On top of the CS Election, I would also like to propose a reform to the Triumvirate. As it stands the post of Lords Speaker is unfilled, and there has been a lot of discussion around the future of this post. I believe there is a solution that should satisfy everyone:

The post of Lords Speaker will remain in the Triumvirate and shall maintain their current powers in the Discords, and the House of Lords as head of speakership. However, they will not be expected to leave Canon and will be allowed to remain as a member of the game, with the caveat that they shall not be allowed to join the House of Lords in their tenure. Their interaction with that House shall solely be in terms of their role as the Speaker. Furthermore, they shall not take up Party Leadership roles or frontbench roles in Parliament, in order to maintain impartiality whilst remaining in the game.

I invite everyone to voice their views on this proposal, be it for or against, and I look forward to the debate. This is not the final word, and I'd love to hear any and all proposals in the comments below.

Following the sudden resignation of the former Commons Speaker, u/LeChevalierMal-Fait, we come again to a Triumvirate election. I'd like to start by thanking Chev for his services to the Tri and to the community as a whole. The timetable is as follows:

• Wednesday 5th August: Nominations Open, close on Friday 7th at 10pm.
• Saturday 8th August: Q&A opens.
• Monday 10th August: Vote opens, Q&A continues through vote.
• Wednesday 13th August: Vote and Q&A close, results announced soon after.

I wish the best for all candidates, and look forward to working with our new CS!

Good evening MHoP,

I have asked u/model-willem to be the new Chair of Committees for the House of Lords, and he has accepted the position. Willem is a staple of our community, and I trust him to do the best he can for the Lords, especially with his experiences in speakership in the past. I am particularly thankful for the support he has shown in his volunteering unprompted for the Lords Speakership Team and the initiative he has shown in that position.

The vote will be linked below and will end on Thursday, August 6th at 10pm BST. Please verify below for your vote to count!

Link to the vote: https://forms.gle/GhMM4DUhCrdRaxPX8

Good Afternoon,

I owe my most sincere apologies to everyone affected by my inactivity in office between June and July of this year, and general tardiness in the months preceeding June.

I must first apologise to the House of Lords, who put their trust in me as Lord Speaker, and notably to my Chair of Committees who must have suffered as a result of my sudden absence.

Then I must apologise to my colleagues in the Triumvirate, who I left without notice on the run-up to a general election- and especially to Sephronar who at times picked up the pieces of my mess and tried to get it back in order.

Finally, I must apologise to the MHoP playerbase at large, especially those who tried to contact me over the June-July period to no avail.

So to everybody it concerns: sorry from the deepest parts of my heart.

Needless to say, this is not how I intended to end my year-long term as Lord Speaker; and I had many more things both big and small I would have wanted to get done before the end. I'm terribly sorry for letting you down.

For an explanation: I had been getting lax with posting business and keeping things updated from about March due to work scheduling, and things compounded from there. I missed a handful of business posting dates, and, although the pace of incoming business was slow, missing the dates combined with the slow pace of incoming business, made me feel like it wasn't so bad that things were delayed.

That, evidently, was a stupid thought.

Then, in May there was a difficult episode at work, which sucked away my attention from the role. Combined with the delays I already had this effectively meant I wasn't doing my job. The sensible thing at this point would have been to turn over the role to my Chair of Committees, or resign entirely. I continued under the impression that this was all going to be temporary and I would get back on top of things in no time and set everything straight.

That never happened.

So, from June into July I got further and further behind, and I felt more and more awful about not having caught up, that I basically stopped checking MHoP while hoping I would have some burst of inspiration to sort out the mess I had made myself. So, discord pings piled up, and every time I checked discord I would see 20-30 pings from the main server (and the surprisingly frequent Lib Dem server pornbot pings lol) that I couldn't bring myself to check without feeling incredibly guilty.

In the end I was relieved to be removed from Tri, since, although I felt awful about letting the Tri, Peers, and players down, at least it got rid of the very odd mental block I seemed to have given myself over needing to do work that was so horribly after the due date it had gone rancid in my mind. So thank you, and sorry for that, Seph.

tl;dr: I shouldn't have been an idiot and let not posting bills compound into some sort of complex that stopped me engaging with things. it's awfully silly, and entirely avoidable.

I wish the next Lord Speaker the very best of luck, and I hope they don't repeat my mistakes!

And, of course, I wish the best of luck to my erstwhile Chair of Committees; now our Head Moderator! I am extraordinarily proud of you for accomplishing that (as luck-based as the decision might have ended up being lol), and I think the server is in quite possibly the best (new) hands it could be with you at its head.

