[center][h1]The Shifting Sands of Politics[/h1][/center]

[i]The United Territories of Civitas, or UTC, a country built on a foundation of democracy and freedom. The UTC is only 297 years old, a junior compared to some of her ancient neighbours, however she has a history filled with action and prestige. The main difference in the UTC and other countries is her democratically elected government that has always been present. Other democracies have all emerged from autocratic monarchies. The UTC is not a superpower, recently an international recession, mass austerity and national strikes have left the economy shattered and the people calling out for change. But now, in the year 2015, a new election campaign is beginning and this is the time for new parties to step in and save the nation. Bringing it not only back from the brink, but to new heights of power.[/i]

Welcome to the OOC, this is where I will outline how the RP will run and the different rules that are in existence for you to play with. So firstly we need some political parties, which will be created by your selves. Here I don't just want 8 different extremist parties. I want to see 3, maybe 4, parties that are not all across the spectrum. Maybe 1 extremist and 2 much closer to the centre. This will be as realistic as possible and so 8 neo-Nazi groups are just not viable, also I want to be able to create a majority possible and that is very difficult with 8 parties. The Characters page is where I will put up Parties and their associated MPs, however I want people to post their Parties here in the OOC first and then, when I accept them, I will post them in the Characters tab. Parties will take the format below.

[b]Party Name:[/b]
[b]Party Acronym:[/b]
[b]Party Motto:[/b]
[b]Party Logo:[/b]
[b]Party Ideology:[/b]
-Government Involvement:
-Economy:
-Taxes:
-Military:
-Environment:
-Citizen Rights:
-Education:
-Health-Care:
-Emergency Services:
-Immigration:
-Other:

Each Party, if in power, needs a President, a Vice President, a number of Ministers and then just regular MPs. Of course each party needs MPs to represent them, most will be NPCs that I will give control of to the Party leader (Though I will announce backbench rebellions if I have too) however some will be played by you, the RPers. And this means you need an MP Sheet.

[b]MP Name:[/b]
[b]MP Appearance:[/b]
[b]MPs Party:[/b]
[b]MPs Position in his/her Party:[/b]
[b]Home Territory:[/b]

Useful Maps-
[img]http://i.imgur.com/ZWROfxf.jpg[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/l0jIRrs.jpg[/img]
The Territories have no names, i will let you come up with them (may be more fun for you and saves me some work so I can make this better overall for you) and I won’t do extensive descriptions. However for a basic knowledge, the Northern end, next to the coast especially, is very working class. The Southern Coastal bits are the complete opposite. The very rich have homes here. Then through the middle there is a number of large industrial cities surrounded by suburban homes. Which means you have a mixture of middle class and working class citizens, a majority neither way. 

Once we have our MPs and Parties we are very close to starting the RP, so now it’s time to go over the actual RP IC. Firstly we will begin on January 1st 2015, where each of you will be touring the country and promoting your Party to try and get a majority of the seats. First things first, your party will produce a Manifesto to deal with the problems I will outline in the first post. This can be done in a PM and then posted into the IC at an event. Once done you can set out your tour plan and IC meeting some of the public. Finally I will run a party leader debate as well as a debate for other MPs. I don’t see the election period being massively long since there is only so much you can describe on a tour bus. I will announce the election results on February 28th IC. After that the majority leader needs to announce his Ministers (There is a Minister for Health, Interior, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Education and Industry. As well as a Chancellor of the Exchequer) and some of them can be just named NPCs. If Parliament is hung then the party leaders will need to wheel and deal about creating a coalition. If that happens then each position is open to any of the involved parties. So you could have the President from one party and then the Vice President from a second party. During times of war a National Government ‘should’ be formed as this brings in the best from all parties, however that is for the ruling party to decide.

When our first meeting in the House of Commons begins then you, as MPs, will begin to propose bills to the floor. Each bill should be debated by at least 3 posts and is controlled totally by the sponsor of the bill, only the sponsor has the right to alter the actual bill however if they choose to try and push it through without full support, obviously it may not pass. Bills are then voted on by sending me a PM, so that the vote is secret, and I will announce the results as I will also take on position of Speaker. A bill will use the following basis, and I prefer it go into a quote.

