• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

  • Thank you to everyone who reached out with concern about the upcoming UK legislation which requires online communities to be compliant regarding illegal content. As a result of hard work and research by members of this community (chiefly iainbhx) and other members of communities UK-wide, the decision has been taken that the Sea Lion Press Forum will continue to operate. For more information, please see this thread.

Alternate Wikibox Thread

"I believe that President Reagan can say these things only because he knows that the American people will never hold him accountable for what he says; it is history that holds you accountable, and I've already expressed my opinion that Americans are not big on history. How many of them even remember their own, recent history?

Was twenty years ago so long for Americans? Ronald Reagan had not yet numbed the United States but he had succeeded in putting California to sleep; he described the Vietnam protests as 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy.' As president, he still didn't know who the enemy was."
-A Prayer for Owen Meany (1987)

KXYfQVl.png
JFcvqt3.png
 
Oppo said:
"I believe that President Reagan can say these things only because he knows that the American people will never hold him accountable for what he says; it is history that holds you accountable, and I've already expressed my opinion that Americans are not big on history. How many of them even remember their own, recent history?

Was twenty years ago so long for Americans? Ronald Reagan had not yet numbed the United States but he had succeeded in putting California to sleep; he described the Vietnam protests as 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy.' As president, he still didn't know who the enemy was."
-A Prayer for Owen Meany (1987)

KXYfQVl.png
JFcvqt3.png
Click to expand...
til that gerald ford's predecessor in the house was fucking "Bartel Jonkman"

great wikibox
 
Oppo said:
"I believe that President Reagan can say these things only because he knows that the American people will never hold him accountable for what he says; it is history that holds you accountable, and I've already expressed my opinion that Americans are not big on history. How many of them even remember their own, recent history?

Was twenty years ago so long for Americans? Ronald Reagan had not yet numbed the United States but he had succeeded in putting California to sleep; he described the Vietnam protests as 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy.' As president, he still didn't know who the enemy was."
-A Prayer for Owen Meany (1987)

KXYfQVl.png
JFcvqt3.png
Click to expand...
This is amazing. Did he run in '88?
 
Oppo said:
Was thinking he’d retire (unsure if Dole or Trump should be the Republican nominee).
Click to expand...
Trump would be interesting, depending on how well Ford is perceived (also the funny route would be Jackson from 1989-1993), and then he's defeated by someone/Ford :p
 
Oppo said:
"I believe that President Reagan can say these things only because he knows that the American people will never hold him accountable for what he says; it is history that holds you accountable, and I've already expressed my opinion that Americans are not big on history. How many of them even remember their own, recent history?

Was twenty years ago so long for Americans? Ronald Reagan had not yet numbed the United States but he had succeeded in putting California to sleep; he described the Vietnam protests as 'giving aid and comfort to the enemy.' As president, he still didn't know who the enemy was."
-A Prayer for Owen Meany (1987)

KXYfQVl.png
JFcvqt3.png
Click to expand...
Jesse Jackson beating Ford is...something. Also that Paul Simon pic *chefs kiss*.
 
Balls.pngEdward Michael Balls (born 25 February 1967) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2015 to 2026 and Leader of the Labour Party from 2010 to 2026. He served as the Member of Parliament for Normanton and later Morley and Outwood between 2005 and 2028. Outside of politics, Balls is a broadcaster, writer, economist and professor. His political views have been described as Brownite, referring to his predecessor as Labour leader Gordon Brown, although these have since become synonymous with Balls. Alongside Harold Wilson and Tony Blair, Balls is one of only three Labour leaders to have formed three majority governments and one of only two, with Blair, to have won three successive general election victories.

Balls attended Nottingham High School before studying philosophy, politics and economics at Keble College, Oxford, and was later a Kennedy Scholar in economics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He was a teaching fellow at Harvard from 1988 to 1990, when he joined the Financial Times as the lead economic writer. Balls had joined the Labour Party whilst attending Nottingham High School, and became an adviser to Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown in 1994, continuing in this role after Labour won the 1997 general election, and eventually becoming the Chief Economic Advisor to the Treasury.

At the 2005 general election, Balls was elected as the MP for Normanton (which in 2010 became Morley and Outwood), and in 2006 became the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. When Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, Balls became Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, serving until the 2010 general election; Labour were at that point defeated after thirteen years in government, and returned to Opposition. Balls was appointed as Shadow Secretary of State for Education under Harriet Harman during her time as acting leader. After the Labour Party was defeated at the 2010 general election, Brown resigned as Leader of the Labour Party. After a short leadership contest, Balls was elected to replace him in July 2010 defeating David Miliband, Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham.

Under Balls, the Labour Party shifted leftwards compared to New Labour. In the 2015 general election, the Labour Party were widely expected to become the largest party in another hung parliament. The final results produced an unexpected majority for Labour of sixteen seats.

