Other Controversies

In addition to the major scandals that have rocked the MHoC over the years, there have also been several **other controversies**, often more minor, that have take place. They are as follows:

## Liberal Al-Qaeda Party

In February 2008, paperclip put forward a proposal to create a 'Liberal Al-Qaeda' party which was heavily criticised. Then-Speaker daniel\_williams closed the thread and said "I will not allow a party of any kind that has support for any form of terrorist activity."

## Ask A Tory Thread

In 2008, the then-Leader of the Socialist Party created an 'Ask a Tory' thread, after the Conservative Party refused to start one of their own. This thread was subsequently closed. A few months later, oriel historian called for there to be a truce between the two parties which was welcomed by all sections of the House.

## Speaker Bias (7th GE)

After the May 2008 General Election, concerns regarding the conduct of the election and potential bias on the part of the Speaker, Alasdair, were raised. This led to a Motion of No Confidence being proposed in the aforementioned, which subsequently failed. Also, Musty\_Elbow called for an independent inquiry into the election.

## Mattbroom

In November 2008, Alasdair discovered that mattbroom, a Conservative Party member, had created a dupe account to spy on the Socialist Party. It was subsequently discovered that he had also previously had dupe accounts in the Liberal Democrat Party and the Labour Party. Alasdair demanded an explanation from the party to which Conservative member L i b responded: "Mattbroom has in fact posted certain insider information on the Conservative subforum recently, but he has not been explicit in where he got it and it categorically does *not* directly touch on the Socialist Party." Following this discovery, mattbroom was ejected from the Conservative Party. The person in question then attempted to re-form UKIP shortly afterwards but did not succeed. Mattbroom then appeared to be a reformed character. settling down with the Liberal Democrat Party, although he left for differences in economic policy. In the autumn of 2009 however, the Conservative Party reaccepted him as a member (albeit under the name Indievertigo) and subsequently made him an MP.

## Moderation Concerns I

In November 2008, Nefarious stickied an announcement in the forum on behalf of the moderation team, highlighting their concern regarding the increase in personal attacks and malicious sniping in recent months. They warned that if the behaviour continue, serious action would be taken.

## Lowsongate

In October 2009, Matthew\_Lowson posted a thread following his resignation as a member of the Conservative Party and it was met with a mixed response. In it, he said that a member of the party, Indievertigo, had "deliberately deceived, lied and cheated the members of the party" and that he felt the Conservative Party had become hypocritical. Then-Conservative Leader Bagration deemed the situation to be a private matter and several members told Matthew to "get a grip".

## Ad Hoc

In April 2012, the Ad Hoc newspaper published its first edition. However, a controversy arose when it was discovered that several segments of an interview with the Leader of the Opposition had been fabricated in jest. Allegations swirled and the Deputy Editor, RoryS, was sacked from the Labour Party, accused of being a dupe account. An inquest by the Speaker found that the article had actually been tampered with by independent MP, Faland (then known as JPKC). The latter subsequently resigned from their seat and was dropped from the governing Conservative-UKIP Coalition.

## Falandgate

In August 2012, Faland - whilst serving as a Socialist MP - was exposed as having a duplicate account in the Liberal Democrat Party by the name of Ysolt. Though it is not thought that the account was used to share information, it was used to influence the Liberal Democrats internally and held an MP seat as a proxy for a week during July 2012. This resulted in a by-election and Faland being effectively banned from the MHoC for the rest of the term. The Socialists won back the seat. Then-Speaker Metrobeans released a statement to explain the duping situation.

## Morgsiegate

In late September/early October 2012, Following the appointment of Mazzini as a Liberal Democrat MP, former leader and former MP Morgsie immediately resigned his membership of the party and leveled allegations of bullying against his former party. These allegations remain unsubstantiated but following the decision by Thunder\_Chunky to resign as leader and therefore vacating an MP position, Morgsie immediately announced his decision to return to the Liberal Democrats. It was unknown whether he intended to contest the vacant positions, declining to do so in the end.

## The Mad Dog Permanent Ban

In July 2013, The Mad Dog initiated a Motion of No Confidence against the then-Green Party Leader miser. Following a dupe check, it was discovered that The Mad Dog had created a dupe account called Alli.black in order to second the motion. It was then decided that The Mad Dog would be forbidden from several MHoC activities for several months. However, just nine days after Jarred had informed the House of this, the MHoC Moderator at the time, Democracy, announced that The Mad Dog has received a permanent ban from TSR. This permanent ban was for misconduct in the Model United Nations, due to a mass-deleting of threads; an exploitation of his community assistant powers recently bestowed on him due to his election to MUN secretary. He has created several hundred dupes in the intervening period.

