been accused of being insular cliques that dogpile anyone expressing the Wrong Opinion. We actually welcome newcomers but don't come trotting in with poo poo anecdotes and Daily Mail headlines to support your arguments; the least you can do is cite a study. Microplastics fucked around with this message at 14:23 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 07:55
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Umiapik posted:Those poor landlords I assume that most cases of landlords "withdrawing from the market" would involve putting their houses up for sale, which would depress prices a bit? Or would the insanity of the bubble result in them just holding onto them and seeing the appreciating value as a replacement for rental income? e: beaten
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May 1, 2014 14:32
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Answers Me posted:It cracks me up how all of a sudden UKIP keep trotting out the line 'we're not racist; in fact, we're the only party who make people specifically declare that they've never been a member of the BNP or EDL.' What do you mean "all of a sudden" 
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May 1, 2014 17:14
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Lost amidst the sandwich chat:Alecto posted:I just posted this in the EU thread, but I'll post it here too. This is excellent but I'm having trouble interpreting it, probably because I'm thick. What exactly is the zero-to-nine stuff in columns F-AG?
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May 2, 2014 09:24
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Dakha posted:You guys read the Alistair Campbell interviews Farage article? TL;DR version: quote:Q. Which Tories do you admire? quote:Q. Which current world leader do you most admire?
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May 2, 2014 11:35
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Why I Hate Journalism And Everyone In It By UKMT media correspondent Obliterati Obliterati posted:It's this really annoying thing that I guess the sub-editors are to blame for, what with it being the Grauniad. Take one line from a column, blow it up into something ridiculous, and then laugh as your readers discover that it's actually about the author judging the Bad Grammar awards, with a two-line anecdote about a friend pulling on a school trip thirty years ago. They do this with pretty much every comment piece they've ever run and it drives me up the wall because I still make the mistake of expecting a headline to be relevant to the subject matter.
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May 2, 2014 16:15
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Like everywhere, Britain is poo poo if you're poor, and great if you're wealthy. I would say that even a poor person gets a better deal here than most places in the world, but that's no excuse for the situation that the British poor are finding themselves in these days, because it's so easy to ensure that everyone gets a decent quality of life but there's just no desire at all to do it.
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May 6, 2014 16:42
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QuantumCrayons posted:people talking about how wonderful the free market is and asking why people don't work as hard as they used to. What a bizarre thing to ask. Surely one of the things that the Holy Free Market deemed us worthy enough to benefit from was the sacred Efficiency that would free us from hard work?
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May 7, 2014 10:23
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tentish klown posted:Is there any problem with a mandatory £50 (or whatever) fine for missing appointments without extenuating circumstances? a) a fixed fine disproportionately affects the poor b) a potential fine would discourage people from making appointments in the first place, which means underlying problems may go unchecked (though I admit this would probably be a small effect) c) recovering the fines and managing an appeal process would cost money, which the fines alone would be unlikely to pay for If there's a big problem with missed appointments, then the best solution is a guilt-tripping program (my dentist uses this). It goes like this: the day before, ring up the patient and ask them if they are still intending to make the appointment, and ask them to let the care centre know if they're unable to make it. If they miss an appointment, ring them up and ask them why they missed it and why they didn't inform the care centre, whether they'd like a new appointment (chances are it's a yes) followed up with a polite request to not miss it this time or at least inform them if they can't. Guilt: tripped. Not only is it effective but it's incredibly cheap to run: all it takes is a string of phone-calls that a secretary could do, there's no guilt recovery process, no financial admin, and no appeal process to manage and adjudicate.
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May 7, 2014 13:30
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^ Barry Foster posted:This may work great for smaller departments or practices, but (for example) repeatedly calling the volume of people we book every day in the physio department I work at would be completely unrealistic. Well even in a small department, the secretary is probably already over-worked. It's not a program that can be neatly slotted into existing work-schedules, it would almost certainly require additional staff or longer working hours. But I'm only suggesting it as an alternative to all the admin involved in issuing fines, chasing them up, processing the financials etc. If your place of work had to do one or the other, which is the most practical? Microplastics fucked around with this message at 14:05 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 14:00
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tentish klown posted:Yeah so gently caress the Spectator and James Delingpole My favourite bit is the bit at the bottom 
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May 7, 2014 15:06
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Mr. Flunchy posted:Killing animals for food is wrong, quibbling over which is the more humane way of dispatching them (they are both terrible) is missing the point.  Y'know, it is possible to support / vote for / argue in favour of an intermediate position without giving up on a more extreme position.
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May 8, 2014 10:39
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glitchkrieg posted:Can anyone remember the story about that company that threatened to move to Switzerland over taxes, did so and then moved back because its bankers hated living there? Need it for an argument! http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/10/12/uk-brevanhoward-geneva-london-idUKBRE89B0LO20121012
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May 8, 2014 13:16
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Jedit posted:I'm sick of people saying "spoil your ballot". It's like saying if you hate McDonald's food you should go into the restaurant and poo poo on the floor. It doesn't make them change the menu, it doesn't cost them money, and the only people you're making it unpleasant for are the lowest level of staff. You could achieve exactly the same effect by staying out of the loving restaurant. So don't be a childish rear end in a top hat. Burn down McDonald's
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May 9, 2014 09:54
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Prism Mirror Lens posted:and how am I going to cook my sicilian streetcleaner's meal in that microwave? Boil it in the kettle.
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May 9, 2014 12:12
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big scary monsters posted:I stopped watching when that woman showed up on the screen, but it was amazing up until there. "Minds infinitely more bureaucratic than ours." No, it gets more amazing later on. At 1.27 a man shows up with a nosebleed made of hair.