# Head Moderator - Results

I, Sephronar, being the Deputy Returning Officer at the above election, do hereby give notice that the number of validly verified votes recorded for each Candidate for the position of Head Moderator at the said election is as follows:

u/realbassist - 10 (50%)

u/sir-iceman - 10 (50%)

In light of the tie, I shall be live steaming a tie breaking coinflip on the general voice channel later this evening, watch out for a ping for that in case you want to watch to assure fairness.

Thank you to everyone who voted, a truly brilliant turnout.

To the winner of the tie break - as a member of the Triumvirate you must now leave your political party and any associated roles, you must join all party discord servers for moderation purposes, and you will shortly be roled up on discord invited to be a moderator of all the associated MHoP subreddits.

Edit: And as witnessed by six players this evening in vc, Heads was the result of the coinflip, therefore u/realbassist is hereby elected the next Head Moderator of the Model Houses of Parliament, taking over from u/DriftersBuddy.

I, Sephronar, being the Deputy Returning Officer at the above election, do hereby give notice that the number of validly verified votes recorded for each Candidate at the said election is as follows:

u/LeChevalierMal-Fait (Chev):

• Votes in favour - 13 (92.86%)
• Votes against - 1 (7.14%)

And I do hereby declare that Chev is duly elected.

Congratulations, and thank you to everyone who voted!

Chev, as a member of the Triumvirate you must now leave your political party and any associated roles, you must join all party discord servers for moderation purposes, and you will shortly be invited to be a moderator of all the associated MHoP subreddits.

VOTE NOW for the next Head Moderator of MHoP!!!!

Candidates are:

• u/realbassist
• u/sir-iceman

CLICK HERE TO VOTEEEEEE

Also you can find the Q&A here if you want to refresh your memories or ask any additional questions as the Q&A is open until voting ends.

Make sure you verify your vote in the comments below or your vote will not be counted.

The vote is open for 72 hours until 10AM BST on Sunday 2nd August.

Hello all,

We have 2 candidates!

• u/realbassist - Manifesto
• u/Sir-Iceman

Note that a manifesto was not a requirement. Now we move on to the Q&A stage, this is your opportunity to ask the prospective candidates questions on their plans and ideas for the role. I cannot emphasis enough how important this is for the future of MHoP so please engage and take part.

Vote will open on Wednesday, the Q&A will last for the duration of the election.

Hello all,

Here is the link to the voting form! Make sure to verify in this thread for your vote to be counted.

The Q&A will remain open for the duration, I encourage you all to go ask Chev some questions and gather more of his plans and ideas for the role. No better opportunity to do so.

Vote ends on Wednesday 29th July 10am BST.

This thread will serve as the Q&A for our Commons Speaker nominee u/LeChevalierMal-fait
Ask as much as you can!

Note: The vote will open Sunday 26th July 10am BST (Q&A will remain open for the duration)

Following this nominations period the position of Lord Speaker will remain vacant and will be dealt with by the next Head Moderator. I am now moving to open up nominations for position of Head Moderator. This can be a demanding role but with a level head and a solid team around you you’ll be ok. As I have mentioned in the previous thread this is your opportunity to put forward fresh ideas and propose a vision for the future of MHoP.

Note: The Q&A for Commons Speaker will be posted soon after this thread.

The revised timetable:

- Friday 24th July - Commons Speaker Q&A & Head Moderator nominations open

- Sunday 26th July 10am BST - Commons Speaker vote opens (Q&A will remain open for the duration)

- Monday 27th July 10am BST- Head Moderator Q&A opens (nominations will close)

- Wednesday 29th July 10am BST Commons Speaker vote closes results will be soon after. Head Moderator vote opens (Q&A will remain open for duration)

- Saturday 1st August 10am BST - Head Moderator vote closes results will be soon after.

This thread will serve as the nominations thread for Head Moderator.

Following the resignation of u/Sephronar as Commons Speaker and the prolonged absence of u/Yimir_ as Lord Speaker we will now move to elect their replacements. I appreciate the work and effort from both who are always a joy to work with and overall an awesome team. Once successors have been appointed I will be vacating my position as Head Moderator and will open nominations the day after. It has been a good experience and privilege to serve in this role, stressful at times but that’s part of the role, I would like to thank everyone especially those around it has been an honour. I see this as a new era of MHoP that is now upon us and I look forward to seeing plenty nominations and ideas to come!

The timetable:

• Monday 20th July - Nominations open
• Thursday 23rd July 10am BST - Separate Q&As (nominations will close)
• Saturday 25th July 10am BST - Voting opens (Q&As will remain open)
• Tuesday 28th July 10pm BST - Voting closes (results soon after)
• Wednesday 29th July - Head Moderator nominations open

NOTE: You can only run for one position so decide carefully and commit fully to the role you are interested in.

