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Google Jeb Bush posted:I've been meaning to ask: councils are basically of highly variable size, right? Some are basically a neighborhood government, others are what a Yank would describe as a county government? There's different tiers of council, and they vary depending on the constituent country. In England, county councils handle things like education, public transport and social services, while district councils below them are smaller and handle other things like planning permission (zoning) and waste collection. In a lot of places these two tiers are merged into a single Unitary Authority that does the work of both the district and county council. Below the district level you have parish councils, which are the size of a few small villages, and have very limited authority (basically they do allotments, possibly maintain a small community centre and organise village fairs, and then whatever minor functions the councils above choose to grant them). But in larger cities all three of these get merged into a single metropolitan district council which does all functions of local government below the national level. In London it's different again, you have the borough councils and the Greater London Authority, so a similar two-tier setup to the county and district councils, but with a different division of authority between them. In Wales, you have the Senedd which passes wales-specific legislation (Like a state government in the US), and then below that the principal council areas which work like the Unitary Authorities previously mentioned, covering most roles of local government, and at the bottom instead of parishes you have communities, which have either community councils or just community meetings in the smallest ones. Unlike in England larger Welsh cities still technically have communities, but like the English cities, those communities don't actually have councils and their functions are taken over by the city. In Scotland, you have the Scottish Parliament doing the state-level legislating, then below it are the Councils, and that's it. No local government below the "county" level. In Northern Ireland, the Assembly theoretically handles most legislative stuff but it's frequently deadlocked and unable to function. Most of the functions of county councils additionally sit up at this level, and local government consists just of the district councils (with again, some of the normal functions of a district council being assigned to the executive level). Lots of stuff in NI is handled by non-governmental bodies whose members are appointed professionals or civil servants, which depending on who you ask could be so that they're apolitical, or so that they function even when the government is hopelessly deadlocked, or so that if people vote wrong they can't change anything.
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Jun 2, 2023 09:20
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Jedit posted:There are community councils in Scotland, but they aren't legislative bodies. There are also the seven regional transport partnerships that are government bodies but not part of the local authorities. Fair, I didn't count our community councils because as far as I'm aware they don't actually do anything--at least, the one for my area (so far as I can tell) is a purely consultative body with literally zero power to do anything, more or less just a forum for people to talk to representatives from the actual council once a month. Maybe that's not the case in other community councils though and I shouldn't have presumed!
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Jun 2, 2023 11:01
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Guavanaut posted:Mandela Effected myself because I was convinced that Big Fash wore a black button down shirt for Big Fash Delusion Song rather than that shoulder buttoned thing. Your memory might be influenced by a later song in Fash-Pink's set, Waiting for the Worms, which has the lines "(Waiting) to put on a black shirt / (Waiting) to weed out the weekings, to smash in their windows and kick in their doors"
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Jun 10, 2023 12:34
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Camrath posted:Massive summer fudge release! (And a somewhat embarrassing plea) Quoting the whole thing since it's at the bottom of the last page. Placed an order, fingers crossed for you to make it through this.
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Jun 11, 2023 19:15
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Just wanted to say, thanks for the fudge camrath! The pretzel stuff is fun, you bite into it then suddenly hit a piece of pretzel rebar it's like fudge on the bone, loved it.
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Jun 14, 2023 16:48
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Tesseraction posted:What is going on in this photo? At least for c, it doesn’t look like it’s mirrored, as the seam on the woman’s combat smock would be on the wrong side if you flipped the image. Maybe Starmer prefers American table manners?
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Jun 18, 2023 02:29
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:I have very rarely read the Canary (I always found its reporting a bit hysterical) but I was a bit surprised at the latest article re Corbyn that appeared on my twitter feed. Then I saw this post by Kerry Anne Mendoza just now. Had no idea she hadn't been involved with the Canary for the last couple of years. I might be misremembering, but wasn't there some serious allegations of misconduct by the directors of the company (I think it was something about them claiming there was only a £1 difference in hourly wage between directors and journalists, but then paying themselves huge dividends in secret) that led to the Canary being reorganised as a Worker's Co-op?