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May 9, 2014 13:18
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Spangly A posted:Don't know why they wrote the bit about London Underground like that. If 31% of the workforce voted in favour and it requires a majority, then by definition at least 61% had to vote. I don't know the numbers so don't know if it's a typo or deliberately misleading journalism but either way it's poo poo. The bit in question: quote:In the case of the recent 48-hour strike Tube strike, and earlier strikes in February, 77% of RMT members who voted in the ballot last year backed action. So, 77% of the 40% who voted (=30.8%) were in favour.
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May 9, 2014 15:49
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shrike82 posted:I wanted to spend some time in Europe and given the choice of the two top MBA programs in Europe, I didn't want to be in France. Are you doing your MBA at Imperial, if so we have found a brilliant room for you to rent
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May 10, 2014 10:34
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Seaside Loafer posted:Cant they just do that system by default then? If I lie about my religion (not that I have any) I can save a few bucks right? I'll do it but it seems a bit silly. Do you have to prove somehow you are a muslim or do you just check a box? Refusing you an account on the basis of religion would be illegal, wouldn't it?
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May 10, 2014 17:07
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b-b-b-b-but blair and neoliberals and and and
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May 11, 2014 14:00
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EvilGenius posted:I forgot, in my impotent rage, that I was going to ask something. What happens is a Classic Labour Backstab
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May 11, 2014 17:51
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Party Boat posted:Libertarian party call police when criticised Not necessarily the party but could just be someone who supports them and is a petulant manbaby. In fact it could be a poo poo-stirrer trying to make it look like UKIP calls the police on criticism, which would be hilarious if wasting police time wasn't a really poo poo thing to do. Also: quote:He claims the police told him he could not tweet about the visit.  From the blog: quote:I asked if I could tweet about the visit. The straight answer was 'no', as this might appear prejudicial in light of the upcoming election and the police must appear to remain neutral. But they couldn't stop me from doing so, as I had Freedom of Speech. Incredulously, I said, "...but you must realise how this looks!" One shrugged, the other looked embarrassed. ACAB, or possibly just idiots.
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May 12, 2014 10:46
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twoot posted:
I'm chalking that one up to bone-headed stupidity rather than malice. If they really want conservatives voters to not flock to UKIP, they'd have made that bar pathetically small instead of disproportionately big. And I'm not sure what purpose is served by pretending they're already in power 
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May 12, 2014 15:28
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twoot posted:Dubious election leaflet bar-graph aren't new, that one is just the most nakedly false I've seen. If they hadn't intentionally coloured the bar blue I might think it was simple error. Maybe I've giving them too much credit but it just seems too dumb to be intentional. I mean, they want as many people to vote Tory, so if they're just going to out and out make poo poo up, why not have the Tories slightly trailing behind Labour? Then conservative voters will be "oh my god it's so close, i better get out and vote!". I just don't see what the plan is behind "let's make it look like we've already won" But then I'm not Karl Rove so I don't know.
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May 12, 2014 16:13
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JFairfax posted:do you leave a deposit at the train station as well? no he takes it with him
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May 13, 2014 20:26
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I'm watching PMQ's and I didn't until this time realise it was possible to stroke a Long Term Economic Plan until it came everywhere.
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May 14, 2014 15:02
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Apparently my Ukip mother has taken a break from helping the campaigning because "I have been getting fed up with people saying silly things" Indeed.
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May 14, 2014 21:35
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Geokinesis posted:Heard UKIP voters on a bus; they 'don't want to get rid of all the blacks' so aren't voting BNP as they are 'too racist' but they feel that buses should only be for British people and that immigrants are stealing their jobs.  And in what fine town was this bus travelling?
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May 15, 2014 13:22
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Alecto posted:I just noticed the OP was updated I like to think of myself as a numbers person but it's still beyond me - thanks for the follow-up though, I'll take a closer look at the London region in your calculator later! ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:I don't think they quite thought it through. And it's screwed up because I binned it and then thought "no, I have to share this stupidity with the world" God dammit, for a moment there I was really enjoying the idea that they delivered it like that. Microplastics fucked around with this message at 21:16 on May 15, 2014 |
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May 15, 2014 21:14
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Today I got an election leaflet (well, it's their newsletter) from the local anarchist group of all things. They don't call themselves anarchist but they think the borough can manage without a council and suggest voting for nobody. Here's a PDF of their newsletter on their website (to read it in its proper order, read the second page of the first PDF, then the second PDF, then the first page of the first PDF) http://www.haringey.org.uk/content/images/hsg/newsletters/2014-02-election-special-front-back.pdf http://www.haringey.org.uk/content/images/hsg/newsletters/2014-02-election-special-inner.pdf
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May 19, 2014 12:09
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Did this come up last month? I don't remember it. Well anyway, I imagine most posters in this thread would very much enjoy this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0418p80 Benet Brandreth, son of former Tory MP Gyles Brandreth, openly proposing a revolution to replace the house of commons with a legislature drawn by lot (though with what sincerity I'm not quite sure) Microplastics fucked around with this message at 14:05 on May 19, 2014 |
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May 19, 2014 13:31
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Mr. Flunchy posted:Trying to work out who in my constituency deserves their deposit back more. Saw the Communities United Party "huh, sounds posit.. What the gently caress is that poo poo. What has that eagle got to do with Britain. loving foreigners. That bird should be a good old British bird, like a robin. Robins are territorial as gently caress too, so it suits.
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May 21, 2014 21:52
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IceAgeComing posted:There have apparently been cases of parties taking that sort of thing and trying to get it counted for them - not even your wee small lefty parties, but the likes of the Labour party because the word "socialist" is there... Maybe Labour should have supported Single Transferable Vote if they wanted to pull that kinda poo poo  Also I'd love to see some sources for that because that is 
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May 22, 2014 11:24
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Kegluneq posted:Wait what 
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May 22, 2014 13:10
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