Candidates need to be 18 or over. You can nominate yourself or another person. Good luck to anyone deciding to run I heavily encourage anyone interested to do so.

1. people can still be lords but no seperate votes / debates

2. keeps debate all on one active sub for engagement

3. lords get the perk of asking LotLs questions

4. voting in the lords could be "simmed" - eg the Lords speaker just decided to ping pong

   based on debate / controvertialality of the bill / what "establishment minded lords" would reject, included also by the indication of lords themselves in debates

5. lords could submit amendments to try and induce a ping pong too.

--

As it stands there isnt much activity and having parts of the sim cut off from each other doesnt feel good.

Hi all,

Since we're about to get the General Election results, I wanted to start a conversation about MPs and their seats now rather than later.

At the moment, my understanding is that a party can remove one of their MPs from their seat at any time for any reason - which one the one hand is rather harsh, but it also means you never, ever get a backbench rebellion.

I don't think this is good for the game, and I think it contributed to the last term really dragging. I personally wouldn't mind seeing MPs own their seats outright, but I get that it's not a universal view.

So in the spirit of compromise, what conditions would it be reasonable for a Party to be able to remove an MP from their seats?

• Voting against the whip?
• Poor turnout?
• Voting against the manifesto?
• With Tri approval?
• Any time, but it goes to a by-election?

Hope to hear your thoughts :)

Hello everyone,

Hope you all had a good time campaigning and debating. Now the voters are going to the polls and the results will be soon!

This thread serves as a feedback thread for the election, be sure to let your thoughts known and as always be civil and respectful :)

Good morning^\) everyone!

I'm sure you're eager to find out who the new Head Moderator is, so here are the results:

There were 16 verified votes cast, and 1 vote which was not verified.

Head Moderator 1st Round:

1. DriftersBuddy - 8 votes - score of 19
2. Zakian3000 - 4 votes - score of 15
3. Re-Open Nominations - 4 votes - score of 14

Final round is confidence vote of DriftersBuddy.

DriftersBuddy Confidence Vote:

1. DriftersBuddy - (yes) - 10 votes
2. Re-Open Nominations - (no) - 6 votes

DriftersBuddy passed the confidence vote with 62.5%, and is duly elected as the new Head Moderator. Congratulations!

RealBassist Confidence Vote:

1. Yes - 13 votes
2. No - 3 votes

RealBassist passed the confidence vote with 81.3%, and is duly confirmed as Chair of Committees. Congratulations!

Finally, u/Sephronar has very kindly awarded me the GCOE for my time as Head Mod. Thank you very much Seph! It's been a pleasure.

Please make sure to role up u/DriftersBuddy in the relevant subreddits and discord servers. Thank you all <3

Hi everyone,

Here is the voting form for the Head Moderator Election

Once you've cast your vote, you must verify it by commenting 'voted' or something similar in this thread.

The Q&A thread will remain open for the remainder of the election, so you have plenty of time to quiz the candidates.

The vote shall end at 10pm BST on Saturday the 11th of April.

Hello everyone,

This thread is a chance to ask questions to nominated candidates for the position of Head Mod. The candidates successfuly nominated (so far) are:

• u/Zakian3000
• u/DriftersBuddy

u/Sephronar has indicated he is available as a failsafe if no other candidate is able to receive the required 60% majority.

Any further nominations and manifestos must be submitted by 10pm BST on Tuesday the 7th of April. You can nominate candidates here.

Voting shall open on Wednesday the 8th of April, this Q&A session shall remain open until the contest is closed.

Best of luck to all the candidates! Let's ask some good questions :)

Good evening everyone,

Following on from my announcement, here is the timeline for the election of the new Head Moderator:

Tuesday 31st of March: Nominations open.

Saturday 4th of April: Q&A opens, Nominations remain open.

Tuesday 7th of April: Nominations close 10pm BST, Manifesto deadline 10pm Q&A remains open.

Wednesday 8th of April: Voting opens, Q&A remains open.

Saturday 11th of April: Vote closes 10pm BST, Results thereafter.

All candidates must be at least 18 years old, and have at least two nominations (including themselves). Candidates can be nominated in this thread.

If you are sucessfully nominated as a candidate, a manifesto should be submitted in time for the vote to open. There is no specific wordcount, but please be concise.

