General British politics discussion thread

I'm not aware of any termination payment for Ministers here. And 36 hours service would still leave you pretty much a whole two years short of getting a pension for the role.

There's a loss of office payment to TDs, of two months salary; and you need 6 months service to get that at all - Malcolm Byrne wouldn't have got one in 2020, albeit if he had he would have had to pay it back anyway when he became a Senator.

So the solution to a flawed democratic system is to skip one of the existing democratic steps?

The members voting (something that is open to everyone in the country technically) seems fine to me. Again why would you want bypass it?

(By the way I'd be happy if the Conservatives membership dropped to zero and the party ceased to exist, so really don't understand your dig in the last sentence)

Do Irish supermarkets secure-tie anti-theft tags to packs of butter or blocks of cheese, like some UK supermarkets have started doing lately?

As for what to expect to happen in the UK, watch this autumn-winter space, when strained household budgets collide with the uplifted energy price cap. And that’s assuming no change in the pan-European energy supply mix (i.e. that Russia actually resumes some supply via Nord Stream 1 post-maintenance shutdown) by then.

By many metrics (currency volatility, life expectancy, academic outcomes, social mobility, child poverty <…>) Britain is slowly sliding down into second world country status, and has been steadily dropping in the G20 ranking. No surprise, given the absence of captaincy and policies for a number of years, the same global challenges as everyone else, turbocharged by a side-helping of self-applied trade sanctions.

I’m not seeing any policies proposed by the current no.10 hopefuls, apt to turn this around any time soon.

It's a bit stupid really. The Tories have already admitted they have no confidence in him and will vote to keep him until they can finish their process.

It’s a bit of a show alright but it’ll force conservatives to vote and get it down on paper and labour is they’re smart can use it against the conservatives in a future election.

They are right for once.

Labour whipped their lords to abstain on a Lib Dems amendment to the schools bill entitling those children in families on universal credit to free school lunches.

I honestly don't understand what Starmer stands for, and as has been mentioned by others his, "well at least I'm not Boris Johnson" pitch won't work if the Tories elect someone less shít than him. He seemingly has a relaunch every other month, and yes, he is still the son of a tool maker, with 3 new meaningless key words on the posters. He needs better advice not just jumping to the tune of each new focus group finding.

Didn’t work very well did it as 29 of them voted for it.

I took the one that was last on the votes but didn’t see the other one.

It's utterly stupid. All they are doing is giving him more platform and a higher profile.

The more attention the MET give him the more people will think he has something to say.