UK General Discussion

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LOL Andrew Mitchell!

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Two SNP MSPs leave party over NATO policy change

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All the "former members for Bexley" are dead. I thought you could freely libel the dead in Britain.

You can, for the moment.

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UK has exited recession with a 1.0% GDP growth in Q3. A good chunk of that is due to the Olympics, but by no means all.

Question is whether this can be sustained and whether the unemployment numbers come down.

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With a punishment like that, he might as well take the Chiltern Hundreds if he gets it

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Breaking news: MacShane has resigned as an MP.

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Nadine Dorries gets Tory whip suspended for going on reality show in Australia

Kind of difficult to talk about abortion with a mouthful of insects.

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Publicity seeking.

At the moment, she's merely managed to get covered in cockroaches and have to eat insects.

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It's terrible publicity. Career poison. I still don't understand her motive.

She's probably going to get more votes than she'll ever get as an MP though....

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The big thing about that is that they'd have been better off not in it.

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Is this "Nick a Celeb" week or something?

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Obviously the main news story of the day is the death of Sir Patrick Moore.

Indeed - a superb astronomer.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/07/boris-johnson-child-benefit-_n_2423292.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

The fact he's the most popular politician in the country makes me sick.

Well it's certainly not going to be Ed now is it He's referring of course to the axing of child benefit for wealthy families; you know, those who earn two to three times the average wage who are still entitled to claim it. He admits himself he and his wife had received nearly £50,000 over the past twenty years which probably went on his ski-ing holidays.

If he called it an "absurd system whereby low-income people paid in their taxes for richer families to receive this Mussolini-like reward for procreation", then I fully agree with him, because that's exactly what it is. I know of a Tory in my local association who think's it's crazy for him to receive it but spends it on his daughter's pony lessons.

Pony lessons and skiing holidays do benefit children, but should the state pay for them?

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What? Did you read my post, or the article for that matter.

I'm not saying that the state should give child benefit to rich families (although I disagree with the way this new cap is calculated). What I am saying is that those things can benefit children; taking a child to Switzerland for a ski holiday is something that they enjoy.

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A report into Britain's most successful sex offender includes the figure of 214 offences, including 34 rapes. And, for obvious reasons, those figures probably have to be seen as minimum estimates.

How did this guy manage to get away with this for over 55 years? It seems the only thing that stopped him was poor health.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/14/boundary-review-liberal-democrats_n_2471600.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

So if Liberal ministers in the Lords have voted against the government, isn't the precedent that they resign under collective responsibility?

With the coalition, I don't think a lot of the precedents stand any more.

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Good news for Cameron with ICM. Labour's lead down to 5.

The opposition being in majority territory is good news now?

That's exactly the spirit we want to hear It's ideal for us to have people think that Miliband will propel you to victory in 2 and half years time without having to work for it. Keep it going

Rate your lot are going, we won't even need to campaign.

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It wasn't so much pressure from UKIP (and this has basically killed their raison d'etre) but expectation that Miliband would offer the same thing.

Any attempt to renegotiate the treaties is going to have involve the entire 28 (Croatia joins this year) or fail entirely - because France and Germany won't accept a free rider.

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He'll certainly get prison time, but how much really depends on the trial of his ex-wife, who pleaded marital coercion.

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Havering MPs: Rosindell against (not a surprise), Watkinson and Cruddas in favour.

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Any exam with a name that most people have difficulty spelling is not a good exam.

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139 MPs voting against their own Leader in the HoC must surely be a record, right?

For the modern era, yes (there were bigger revolts over the Corn Laws). It's actually been done twice - once for the Conservatives over gay marriage and once for Labour over the Iraq War. The latter one was a whipped vote, so it's arguably more significant.

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Printing bikini shots of murder victim was done by all the red tops today.

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You know if this was a British case, contempt of court proceedings would be happening now.

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The big news tonight comes from Moodys. They've downgraded the credit rating.

All the cuts and the credit rating still gets downgraded. I though this government would deal with the deficit at huge social cost... and they can't even do the former.