## Liberal Party vs Conservative Party

In October 2014, the Liberal Party made a statement in which it complained about the Conservative Party's treatment of it. MacDaddi and Green\_Pink firstly highlighted that The Financier joined the party for just two days before Rakas21 "tempted The Financier" [then known as TeeEff] back to the Conservative Party to run for a leadership position. They suspected dirty tactics and said it was disrespectful of the Conservative Party to treat the Liberal Party like a "feeder party". They also expressed their discontent over Cryptographic's application to join the Liberal Party at the same time as instigating a Motion of No Confidence in the Conservative leadership. The statement concluded with the wary sentence of: "this is not one isolated incident with the Tories - and it probably won't be the last."

## Aphgate I

In April 2015, UKIP released a motion calling to give an award to Aph for his use of statistics in debate. The award was critical of Aph's statistics, citing them to be wrong in the examples the motion used in its writing. The Speaker launched an inquest which found the motion had been discussed off-site, so a decision was made to ban UKIP from submitting legislation for three months, and not participating in any coalition negotiations. UKIP released a defiant statement critical of the decision, leading to a downgrading of the punishment to only a ban on submitting legislation. This scandal has become known as Aphgate by the members of the house at the time the scandal happened.

## Stannisgate

In July 2015, it was announced by then-Speaker Birchington that Labour member KingStannis had a dupe account called APlatinga. Following the discovery, both accounts received a permanent ban from TSR.

## Aphgate II

After the collapse of the Labour-Liberal coalition and the start of the Green-Liberal-UKIP coalition, a newly appointed Deputy Leader and now Home Secretary Aph, who was beginning to mellow, ended up as the cause of a constitutional crisis. His Leader and Prime Minister Kittiara had been missing for 3 days, after which the Deputy Prime Minister adam9317 requested to be made Acting Prime Minster. The ensuing events were hotly debated but it ended in the collapse of the second government that term and the suspension of all governments by the then-Speaker, Birchington.

## Darrengate I

In September 2015, Labour Party member DarrenBCFC was banned from the party for criticising a few members. DarrenBCFC was outraged that Saracen's Fez allowed a wave of defections from the Green Party to take place after Aphgate II. The former told Aph in Green Party Question Time to stop sending his "tree hugging spies". DarrenBCFC then attacked Saracen's Fez, Saoirse:3 and junaidk7 for supporting the defections. Following a string of heated arguments, DarrenBCFC received a permanent ban from TSR the next. He created several new accounts in the following months to have rants at then-Speaker Saracen's Fez and proposed unofficial Motions of No Confidence in him. His Heavy Daz account is possibly the most famous of his 'rant accounts'.

## Saoirsegate

In December 2015 it was discovered that former Labour Prime Minister, and at the time the Labour Chair, Saoirse:3 had a duplicate account in the Liberal Party, named Green\_Pink, who had gone on to become Liberal Deputy Leader and Acting Leader during MacDaddi's long absence. This duping scandal caused particular anger as Green\_Pink had disappeared not once, but twice as Chancellor of the Exchequer, contributing to the downfalls of both Governments in the 21st Parliament and also having inside knowledge of Liberal demands whilst negotiating a Labour-Liberal coalition as Saoirse:3 in the 22nd Parliamentary Term. In January, Moderator Airmed announced that the Community Team had given Saoirse:3 a 6 month ban for duping. Then-Labour Leader said that it was "a very sad day for the Labour Party" but also understood that "we must move on and come out of this stronger." In July 2016, Saoirse:3 returned to the House and re-joined the Labour Party.

## James222 Harassment

In April 2016, a controversial member called James222 applied to re-join the Labour Party. However, Saracen's Fez decided that it might be best if James222 did not return to the party as he had previously sent some unpleasant messages to cranbrook\_aspie. Furious at the news, James222 sent an unprovoked death threat to Quamquam123. Saracen's Fez posted a picture of the message in the House to warn other party members not to admit James222 into the party. However, the next day, James222 received a permanent ban for his actions.

## Aphgate III

In May 2016, Aph applied to join the Labour Party and then-Labour Chair cranbrook\_aspie let him into the party. This prompted a furious response from some members, in particular RayApparently, who were unhappy that the party members had not been consulted first. More controversy arose when it was discovered that Quamquam123, the then-Labour Leader, had not given permission for the move. However, it later appeared that there had been a misunderstanding somewhere along the line. Aph was swiftly removed from the party, making his membership of the party one of the shortest ever.

## Darrengate II

In the 24th General Election in November 2016, it was discovered that one of the candidates, by the name of TheBigMan2, was in fact a dupe of DarrenBCFC. On top of this, during the election process, he threatened to kill mobbsy91 if he ventured to Birmingham. Following a failed dupe check and TheBigMan2's racist views, it was confirmed that he was indeed DarrenBCFC. Although there was no statement from the Speaker on the matter, TheBigMan2 received no valid votes and his account was banned.