Balls' first government was fiscally disciplined but used the re-introduction of the 50% tax rate and the new tax on properties with a value of over £2 million (known as the 'mansion tax') to fund an extension of free childcare and additional spending for the NHS and schools. Extension of the voting franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds, devolution of more powers to the nations and regions and the abolition of the House of Lords and creation of the Senate of the United Kingdom were defining constitutional reforms all occurred during his first term. In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the UK and led to section 1(5) of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011 being used for the first time which postponed the 2020 general election from 7 May 2020 to 2 July 2020.

In the 2020 general election the Labour Party won a landslide victory with a record number of votes on a high turnout of 74.5%, the highest since 1992, which was fuelled by a substantial increase in postal voting caused by the pandemic. The first year of Balls' second government was dominated by the response to the pandemic and the rollout of vaccines. Pandemic stimulus measures were introduced including the 'High Street Voucher Scheme', while a one-off wealth tax was introduced to fund the new British Wealth Fund. Domestically, the second term of Balls' government also saw the hosting of the COP26 summit, the abolition of inheritance tax, the abolition of the apprenticeship levy, the staging of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the launch of the 'GreenGO' scheme and the rollout of universal free at the point of use bus travel in England.

In the 2025 general election, Balls led the Labour Party to a third successive victory with a reduced majority. Although Balls would resign as Prime Minister just one year into his third term, it saw the launch of 'Green Skills Academies', the creation of the National Investment Bank, the introduction of 'Productivity UK', the introduction of regional economic executives in England, the completion of the National Care Service and the launch of the ultimately successful joint Manchester-Liverpool bid for the 2036 Olympic Games.

Balls oversaw the end of the United Kingdom's military presence in Afghanistan in 2021 and authorised the bombing of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria in 2015. Balls authorised, without parliamentary approval, missile strikes against government targets in Syria in 2018 in response to the use of chemical weapons. The Trident nuclear deterrent was renewed in 2016.

Balls announced that he would resign as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in March 2026 and was succeeded by Andy Burnham in May 2026. Serving for 11 years and 5 days, Balls' time as Prime Minister was the longest of any Labour Prime Minister and the longest overall since Margaret Thatcher, making him the 8th longest serving Prime Minister.
 
Last edited:
jQSxoYw.png
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first general election at the end of a fixed-term Parliament. Local elections took place in most areas on the same day.

Polls and commentators had predicted a close result and possibly a second consecutive hung parliament that would be similar to the 2010 election. On the whole opinion polls were proven to have slightly underestimated the Labour vote with the party winning 333 seats and 34.8% of the vote share, giving them a small overall majority of 16 seats. It is the lowest vote share any majority government has won in UK electoral history.

The Conservative Party, which had governed in coalition with the Liberal Democrats since 2010, suffered their lowest share of the vote since 1832 and returned 200 MPs which was their lowest seat tally since the 2005 election. Senior Conservative MPs, notably Wales Secretary Stephen Crabb, Employment Minister Esther McVey and Veterans Minister Anna Soubry, were defeated.

The Scottish National Party, enjoying a surge in support after the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, recorded a number of large swings from Labour and increase it's number of seats to 43 to become the third-largest party in the Commons. The Liberal Democrats, led by outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, had their worst result since their formation in 1988 and the worst vote share of the main centrist party in the UK since 1970. The party lost 38 of its 57 seats and it's vote fell to 7.7%.

UKIP came third in terms of votes with 15.4% but failed to win any seats, losing the two seats it had gained at by-elections in 2014. The Green Party won its highest-ever share of the vote with 4.9% and retained its only seat. In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party returned to the Commons with two MPs after a five-year absence, while the Alliance Party lost its only seat despite increasing its share of the vote.

David Cameron resigned as Prime Minister on 8 May and Ed Balls was appointed by the Queen as his replacement. Cameron also announced his resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party, although he became acting leader while a successor was appointed. Nick Clegg resigned as Leader of the Liberal Democrats and was replaced by Norman Lamb after a leadership election.

The Conservative Party made 18 gains, 17 from the Liberal Democrats and 1 from Labour, while it suffered 91 losses, all of them to Labour. The Labour Party made 104 gains, including the 91 from the Conservatives, 1 from Plaid Cymru and 12 from the Liberal Democrats and suffered 29 losses with all but 1 being to the SNP.

This election was the last to be held where voters aged 16 and 17 years old could not participate, with the franchise being extended in 2016 as part of the Great Reform Acts of 2016 and 2017 that introduced widespread political reform across the United Kingdom. The 56th Parliament that was elected in the 2015 election was also the last to include the House of Lords following it's abolition in 2019 and replacement by the mostly elected Senate of the United Kingdom.

Ed Balls formed his first government on 8 and 9 May with notable appointments including Harriet Harman as Deputy Prime Minister, David Miliband as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Andy Burnham as Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband as Home Secretary and Dan Jarvis as Defence Secretary.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top