Oolite Bulletins

Had to do a bit of Goggling to figure out what this was about. Didn't know there was a sequel to Life on Mars.

I might be interested in it, just for the 80's soundtrack

For Labor, it seems like an obvious ad to do. I don't know how well the Conservative response is going to play. When are elections?
Is the Prime Minister elected directly in England, or chosen by whichever party gets a majority in Parliament ?

Added:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8496591.stm
Wow, so you have pretty fast campaign cycles. About 1 1/2 months from start to finish. US takes much longer, but we have regular elections, so people start well in advance, especially during presidential years.

Chrisfs wrote:

Had to do a bit of Goggling to figure out what this was about. Didn't know there was a sequel to Life on Mars.

Yes, its called Ashes to Ashes.

You have missed its first two series, but series three (the final series) began this week.

Chrisfs wrote:

Had to do a bit of Goggling to figure out what this was about. Didn't know there was a sequel to Life on Mars.

I might be interested in it, just for the 80's soundtrack

For Labor, it seems like an obvious ad to do. I don't know how well the Conservative response is going to play. When are elections?
Is the Prime Minister elected directly in England, or chosen by whichever party gets a majority in Parliament ?

Added:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8496591.stm
Wow, so you have pretty fast campaign cycles. About 1 1/2 months from start to finish. US takes much longer, but we have regular elections, so people start well in advance, especially during presidential years.

We have regular elections to - a max of 5 yrs between elections, but it's often 4 - Gordon Brown will ask the Queen to dissolve parliament this week with the expected date for a General Election to be on May 6th.

Chrisfs wrote:

Had to do a bit of Goggling to figure out what this was about. Didn't know there was a sequel to Life on Mars.

I might be interested in it, just for the 80's soundtrack

I don't know if it's worth it. Frankly the whole concept hit an unrepeatable peak in Life on Mars with the Camberwick Green dream sequence ...

Chrisfs wrote:

For Labor, it seems like an obvious ad to do. I don't know how well the Conservative response is going to play. When are elections?
Is the Prime Minister elected directly in England, or chosen by whichever party gets a majority in Parliament ?

Not just in England: people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are allowed to chip in their suggestions too.

As to how this will play with the electorate, this depends on how many people in the UK are actually affected by – and I say this as a long-time contributor to the YAH thread – cheap Photoshop stunts. I expect the inevitable make-your-own-political-poster sites, reducing politicians to the level of (unpleasant) lolcats, will probably have more impact ... e.g. this one. The prevailing mood in the country right now could not be said to be "in favour" of any politician or political party, and the most sensible response I've heard to the prospect of a hung parliament is "Hanging's too good for them".

The Prime Minister is the leader of the party that gets the majority of seats in Parliament. Usually, getting about 35-40% of the votes cast is enough for a thumping "majority". At the last election, Tony Blair got about 37% of the votes cast, on a 61% turnout, representing the approval of about 22.5% of the electorate. So more than three out of every four people in the country either didn't vote, or voted for another party. In the UK, we call this a "mandate".

Chrisfs wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8496591.stm
Wow, so you have pretty fast campaign cycles. About 1 1/2 months from start to finish. US takes much longer, but we have regular elections, so people start well in advance, especially during presidential years.

A lot of this is because we don't have fixed-term governments. There's a fixed maximum term, but at any point within that period the government of the day can call a snap election. Which in no way encourages short-term politicking, stunt-running, etc. Oh no. Just in case you thought it might.

Oh yes, and our head of state is hereditary, we have no written constitution and our entire upper chamber of parliament is unelected. Until 1999 people could inherit the right to sit there (and we still have 92 members who get to sit in there because of who their great-great-great-etc. grandparents were, or at least who they slept with). And Bishops of the Church of England get to sit in there too, and fiddle about with the laws as if they knew what they were doing. And all decisions are communicated to the House of Commons in bad medieval French. Welcome to Britain!

Disembodied wrote:

Chrisfs wrote:

Is the Prime Minister elected directly in England, or chosen by whichever party gets a majority in Parliament ?

Not just in England: people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are allowed to chip in their suggestions too.

To be fair Scotland Wales and NI have separate parliaments or assemblies as well as the overall Westminster government, so its not surprising that foreigners dont understand.

Id have summarised somewhat differently: Although the prime minister is not a president, and is not directly elected, the UK population does not seem to understand this, and many people vote for the PM they want rather than for a local representative (or think they do).

Cmdr James wrote:

Id have summarised somewhat differently: Although the prime minister is not a president, and is not directly elected, the UK population does not seem to understand this, and many people vote for the PM they want rather than for a local representative (or think they do).

This is true ... even though I do understand this, I still wrote that

Disembodied wrote:

At the last election, Tony Blair got about 37% of the votes cast ...

as if "votes for Tony Blair" were the same as "votes for the Labour Party".