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Jun 24, 2023 21:57
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Sanford posted:Owlfancier, the Director of Income Generation for one of those charities you mentioned says thanks, that’s really helpful feedback. I knew the “so I don’t bother going in” aspect would get their attention. They asked if you go in looking for anything in particular - I mentioned the coats but they really meant is it business or casual wear you’re generally after? I remember one charity shop I was in years and years ago had an arrangement with a local knitting club/circle where in winter they'd sell hats and scarves knitted by the club which seemed quite successful. Kind of depends on having a lot of hobbyist knitters about, of course.
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Jun 27, 2023 16:02
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Mega Comrade posted:Only thing I know about Narnia is it has some kind of magical wardrobe in it and the Lion is Jesus. The only thing I actually remember from the book is that the kids grow up in Narnia but then return to Earth and become kids again, which means they'll go through puberty twice.
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Jul 4, 2023 11:10
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When I was working in South Africa for a while, there was a guy in the office whose name had a click in it, and I was apparently the only white person who'd made an effort to learn to pronounce his name right. New staff would do literal double takes the first time they heard it. It was surreal, like I was living in one of those tall tales where everyone claps at the end, except it was for the most basic-rear end human decency thing that shouldn't ever have been worthy of comment. I still feel weird talking about it because I worry I'm using a minority person to make myself into some white saviour paragon of non-racism, but the point is more that, if you have a traditional african name in South Africa that has any sort of sound not common in English or Afrikaans, don't expect most white people to even bother addressing you by your actual name.
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Jul 6, 2023 11:15
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:'green crayon email' I've never heard this term before, is it a reference to something?
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Jul 7, 2023 11:16
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There had actually been a cholera outbreak in Italy in 1973, so it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable that tourists would be concerned about the risk of travelling there in the following year. https://www.nytimes.com/1973/09/05/archives/cholera-in-italy-kills-18th-victim-the-disease-strikes-for-the.html
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Jul 10, 2023 10:37
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Poor-pour is part of the Cure-North merger, which is a class of mergers which has a lot of conditions. I think that map is mostly accurate for areas of the UK with the C-N merger, but some of the pairs are only homophones if you also have a non-rhotic accent, and others only if you have the horse-hoarse merger too. Theoretically, if you’ve got horse-horse and a non-rhotic accent, you should have the full pour-poor-paw triple. But there’s always exceptions, down to even individual idiolects.
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Jul 11, 2023 03:53
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Failed Imagineer posted:Happy Massive Racist Bonfire Day to all who celebrate. Must say I'm a little curious about the record-breaking 200ft bonfire going up in Larne tonight, which of course is I think you might be a day late on this? https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/...2122894830.html
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Jul 12, 2023 11:43
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non-sectarian 
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Just Another Lurker posted:One of them was listed for a pro Brexit/Idiot conference a few months ago, i just put their channel on Do No Recommend after that. I wouldn't disagree that the Kite festival could be described as the Idiot conference, but it's definitely more in the vein of the "can't we all just get along" centrist kind of idiot rather than the GB News loving Brexit junkie kind of idiot. Jay was booked to do his standard musical comedy for kids set at the festival, in the children's play area. Obviously associating with that could still be beyond the pale for some, but I thought it worth mentioning since I think there's a difference between playing your non-political set a multi-day festival that has a weird centrist throughline vs performing at some turbo-chud event where you're warming up the crowd for Laurence Fox.
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Jul 14, 2023 03:00
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Sanford posted:Oh drat really? Someone had compiled a load of stats on dangerous dogs and showed that over 50% of dog attacks in the UK are by “bully breeds.” It was an incredibly UKMT post, god knows where I saw it if not here. There was a post on r/unitedkingdom like that.
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Jul 15, 2023 13:52
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Amazon thought I might be interested in a Geiger counter yesterday
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Jul 20, 2023 14:35
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I hope it doesn't turn out to be like that story about the pregnancy coupons where two weeks from now I'm going to sheepishly realise that I was actually irradiated all along. (yes I know that story has been called into question in recent years)
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Jul 20, 2023 14:38
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I'd really want to see a source on that claim because it sounds like bullshit to me. I have to get annual training on what my regulator considers improper gifts, and basic food is considered well within the norms of an appropriate gift. If I buy chocolates or pizzas for a contractor's staff nobody's going to raise an eyebrow. Could be the rules are different for politics but I'm skeptical given all the bullshit politicians get up to with their lobbyist mates.
