I had no idea that the Secret State was (loosely) based on A Very British Coup, nor that it was set in Teesside! Will definitely be watching. I enjoyed the C4's actual adaptation of the book, even if it did needlessly change some fundamental parts.

Forgive me if I don't celebrate it, even moreso after reading the 'businessman' selling it in the article.

It's not "vote for everything", is it? It's vote for offering some needless figurehead a disgustingly high salary at a time of mass redundancies. Why? As manualex says, it's chiefly so government gets to wash its hands of failures, and use that high wage to demand the impossible. 

If it were actually "vote for everything" you can bet those nominally libertarian twats wouldn't be found supporting it.

Wonder if he bothered to put a liquorice stick or a strawberry lolly in them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20157063

How important is this?

Remains to be seen, really. Its implications, rather than the actual defeat, of course.

It made me laugh and be offended at the same time. HA is a fitting acronym.

Neoliberal sympathies.

So basically what Italy is now?

New boundaries resemble an elephant.

Well that and his sanity back (Democrats 'far-left', GTFO).

Even then their social liberalness is completely overplayed. Both parties are so right-wing it makes little difference distinguishing between the two.

2012 - Tut, tut, picking Cameron as Romney's matchup. Chalk and Cheese It would be someone more like Liam Fox.

Nah, it really isn't. It'd only have been Fox if the Republican Right had been more successful.

Not to mention only allowing women into the party to receive state funding.

CND.

A new party has been founded in Austria today: "NEOS - The new Austria"

Sounds like one of those annoying "increased spending with lower taxes" party that promise everything to everyone, a.k.a. pre-coalition LibDems. When xenophobic parties says it they at-least pretend they can make up the difference by cutting immigration.

Not to mention their proposed election-system sounds awful. I'm all for abolishing unnecessary second chambers though.     

Really? The past Lib Dems hardly promised everything, desperate to prove themselves 'moderate', and what they did offer, they tended to balance out with mansion tax, scrapping of trident etc. I'd say NEOS look far closer to the current Lib Dems: the only thing stopping them being seen as your standard right-of-centre neoliberal party is their equally liberal social stances, and even then it shouldn't.

Armando Iannucci's tweet:

A fitting end to a phenomenal series. Glenn's exit was just perfect, and there was so many funny bits (even 'this is basically the same f**king exit' had me roaring).

I'm in mourning.

#2.

There are candidate statements on http://www.choosemypcc.org.uk/

I haven't found any obvious nutters among the Independents yet, but I haven't looked very hard.

It's the Mervyn Barrett's I want to find, but unfortunately it's next to impossible.

Cheers. Hartlepool are letting the side down with that UKIP support.

Alongside a united Ireland, presumably.

Am I remembering correctly in thinking HF are the right wingers by the back door sort? If so that's disappointing, especially when gaining off what appear to be traditional independents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjmhhpkmPig

Any idea what caused the bitterness between him and Kinnock?

I'd definitely see them as left of Labour in contempary times, but I think they've been allowed that mantle by Labour's rightward drift moreso than any committal to the Left - their positioning on the Left is useful to their advancement, and will always be secondary to their nationalism. As it is - like every other party in the UK - it's an awkward alliance, with undeniably left of centre stances at the moment but a concern that you couldn't trust them not to abandon them the moment Independence forced them to compete in the global economy (not to mention Salmond's past well publicised praise of Iceland & Ireland's model).