I suspect this is a modern trend, the result of a centralising tendency within the two main parties, combined with increasing media focus on the leaders of the party (it's easier and cheaper to do this, I suppose, than to track hundreds of different candidates and innumerable local issues around the country – especially as more and more local media goes bust). A great many people in the UK would struggle to name their own MP.

Disembodied wrote:

Chrisfs wrote:

For Labor, it seems like an obvious ad to do. I don't know how well the Conservative response is going to play. When are elections?
Is the Prime Minister elected directly in England, or chosen by whichever party gets a majority in Parliament ?

Not just in England: people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are allowed to chip in their suggestions too.

Oops, I confess that I tend to use England and United Kingdom interchangeably, which likely annoys people who actually live there.

As to how this will play with the electorate, this depends on how many people in the UK are actually affected by – and I say this as a long-time contributor to the YAH thread – cheap Photoshop stunts. I expect the inevitable make-your-own-political-poster sites, reducing politicians to the level of (unpleasant) lolcats, will probably have more impact ... e.g. this one. The prevailing mood in the country right now could not be said to be "in favour" of any politician or political party, and the most sensible response I've heard to the prospect of a hung parliament is "Hanging's too good for them".

The Prime Minister is the leader of the party that gets the majority of seats in Parliament. Usually, getting about 35-40% of the votes cast is enough for a thumping "majority". At the last election, Tony Blair got about 37% of the votes cast, on a 61% turnout, representing the approval of about 22.5% of the electorate. So more than three out of every four people in the country either didn't vote, or voted for another party. In the UK, we call this a "mandate".

Chrisfs wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8496591.stm
Wow, so you have pretty fast campaign cycles. About 1 1/2 months from start to finish. US takes much longer, but we have regular elections, so people start well in advance, especially during presidential years.

A lot of this is because we don't have fixed-term governments. There's a fixed maximum term, but at any point within that period the government of the day can call a snap election. Which in no way encourages short-term politicking, stunt-running, etc. Oh no. Just in case you thought it might.

I had forgotten about the House of Lords, though eliminating that 'seat by heredity' thing seems like a good idea for a democracy and if anyone floated the idea that Bishops got an automatic seat in the Senate, you would really see the sparks fly.
Though, I got to say in some ways, I'm still pretty envious of an election season that is done in two months. Though the off year elections, like this year, go pretty fast. The whole lower House gets elections every two years as well as 1/3 of the Senate, and in California a raft of initiatives, because California is always crazy about initiatives, which is good and bad.

Chrisfs wrote:

I had forgotten about the House of Lords, though eliminating that 'seat by heredity' thing seems like a good idea for a democracy and if anyone floated the idea that Bishops got an automatic seat in the Senate, you would really see the sparks fly.

The days of the bishops must be numbered I would imagine, the alternative would be to have representatives of all the major religions and that sounds like chaos. Just wait until the Jedi and the Flying Spaghetti lot start petitioning for seats

Im not going to try to defend the lords as democratic, but, I think it is worth considering that the hereditary peers are not really impacted by party politics, and in some way are the most independent portion of the UK government system. There is an argument that this is a good thing.
The lords is the "Checks and Balances" we so often hear about, and having a degree of independence and even the distance from short term electoral concerns could be argued to be a good thing.

FWIW I personally dont trust a single one of them, we could use a set of tarot cards to run the country and I think we'd be no worse off.

Cmdr James wrote:

we could use a set of tarot cards to run the country and I think we'd be no worse off.

Makes me think of that TV series 'House of Cards'...

Cmdr James wrote:

we could use a set of tarot cards to run the country and I think we'd be no worse off.

Heck, a magic 8-ball would probably do it ...

Disembodied wrote:

Cmdr James wrote:

we could use a set of tarot cards to run the country and I think we'd be no worse off.

Heck, a magic 8-ball would probably do it ...

Should we join the EU ?
(shake) (shake) (shake)

"Outlook Hazy, Ask Again Later"

http://wwwwww.truthdig.com/eartothegrou ... +Headlines
I'm not promoting the article, I'm just point out the cute graphic of a politician in bed "with a fat cat".

One thing that caught me off guard as an American outsider to British politics is that the Prime Minister that supported the Iraq War was from Labor. Since the war was so greatly associated with Bush, a conservative Republican, it was assumed, by me at least, that the British Prime Minister who went with him had the same political leaning. I was surprised when I learned he was from Labor. Hindsight being 100% correct and all that, it seemed politically awful move as a Labor member to support that war.

All I know about British elections I learned from Monty Python
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31FFTx6AKmU

@Chrisfs - ah, different political persuassions but both God-botherers, the Iraq War was a 20th/21st Century crusade - Blair (our ex-PM) said (accidentally) in a recent interview that he'd have gone to war even if the argument against finding the WMDs had been proven at the time...

Chrisfs wrote:

http://wwwwww.truthdig.com/eartothegrou ... +Headlines

That is one seriously borked URL.. wanna try again?