## TheunitedGOAT Ban For Racism

In February 2017, the Labour Party found out that one its members, RedManc, was a dupe of one of their former members called theunitedGOAT who had been accused and then later banned for racism. RedManc received a permanent ban from the Community Team. What disturbed the House however was that all the dupe checks that had been run on RedManc had come back clean, leading some members to question the effectiveness of dupe checks.

## Snufkin Amendment

In April 2017, tensions arose when Labour Party MP Snufkin complained to the Community Team about the daily MHoC Updates he received from the Speaker, PetrosAC, branding them as "spam". The Community Team listened to his concerns and told the Speaker not to send him updates anymore. This infuriated some members of the House who believed Snufkin was receiving "special treatment". A row then ensued with both sides claiming the issue had been blown massively out of proportion. A few days later, Joep95 proposed, and then successfully passed, an amendment which meant all MPs had to receive the updates or they would be removed from their positions.

## Craundersgate

In January 2018, cranbrook\_aspie resigned as Deputy Speaker when it emerged that he had provided confidential information regarding votes in the 26th General Election and a Motion of No Confidence to then-Leader of the Libertarian Party, Saunders16. Cranbrook\_aspie made a statement expressing regret for his actions; he did not receive a ban though. Members generally respected his decision to resign.

## Saunders16 Resignation

In the same month, Saunders16 resigned as Leader of the Libertarian Party when members discovered that he had illegally tried to recruit members to his party months previously. Because he had been recruiting after the Community Team had banned the practice, he felt his position was untenable and he believed that by stepped down, he would be able to divert the blame from his party on to himself. He made a lengthy statement explaining the situation.

## Jacob E Duping Ban

In March 2018, Jacob E initially received a permanent ban when it was found that he had a dupe account in the National Conservative Party called Ruitker. It was speculated that he had been spying on the party in an effort to get his own party proposal, the Anti-Federalist League, off the ground. Jacob claimed the dupe account belonged to a roommate but this claim was dismissed. After appealing, Jacob managed to get his ban reduced to three months.

## TPG vs Jarred

In April 2018, The PoliticalGuy unsuccessfully attempted to force the Home Secretary, Jarred, to resign. A heated discussion allegedly took place between then-Labour Leader Saracen's Fez and The PoliticalGuy. Following cries from allies of the Home Secretary and members on the Labour benches for The PoliticalGuy to resign, he decided to step down from his position with immediate effect.

## Moderation Concerns II

In November 2020, Community Team member BlinkyBill made an announcement in the MHoC forum to discuss the CT's plans for increase in moderation in MHoC. The changes that were detailed were as follows:

* A new subforum for Party Leaders was created
* 04MR17 was named MHoC's new Serjeant-At-Arms, succeeding The Financier after the role had been left vacant.
* All new members who want to join MHoC must have more than 100 posts on the site and their account must be more than 3 months old
* A ban on all VPNs (or suspected VPNs) was introduced
* Moderation in MHoC was to increase drastically

BlinkyBill commented that "For too long MHOC has been treated leniently when it comes to community guidelines in the spirit of allowing political debate. This will no longer be happening. Please remember, MHOC is beholden to TSR community guidelines, not the example set by real life politicians. This will be a generally tightening of moderation standards in MHOC".

She also said that if these new rules were not adhered to, MHoC could shut down: "these changes are designed to make MHOC a better place, and in fact, keep it running at all. MHOC must improve in terms of being an efficiently running community within TSR, and it must improve in terms of culture. The choice here is yours - if you aren't able, as a community, to support both of those goals, MHOC will not be able to continue."

Following the introduction of these new rules, it was noted and shared amongst members that the number of cards the CT were handing out was increasing exponentially, with blue and yellow cards being given to what normally would just be a posting tip, and even some temporary bans being handed out.

These new rules were not generally appreciated, as more minor controversies and issues were found with them.

## External Links

* Al-Qaeda Party Proposal
* Conservative-Socialist Truce Proposal
* Alasdair's Statement regarding the May 2008 General Election
* Musty\_Elbow's Election Inquiry Demand
* Alsdair's Concerns regarding mattbroom
* Nefarious' Statement
* Matthew Lowson's Statement
* Metrobeans' Statement regarding Faland
* Jarred's Statement regarding The Mad Dog
* Liberal Party Statement regarding the Conservative Party
* Birchington's Statement regarding KingStannis
* Airmed's Statement regarding Saoirse:3
* cranbrook\_aspie's Statement regarding Craundersgate
* Saunders16's Statement regarding his resignation
* BlinkyBill's moderation announcement