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Comment by nly | Hacker News Reader

You seem to know your shit. What resources do you follow to stay current with UK politics?

Without wanting to be rude about anon1385 (who I'm sure does know his shit), I'm not sure he said anything particularly insightful. I'd have had pretty much the same ideas that he had (though wouldn't have articulated them so well), and while I do have a general interest in politics, I really don't do a good job staying up-to-date on current affairs, so for the most part my knowledge is reasonable but not at all detailed.

Perhaps if you yourself are not in the UK then that's why you ask, as I guess foreigners would need to more specifically try harder to keep up to date with our politics than we do here (even with my loose following of current afairs, the papers I read are written with a UK focus, the topical news quizzes I watch on TV are UK focused, etc.)

Yeah, I've nothing particularly insightful to say here beyond things that become apparent if you follow UK politics. To those who don't I'm sure it gets fairly confusing; there are a lot of byzantine things about the process of UK politics. I was mostly trying to provide a bit of context for the non-uk readers.

Having said that, if people are interested in the day to day then the Guardian do a live politics blog most days which will have coverage of speeches, important votes and links to articles and comment pieces in the other papers.

Also if you are a UK citizen and care about politics I think it really is worth your time to actually sit and watch parliament at some point. Preferably try and work out when they will be talking about an issue you care about or have an interest in (I'd advise against Prime Ministers Questions, it's mostly a lot of pre-prepared soundbites and weak jokes with very little answering of questions). It will probably reveal quite a bit about the real positions of backbenchers, the main parties etc beyond what you see in the papers or the soundbites on the TV news. You may find it surprising who you are agreeing with or not. Also there is a lot of theatre and protocol to it which is kind of entertaining at times.

I'm a big fan of the Guardian, but I'd also suggest that for anyone who has trouble keeping up-to-date, you're probably best off trying out difference sources and finding the one that suits you. Whether that's a source that's extremely left- or right-wing, or somewhere in the middle, if it works for you, chances are you'll read it more. Of course, the next improvement up from this is to read multiple sources to get the fuller, more objective picture.

Also, I've found comedic sources can be great. My two are Have I Got News For You (Friday night comedy panel show based around current afairs - doesn't run all year round though) and Private Eye (satirical current afairs weekly magazine - coincidentally edited by one of the permanent team captains on HIGNFY, Ian Hislop). They can be great fun if you know what they are going to cover already, and they can be a great way for people who are less interested, or just less up-to-date, to get a snapshot of news without having to try too hard to get into it.

Order-Order is a good site to catch up on gossip and rumors about MPs.

There are also multiple satirical current affairs shows that alternate on BBC Radio 4, again broadcast on Friday evenings among other times. If you enjoy Have I Got News For You then The Now Show or The News Quiz are probably worth your time as well.

I was mostly referring to your initial post about Allegra Stratton and the various summaries of the MPs involved in this letter. I vaguely follow UK politics but being able to put news in to perspective, and recognise biases like this, is quite useful.

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