Political info with less wide-eyed panic, please

May 10, 2015 6:22 AM

Since the UK elections last week, I've realized that I only really know the surface of British politics. It seems like a worthwhile thing to get deeper into, but recent events have rendered non-party sources rather...breathless, and official sources never actually talk about what they do or plan on doing directly. So, I turn to you all - where can I read good, in-depth information on the agenda of the major UK political parties?
posted by Punkey to Law & Government (3 answers total)

Each of their recent election manifestos might be a good place to start - not that all of it ever ends up happening, and sometimes they renege wholeheartedly, but it gives an idea of their stand on various issues.

The BBC had an overview if you don't fancy reading multiple 80+ page documents.

Otherwise:

Conservatives
Labour
Lib Dems
Green
UKIP
SNP (no obvious link on their site but there is a PDF out there somewhere)
Plaid Cymru
posted by theseldomseenkid at 1:32 PM on May 10, 2015

Response by poster: That is a great place to start, but I was looking for something with some context - like you said, parties often renege on their platforms, and more often than not those platforms are dog whistles or otherwise concealing their actual goals.
posted by Punkey at 8:36 PM on May 10, 2015

I tend to cluster my reading around specific agenda items that I want to know more about. I don't know of a single source of in-depth coverage on the Conservatives' constitutional reform agenda (exit the ECHR, have an EU referendum) AND Labour's mansion tax -- I'd go to different books / articles / blogs to understand each. Obviously reading the broadsheet papers at both ends of the political spectrum -- Times and Telegraph for the right, The Guardian and New Statesman for the left -- will give you a broad-strokes overview of What They Think They're Doing (and What the Other Side Think They're Doing) but the breadth of the coverage tends to mean a lack of depth.
posted by Aravis76 at 1:23 AM on May 11, 2015