In the United Kingdom, citizens can petition their government on line. (The same is true in the U.S.; see https://petitions.whitehouse.gov.) If 100,000 people sign on to a given request, a committee of Parliament takes it up for consideration.

The most popular such petition yet — supported by 573,971 persons as of some time Monday — asks Her Majesty’s government to ban Donald Trump from entering the U.K. A parliamentary Petitions Committee considered the matter for three hours on Monday. Members were of mixed views concerning the proposed travel ban (though they eventually came down against it), but no matter their party, they were of one mind and voice with respect to Mr Trump himself, as you can see here, courtesy of The Washington Post:

Rachel Maddow had a 4-minute segment on it Monday night that’s really worth watching. I can’t embed the clip here, but you can see it at this link. As Maddow says, the British are generally very good at this kind of discussion.

For more details see the Post‘s articles here (with a brief catalog of adjective applied the Mr Trump), and here (with details about the debate itself). See also Steve Benen’s take here.

Finally, a “wazzock” is an expression I understand was popularized by British actor and comedian Tony Capstick on his 1981 comedy record “Capstick Comes Home,” in which he addressed someone as “You great useless spawny-eyed parrot-faced wazzock!” But Capstick didn’t invent the word; it dates back at least to a recording by British writer, broadcast, and folk singer Mike Harding in 1976. Allegedly “wazzock” means a bull’s penis, but as an insult it basically means an idiot and is not considered particularly offensive.

by