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Jul 21, 2023 00:54
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Jedit posted:There's a specific ruling on the law that it doesn't apply to ordinary hospitality. Treating only applies when you are offering someone incentives in exchange for their vote. You know, like in political lobbying. Yeah, which seems quite consistent with the plain language of the statute: quote:114Treating. Buying pizzas for your dedicated canvassers as thanks for their work isn't the same as that, you're not offering the food to influence them to vote for you. You can really twist your neck and imagine a chain of causality where someone agrees to become a canvasser as a result of the possible provision of future food, but even so the crime plainly requires a guilty mind on the part of the food's provider--the Crown would need to show the food's provider had a corrupt intent to influence the voting of the people being fed, when there's a much simpler explanation behind the act (gratitude for the work done canvassing). Especially so when a lot of the canvassers will be from outside the constituency and thus likely don't have a vote at all.
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Jul 21, 2023 09:00
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Guavanaut posted:Tories I think that might be the best summation of british politics ever written Guavanaut.
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Jul 21, 2023 11:00
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Maximum Pepsi posted:I know how I learn, I guess I can only speak from my own experience. but someone yelling/scolding me makes me want to do the opposite of whatever. Here's the thing, though. You mentioned that a post in this thread had helped you recognise your "prejudice for (maybe) the first time". I'd ask that you stop and think about what that means. It means that in this thread, the attitudes you were expressing were prejudiced. They had to be, right? For that post to respond to what you were saying and get you to realise that? The key insight that should follow from that is this: Saying prejudiced things is offensive. It upsets them, it makes them angry, and they're not wrong to feel that way. And we have a socially acceptable mechanism for dealing with that. When you're in a conversation with a group of people, and you say something that the group finds highly offensive, you're societally expected to apologise for the offensive thing you said, and most people would consider the polite thing to do to be to exit from the situation after the apology until things cool down a bit. That doesn't mean you wouldn't be welcome back in future--though on your return you might occasionally have to reiterate that you really are still sorry for the offensive attitude you expressed (and ideally, that you've re-examined your prejudice and hopefully shed it). But what you probably shouldn't do, if you've expressed a view that you yourself have now realised is prejudiced and offended a large number of people in the process, is stick around, continue to argue with people who are offended, and make out that they're the problem for getting upset about the prejudiced views you expressed. That's not going to help you assimilate to the posting climate in here, if you catch my drift.
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Aug 3, 2023 15:29
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Maximum Pepsi posted:Maybe there are GRT ppl qwho post on this dead-gay forum. If they do post here I am genuninnly sorry. Not just sorry for the offence caused, but sorry for offending them. Being Irish isn't the same thing as being Irish Traveller. If it's a requirement to salve your conscience, three of my four sets of great grandparents were Irish Traveller so I guess I'm 75% GRT. But it's not about that--when someone expresses prejudiced views, people who reject those views aren't offended on behalf of someone else, they're offended because someone has expressed something offensive. Whether there's someone GRT here doesn't actually matter! Prejudiced views are offensive to people in this thread, regardless of their background. Of course if you didn't actually care about being offensive, that'd be another matter altogether. But it wouldn't leave you much of a leg to stand on for complaining about people being mean to you.
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Aug 3, 2023 15:59
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It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks, and to become one with all the people. — Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Ethics for Tomorrow"
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Aug 8, 2023 08:53
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smellmycheese posted:Why is every character an upper class English person lmao. Demons talking like Prince Charles ffs. And Dwarfs should be Scottish So far the only dwarf I've met had a northen irish accent, which I thought to be some inspired casting and from now on dwarves in my D&D games will no longer give quests, but will instead make legitimate and peaceful requests.
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Aug 11, 2023 12:35
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DreddyMatt posted:Why's an East Asian man going to a Bernard Manning show? Like, what's the thought process there? maybe he was a massive Joy Division fan and thought he was going to see Bernard Sumner
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Aug 16, 2023 15:36
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