December '12 MoLA - Third Week Report

Day 1,863, 09:24 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Department for Education

Law Proposals
Here is the list of Laws which Congress has voted on in the last week.


Mutual Protection Pact - Slovenia - ACCEPTED.
This law was proposed by ebutaljib, President of Slovenia. Slovenia are an old ally and fellow TWO member and so will be working closely with us on wars and diplomacy.


President Impeachment - REJECTED.
This law was proposed by Zaphod Beeblebrox IV as a joke and 60% of those who voted agreed that it was hilarious. This has put another giant fracture in community relations so well done guys.

While there may be some justified criticism of BigAnt's activity levels, it isn't lower than the majority of Presidents we have had in the past and it isn't the President's job to run every single Ministry solo. Impeaching for average levels of activity on Christmas Eve seems a bit harsh to me.


Import Tax: Iron - ACCEPTED.
This law was proposed by Danie Fox. A 4% rise doesn't affect UK Businesses but may eke out a little extra tax revenue from foreigners.


Natural Enemy: Portugal - ACCEPTED.
This law was proposed by President BigAnt. The UK has been tasked with the occupation of Portugal by TWO HQ so we need to be in Portugal to do that. There are two big issues here:


1) TWO HQ is actually split over these war plans. This was not communicated to myself or Congress by former MoFA Frerk who brought these plans to a vote at the request of the leader of TWO.

Since some of those in TWO HQ opposed to the war are UK Citizens from the previous government, it seems like internal UK Politics are influencing decisions in TWO HQ and internal divisions in TWO HQ are messing up the war plans.

Some are trying to shift blame onto President BigAnt but the orders came from TWO HQ to MoFA Frerk to Congress who almost unanimously supported it.


2) The war and Christmas Eve/Day have caused timing issues in Ireland and Belgium's Training Wars. Both countries are angry and have declared war on the UK while some UK citizens chose to fan the flames of war which hasn’t helped. We are negotiating to close these wars which is almost complete.

Our reopening of the route to Portugal via Canada has disrupted Ireland's Training War plans with Canada, Ireland are also allies with Portugal. We had a Non-Aggression Pact with Ireland but they are not happy that we are not agreeing our war plans with them.

There have been issues closing the UK-Belgium Training War from both ends, a battle was started early on the UK side which Belgium thought would cost them 10 Congressmen in their elections - but it didn't.

I'll leave it to BigAnt to explain these timing issues. Some are delighted and are using this as an opportunity to flame, troll and make people quit the game but I think we should listen to what BigAnt has to say first.




Citizenship Passes
Here are the Citizenship Passes which have been given out in the last week.


UKPP:
Gazda Boki -> Mr Knee
Sir Marvin -> Saiwun
Not JMC -> Igor Pankry

UKRP:
AdMiRaL TrEnCh -> 5butjam
Gyantse -> 5butjam
Mr Extra -> Minecrafting Instead
Prince Eugene of Savoy -> Minecrafting Instead

PCP:
Ivana Partizan -> Zaphod Beeblebrox IV
Seranok -> Zaphod Beeblebrox IV


We will be testing a new citizenship system in the next 2 weeks.
Applicants will fill in this form:
http://tinyurl.com/Citizens-Form

Congressmen can see all applications on this spreadsheet:
http://tinyurl.com/Citizens-Advice-Doc

Anyone with an interest in judging applicants please contact me for access to write on the spreadsheet, thanks already to Nebojsa and Wayne for giving some great advice and getting involved.

Congressmen should take advice given very seriously. A list of Congressmen who accepted people against advice will be published for the public, their party and their Party President to see, possibly hurting their re-election chances if they made a poor choice.




Congress Communication
This month we are trailing a new in game communication system, using group PMs and articles to discuss laws and issues.

For Congress there was some continuation of the Foreign Affairs and Tax discussions from previous weeks which I will archive this week for you all to read.

Our Party Presidents and Military Unit Leaders have been discussing community relations with little success; I will also archive this with their permission. Our aim was to have a peace conference but there doesn't seem to be much interest in that?

I will be doing another article later explaining a new Proposal System which should get everyone more involved, we will also be doing non sensitive discussions in articles which should fix a lot of issues!

The in game messaging boycott is over with the exception of Kraaven. His responce to mass PMs sent to congressmen who haven't friended me for the group messages AND to me being in Congress IRC channels is to stay that I am harassing/stalking him, which I find insulting and creepy. I'll be cutting off contact with this player as he requests.




Congress Election
Well done to our new Congressmen, here are the final results:

* Voter turnout was down because the election was on Christmas Day so pay more attention to the percentages:

* PCP changing support from ESO to New Era has skewed the figures for these two parties. PCP have two congressmen again but they will be staying in and working with New Era this month.


TUP+UKRP:
11 Congressmen (-3)
170 votes (-51)
28.52% (-5.06😵

New Era:
10 Congressmen (+1, +2 PCP, -1 WRP)
141 votes (+7 inc PCP and WRP)
23.66% (+3.3% inc PCP and WRP)

UKPP:
9 Congressmen (-3, +1 WRP)
140 votes (-43 inc WRP)
23.49% (-4.32% inc WRP)

ESO:
5 Congressmen (+0)
78 votes (-42 inc PCP)
13.09% (-5.15% inc PCP)

OV:
5 Congressmen (+5)
67 votes (+67)
11.24% (+11.24😵




Future Updates
What is coming next?

If this all works as planned then MoLA will be pretty much fully reformed! I'll be maintaining the system and getting information onto the wiki with some graphics if possible to get everything established long term.



- Sage Goku, Minister of Legislative Affairs