[b]Name of the Bill:[/b]
[b]Sponsor(s) of the Bill:[/b]
[b]Basic Bill Description:[/b]
[b]Exact Articles of the Bill:[/b]

Finally I will use the first few posts in IC to put down a Status post (Whether we are debating a bill or not etc.) and laws passed into being previously.

This is a basic laws that are currently in place. And the national situation.

-Government Involvement: The previous government has made massive cuts on the welfare system, Job Seekers Allowance no longer exists and Child Benefits are limited to two offspring per home. Furthermore Housing Benefit does exist but only to a small proportion who need it and Council Housing is at an all-time low. Alongside this there is a record number of food banks, a record high in homelessness and the crime rate has steadily been rising. Also pensions have been cut no end. In essence benefit is negligible and a large proportion of the country is struggling greatly.

-Economy: The previous government attempted to nationalise industry in an attempt to create jobs however in the end bankrupted itself. Currently the steel industry, automobiles industry and energy industry are all nationalised. The other industries are almost entirely privatised and aren’t doing nearly as badly, but sales still struggle in the UTC. As well as this factories are ebing moved and more and more people are being found unemployed. 

-Taxes: Currently income tax is at a high of 45% and many struggle under this, furthermore the recent annulment of the Mansion tax and Millionaire Tax means that the wealthy are paying much less tax than before. This angers the middle, and working, classes greatly. As well as this it makes income tax the number one income for the country. A fast food tax has also been introduced that raises a small amount of many however it is becoming more negligible as fast food franchises simply base themselves in other nations to avoid the tax.

-Military: The UTC military has taken serious cuts, without any real international danger the army numbers around 50,000 men and their equipment is mostly outdated. Satellite technology is borrowed from neighbours and the secret service is about as effective as a wet paper bag.

-Environment: Current environment laws have many loophole and big business has been given free run of polluting as much as they like. Furthermore the oil crisis means that oil prices are rising and the reliance on green, or nuclear, energy is becoming a higher concern in other nations.

-Citizen Rights: Currently the country has good civil liberties. Citizens have the right to secret voting, the voting is totally universal and race and gender laws are perfectly equal. The age for voting is 21, the age for drinking is 18 and the age of consent is 16. The voting age was upped in the previous administration however there was very little blow back as the number of younger people interested in politic is tiny, thanks to lack of political education.

-Education: The education system is national however the number of academies has greatly risen and looks set to rise even further. The academies do of course need government permission. University tuition fees used to be non existent however the previous government introduced a cap on fees whilst halting much of the funding for universities. As such every University now has low tuition fees, compared to the rest of the globe. Teachers have also been moved from salary to zero hour contract, meaning that they are only paid for time spent in the classroom teaching. THis has meant that national grades have fallen significantly and that teacher strikes have occurred recently. They have stopped for now as they look to see the new government that enters however they are ready and willing to strike again if need be.

-Health-Care: The health care system is currently nationalised with the very advanced treatments being privatised. This is one of the most costly government expenditures however it is also the largest employer and currently suffering greatly with a lack of funding and being understaffed. This spreads to the ambulance services as they struggle to react to every emergency in time with some people waiting up to an hour for an ambulance if their case is 'non life threatening'. Private companies have been approaching the previous government to totally privatise the Health Care system and will surely be lobbying the next government as well.

-Emergency Services: The police is vastly understaffed and currently very federalised with each Territory having to manage it's own branch and inter-territory initiatives being quite ineffective. The funding is fair for it's size however it is too small and so if an increase in size were to occur, then an increase in spending would be needed. The fire department however is in much better shape. An oversized budget was allocated to the fire services and national coverage is very good with response times to fire related emergencies at an all time high.

-Immigration: Currently VIsa Programmes are used for immigration however illegal immigration is a problem in the poorer areas as nearby neighbours are doing even worse than Civitas. Because of this many people blame their problems on immigrants and there have been some small racist groups appearing.   

Current estimates put the population at 79,000,000 people with 15% being over the age of 65 and roughly 55% being of the age to vote. With 30% being under the age of 21.

Any more information people need I am willing to give to people.