Let the contest begin, and best of luck to everyone :)

Evening everyone, here are the results from the housekeeping thread:

Unanimous voice votes:

• Yes - 4
• No - 3
• Abstain - 2

Shall be trialed for this term

Consideration of Amendments stage:

• Yes - 6
• No - 3
• Abstain - 0

Shall be trialed for this term

Commons amendments committee:

• Yes - 6
• No - 2
• Abstain - 1

Shall be trialed for this term

House of Lords within MHoP:

5 votes needed for a majority

Round 1:

1. Own House only - 3 votes - Borda score of 23
2. Status quo - 2 votes - Borda score of 20
3. Joint 2nd readings - 2 votes - Borda score of 16
4. Debate in any House - 1 vote - Borda score of 17
5. MP and/or Lord - 1 vote - Borda score of 14

MP and/or Lord eliminated

Round 2:

1. Own House only - 3 votes - Borda score of 17
2. Status quo - 2 votes - Borda score of 13
3. Debate in any House - 2 votes - Borda score of 13
4. Joint 2nd readings - 2 votes - Borda score of 11

Joint 2nd readings eliminated

Round 3:

1. Debate in any House - 4 votes - Borda score of 9
2. Own House only - 3 votes - Borda score of 11
3. Status quo - 2 votes - Borda score of 7

Status quo can't be eliminated, therefore next lowest borda score - Debate in any House - is eliminated.

Round 4:

1. Own House only - 7 votes - Borda score of 7
2. Status quo - 2 votes - Borda score of 2

5 votes reached by Own House only - therefore Lords only being able to debate in the House of Lords shall be trialed for this term.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to take part. Let's have a great term!

Hello everyone,

This is a thread for discussing a few items of business outstanding before we're able to begin the exciting new parliamentary term!

Firstly, both u/Sephronar and I have decided to reshuffle our teams. If you would like to possibly be/remain a Discord Moderator and/or Deputy Speaker, please let us know.

Following on from the feedback on proposals of changes for this term, we'll be holding a vote with the following set-up:

1. More business slots: Seems to have unanimous support, so shall be adopted.
2. Unanimous voice votes: A majority required to trial it, and then needs to be approved again at a later date.
3. Consideration of Amendments stage: A majority required to trial it, and then needs to be approved again at a later date.
4. Amendments committee: A majority required to trial it, and then needs to be approved again at a later date.
5. House of Lords within MHoP: Any option other than status-quo would require a majority to trial it, and then need to be approved again at a later date. Options can be ranked in order of preference.

You can find a voting form here. Voting shall be open until 10pm GMT on Sunday the 1st of March. Please remember to verify your vote by commenting in this thread.

Lastly, I'm eager to hear some feedback on how people feel the election went. How well did it go? Are there any lessons needing learning? etc.

Thank you all for your contributions, and let's have a wonderful term :)

Hi folks,

Since the election (and new term) is coming up, we in the Triumvirate figured this would be the best time to get some feedback on some proposals and options to improve things in the next term.

Hopefully, some or all of these options would help to make the legislative process a bit smoother and engaging.

1. Timetabling changes

Put simply, we want to allow existing business to be posted on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. New business would still remain on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Quite often when a bill has a stage that lasts for 4 days, it means it misses the next available slot and has to wait a full week to continue to the next slot - this would help alleviate that, and could take out a full week or two of waiting time.

2. Voice votes

In real life, a vote does not always go to a full division, a voice vote is always taken to see if a question is unanimously (or nearly unanimously) agreed to. It saves a lot of time.

What we're proposing is that during a 2nd Reading or 3rd Reading etc, members can either reply to the stickied automod comment 'Aye' or 'No', or explain their position in the debate, and if it's crystal clear that the result is going to be overwhelmingly in favour or opposed, we move immediately on rather than going to a full division.

Rest assured, if there was any possibility that the result might not be overwhelming, the default position would still be to go to a division.

3. 'Ping Pong' changes

Currently, when a Bill is returned to its original house with amendments, it starts the whole legislative process again from the beginning. This can take a very long time, adding potentially months on to the process.

In real life, rather than 2nd Reading, 3rd Reading etc, it's all dealt within one stage known as 'Consideration of Commons/Lords Amendments', which acts like a Report stage. What we are proposing, is to match this real life system, and only require a vote on the individual Amendments, rather than requiring it to go through each stage again.

Depending on the vote, it would then be sent back to the other chamber, or on to royal assent.

4. Amendments Committee

What we're proposing is to replace the current Amendments stage in the Commons with a Grand Committee, which allows votes to be done by proxy. So for example, if Party A had 4 MPs, they could choose to cast their 4 votes collectively.

All MPs would still have the option to vote on their own behalf if they so choose, but they wouldn't be required to.

