UK General Discussion Thread: mayy lmao

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I thought a new General Discussion was appropriate, as we enter a new Parliament. If anybody has any hilarious titles, suggest them.

Right now, Cameron's most pressing task is to reshuffle cabinet, rewarding allies and placating the rabid wing. So far Michael Gove has already ensnared what will probably be a controversial tenure in justice. Energy, Scotland, Business, Chief Secretary and DPM are all vacant with the evisceration of the Lib Dems; as well as a host of random ministers.

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We know for a fact the Tories want to:

* repeal the Human rights Act
* hold a free vote on repealing the fox hunting ban.
* commit to a European referendum
* bring back the 'snooper's charter'
* and find 'savings' in target departments (Work and Pensions, Justice and Local Government all look most likely to bear the brunt of the cuts.

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Someone I've never heard of, Amber Rudd, promoted to Energy. Good news: she's a green Tory  (endorsed by Zac Goldsmith) in a vaguely marginal seat.

Sajid Javid to Business. Probably a good choice by Cameron.

John Whittingdale to Culture. Fun fact: he is a metalhead. He also opposes the licence fee.

Pritt Patel (?!???) is Employment minister. Terrifying.

BoJo will not be in the cabinet, but attend 'strategy meetings' whatever that means. Possibly that means once his tenure as Mayor is up, he'll be desperately attention seeking. He described the Tory post-election meeting as orgiastic (GROSS GROSS GROSS)

Robert Halfon is new Deputy Chairman of the Tories. He is - peculiarly for a Tory - a trade unionist and an opponent of the Tory Right. He also walks with crutches.

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Meanwhile in the Shadow Cabinet:

The castrated Shadow Chancellor is replaced by Chris Leslie.

Hilary Benn replaces Alexander (defeated) for Shadow Foreign Secretary. Emma Reynolds replaces him for the Shadow Communities brief.

Lord Falconer is Shadow Justice Secretary. Sadiq Khan has resigned, possibly to fight for Mayor of London.

Sole Sxottish MP Ian Murray is Shadow Scotland Sec.

Chris Bryant is deputy.

Oh and Sir Lord Alan Sugar has resigned from the Labour Party, because they are "too left wing".  Lol

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Hilary is a moderate, though he does resemble his father in terms of mannerisms freakishly.

UKIP have rejected Farage's resignation.

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Let's just say if the people who enjoyed, say, cockfighting had Eton educations and double-barrelled names, we would probably be seeing an impassioned debate on the importance of the cockfighting tradition.

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To go further in detail, not only has the rumble over Carswell declining the short money continued (someone from Farage's office called him a "c*nt"), but UKIP's campaign manager and economics spokesman Patrick O'Flynn (a Desmond goon) has stuck his boot into Farage, claiming Nigel is a thin-skinned agressive "absolute monarch". Much like an medivael monarch, dissenting factions fearing retribution (inluding UKIP's Press Office in UKIP's Mayfair HQ) are mainly taking their ire on King Nigel's advisors, who have poisoned the good king's mind with Satanic "Tea Party" ideals.

UKIP's major moneyman Stuart Wheeler wants Farage to resign, because he is too polarising to lead an EU referedum.

I wonder how long it takes for the UKIP MEP contingent to splinter into a hundred squabbling factions like last time around.

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Yeah, that's ... tenuous. Haven't the SNP's online lynch mobs got anything better to do?

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Is it me or are the cabinet trolling BoJo? first Osborne started dissing his airport plans, now May says the Met is not allowed to play with its new expensive toys (water cannon),

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Genuinely horrid populist plan to remove all benefits from unprocessed asylum seekers, including those with children (!)

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/02/concerns-raised-plan-strip-failed-asylum-seeker-families-benefits

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What the hell?!

bloody entryists

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Well it explains why Ed had difficulty stomaching that bacon sandwich.

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He never really seemed entirely in the party to begin with, tbh. Apparently he's joining some sort of Osborne commission on infrastructure (which to be fair to him, is his talent).

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Some vintage Healy in pretty standard 90's British TV.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V4LwJW909l8&ebc=ANyPxKqZAZypKX9yqCikvxXVb89E80SJcsiSPmKoBh55tw4ZDIRQ0DKp6nGNKwu2CvvE6_4_td20bNnbBCmDcFAtxPz7GTV1QQ

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Jesus, the Welsh Tory leader is terrifying.

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Perhaps we should bring in open primaries.

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Does anyone else find it surprising how much support a maximum wage has? I thought it would be less popular than scrapping tuition fees, for one.

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The Baron Norman Warner, a right-aligned peer, and former Undersecretary of State for Health, resigns the Labour whip to sit on the crossbench. Notably he was the only labour parliamentarian to vote for the 2013 NHS reform bill, and is an advocate for point of use charges for the NHS.

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Blair looks the least like a statue, the NS graphics dept. screwed up.

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Part of the problem is that regions will always be kind of arbitrary. Certainly the official "regions" map won't do.

Also it would have to come with sufficient local government reorganisation, or some areas will have layer upon layer of local governments.

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The prevailing mood around Westminster seems to be for power to be devolved to city-States centred in Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Newcastle and Liverpool styled along the Greater London model. I would be happy with that, tbh; and I think rural areas could do with simply abolishing district councils entirely, expanding use of parishes in their place, and giving unitaries more power.

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Anyway Carwyn Jones and Leanne Wood have both attacked the draft Wales Bill which, on the one hand, gives the Welsh Assembly power over transport, energy and electoral reform; but on the other apparently gives Westminster some manner of veto power and kind of half-arses the Silk Comission.

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Perhaps a better comparison would have been Prussia in Weimar Germany.

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Lord Grabiner, the leader of Clare College, resigns the Labour whip.

Simon Danczuk claims he may act as a stalking horse if labour perform badly in the May locals/pCC's/assembly elections

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Has their even been a detailed study on self-description as British vs English? I for one would describe myself as British before English, because of Welsh roots and the word English conveys ... Something more negative than "British" in my mind.