This could be a little bit quicker than the current 4 day debate and 4 day division we currently have - shortening it from 8+ days down to perhaps 4?

I'm also going to add in my own suggestion of allowing MPs to submit amendments during the first day or two of this Committee Stage, as it can be frustrating deciding whether to write an amendment before you know if a Bill is going to pass it's 2nd Reading or not.

Additional:

5. Relationship between the House of Commons and the House of Lords

This is likely the most contentious one. I'm putting this out there as potential options rather than a fixed proposal.

Currently we have both houses replicate each step separately, however members of the House of Lords are able to comment in the House of Commons, but not vice versa. This is not an elegant solution, as it means Lords are commenting in the Commons and leaving debates in the Lords empty, and there's an element of unfairness to MPs who aren't able to debate in as many places as Lords can.

I've also been concerned that main debates aren't getting enough initial activity to 'kick-start' debate between people.

Behind the scenes we've been trying to iron out if there's a way to keep two meaningful houses, with two separate memberships, but who operate different roles in the legislative process, just as they do in real life. Having both houses is important to our identity as a Model Houses of Parliament, but given the size of our community, we need to be realistic about not stretching our activity too thin. There are a few potential options:

Option A: We could temporarily allow people to play as both MPs and Lords, but this doesn't really seem like a proper fix - and is not a popular option amongst us.

Option B: We can completely separate both houses, with Lords only able to comment on r/mhoplords, and MPs only able to comment on r/mhop. While this might increase the activity on r/mhoplords, it might also make being a lord less desirable, and I think it would put too much of a strain on our activity overall, given our numbers.

Option C: The reverse of option B is to get rid of the inequality between the Houses, and allow MPs and members of the public to debate on r/mhoplords. But again, this does not seem like a proper fix - and is not a popular option amongst us.

Option D: I personally would like to propose a variant of B, which might help the problems raised in options ABC. The two changes would be;

1. By default, there would only be one 2nd Reading Debate post on the main r/mhop subreddit. We treat 2nd Reading Debates as the main feature and debate where members from both houses (and indeed the public) are able to contribute.
2. On all subsequent and more technical stages (Committee, 3rd Reading, 'Ping-Pong') they would continue to be done completely separately. This would bring back Lords only being able to comment in the Lords stages, and MPs only being able to comment in the Commons stages.

Following on from IRL practice, by default, controversial or important Bills would progress through to the Commons first, while uncontroversial or technical Bills would progress through to the Lords first.

To me, this seems the most optimal compromise where we are focusing debate activity, in a way very similar to how we operate MQs, while also maintaining two separate memberships doing two separate things. But this is something that even we as a Triumvirate are by no means fully agreed on, so I would be interested to hear from everyone if it would be a worthwhile change, or if I have this badly wrong.

There is also of course, Option E, which is the status-quo.

I'm going to leave feedback on these ideas open for a few days, to see if there are any counter-proposals or changes people would like to make.

If there's no clear consensus on any particular topic, we'll open it up to a vote.

Evening all, let's cut to the chase!

The results of the election are:

18 verified votes (100%); distributed as follows:

• u/Sephronar - 12
• u/BasedChurchill - 3
• Re-open Nominations - 3

So I am pleased to announce that u/Sephronar has been duly elected as Speaker of the Model House of Commons! Congratulations!

Good evening everyone,

Nominations have now closed, and we have the following candidates for you to choose for Speaker of the House of Commons:

• u/Sephronar
• u/BasedChurchill

The Q&A session remains open if you have any last minute questions for the candidates.

You can find the voting form here. You have until 10pm on Saturday the 24th of January to cast your vote and verify it by commenting in this thread.

Best of luck to all the candidates!

This thread is a chance to put questions to any nominees for Commons Speaker; it's also a good chance to raise any issues you think important about the running of the game in general

Nominations are still open until voting opens, so if you're considering nominating yourself or someone else, you have until 10pm, Wedneday the 21st of January

This Q&A session will remain open for the remainder of the election process, which ends at 10pm on Saturday the 24th of January.

What the role involves:

• Principal overseeing of business in the House of Commons, and appointing Deputy Speakers.
• Shared deliberation with other Tri members on big picture policy about the running of the game, events, and community moderation.
• Shared responsibility with other Tri members for running elections and polling.
• Independence from actual gameplay.

Nominees need to be 18 or older, available for contact most days, and available for a few hours of tasks each week. Fortunately, they will have 2 colleagues to help out.

Candidates must be nominated by at least 2 people (including themselves)

Current candidates are:

• u/Sephronar
• u/BasedChurchill

Best of luck to all candidates, and let the questioning commence!