Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
dannyobrien
As someone who was involved in the original guerilla digital activism that spawned the third-person URL format for independent UK government-watching websites (ie "Write to Them", "They Work for You"), I applaud your on-topic brand extension, Tim :)
pjc50
Thanks for your activism Danny - by coincidence I'm wearing an ancient NTK tshirt today, from a simpler era of the internet.
dcminter
Alas the ntkmart domain is being squatted by someone and I presume the shop was inactive long before that. I loved the Elite-style shirt but mine left this mortal plane long ago.
timje1
Thanks Danny - it was indeed following 'They Work For You' - I'm a big fan of that site.
smagdali
I'm proud to say that the "They Work For You" was actually one of mine (or my recollection is both vain, and broke) :)
Let's not forget that Matthew Somerville did (and still does!) most of the actual work tho.
verytrivial
Do please take a moment to consider which MPs carry the burden here. It's mainly a single flavour. Mention it on the doorstep next time.
arrowsmith
I'm not sure what this recent vote is about. The original Online Safety Act was introduced and passed by the Tories in 2023 (although it's only coming into effect now, obviously.)
So the Tories, who created this awful bill in the first place, are now voting against it? Clown country.
mlinhares
That happens all over the place, conservatives pass a time bomb bill, they lose control of congress/house, time bomb is about to become effective, they now fight to overturn it and place the blame on the current ruling folks.
arrowsmith
Except this bill was first introduced in March 2022, when the Tories hadn't imploded and there was no strong reason to expect they'd lose the next election.
It wasn't a "time bomb". They introduced this legislation because they wanted it.
poszlem
If it’s really a time bomb, I’d expect the supposedly responsible party to defuse it. So why haven’t they?
scott_w
This isn’t one of those cases. It was a well intentioned Bill that passed with Labour’s support but was very badly planned and written. Hell, it wouldn’t even have helped counter the misinformation being spread last summer and this summer to try and instigate more race riots!
varispeed
Labour thought Tory version was not going far enough.
hkt
Labour appear to be talking about wanting to repeal the OSA judging by this morning's news: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/jul/29/uk-pol...
arrowsmith
Many such cases
jjani
In the UK on this specific topic, "both sides" is as true as ever. This is very obvious when looking at the bigger picture instead of just a single vote. I wish it wasn't, if only it was indeed just one side.
ta1243
Government parties are whipped
What's really interesting is those that voted "Aye" who aren't Labour/ex Labour
DUP and Reform. Well the one reform MP that bothered to turn up. How surprising.
crinkly
What a fucking mess.
Labour voted in conservative policy. Conservatives voted against it. Reform, whilst all over the news for being against it, voted for it.
0xbadcafebee
I think it's fun when the elected government doesn't do what the people who elected them want. Like a middle finger to democracy.
Arkhaine_kupo
In america there is 0 corelation between middle class voting preferences and what their elected officials voted for. There is a closer aligment with upper class voters and lobby groups. It is arguable america is not a democracy based on those facts despite nominally voting every few years
https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/the-...
Basically if 0% of americans want a law it has 30% chance of passing, and if 100% of american want a law it has 32% chance of passing. For lobby groups it goes from 0% = 0% to 100% = 65% chance. Much closer to preference based lawmaking.
Nursie
> I think it's fun when the elected government doesn't do what the people who elected them want.
I can't think of a country that does have people largely in agreement with the governments actions, lately.
Or perhaps, for any given country, one can find a collection of loud voices detailing how 'the people' disagree with what's happening. But whether they meaningfully do is hard to establish.
I imagine a lot of Brits agree with the incoming rules, whether they are effective or not. You find that here in Aus too - a lot of Australians vehemently agree with the protectionist laws, because the intent of them is to protect children. And to many of them it doesn't matter what the real outcome is, because you want to protect children don't you? And this law is to protect children, QED.
DarkmSparks
UK is a monarchy. More so now than ever before. They all just chasing their peerages.
arrowsmith
"Alexa, summarise the last 15+ years of UK politics in two sentences."
kypro
> Reform, whilst all over the news for being against it, voted for it.
Just as a slight correction – the only "Reform MP" that voted for it is James McMurdock, but he's no longer a Reform MP and I'm not sure why he is still listed as one here.
jeroenhd
There's an excellent (volunteer-run) [website](https://www.partijgedrag.nl/index.php) about Dutch politics that will ask your opinion on a bunch of historic chamber proposals (for/against/skip) and use that to show your alignment to different parties by comparing your answers with actual party votes. It has definitely swayed my vote a few times.
I suppose such a tool might not work in a first-past-the-post voting system, but in my case it certainly has certainly helped to see what politicians actually vote like rather than just trusting the promises. If you live in a country with easily accessible digital records of votes/bills/proposals, I imagine you could throw something similar together and help quite a few people.
crinkly
Well aware of these tools. I've always said this but party politics is the stupidest idea ever. We should be voting on policies not people and parties. There isn't a single party which is ideologically aligned with me on enough of the significant issues. That leads to be having to pick the least bad one, and that's still bad.
addandsubtract
There's Wahl-o-Mat in Germany, that does the same thing. There's one for each major election, from regional votes to EU representative votes.
pjc50
It's Daily Mail policy, and they're the permanent government. With the help of the Home Office, who keep writing anti-encryption bills.
varispeed
This is misleading. Labour's only objection was that the policy was not going far enough!
graemep
Most Reform MPs did not vote at all!
Neither did a lot of conservatives and labour, interestingly.
Greens and Lib Dems voted no, which raises my opinion of them.
Agreed its a mess.
piker
Any abstention is at best in the same column as the ayes here. Arguably worse.
oneeyedpigeon
Just for the benefit of those unfamiliar with UK politics: "most" is a bit misleading here, even though it's technically true. Reform has 4 MPs (out of 650).
marsven_422
[dead]
jojobas
Clamping down on freedoms is not conservative policy.
Crap like Communications Act 2003 and Ofcom has been Labour policy for decades.
i80and
Clamping down on freedoms has been the raison d'être of "conservative" parties across the world my entire life
JdeBP
Here's the Conservative policy for the Online Safety Act 2023, during the Sunak government:
* https://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/notes/division/3/in...
Here's the Conservative white paper on Online Harms from 2019, during the May government:
* https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-whi...
blitzar
> Clamping down on freedoms is not conservative policy.
Perhaps you can explain why the conservative party keep writing bills that clamp down on freedoms, introducing them, whipping their party to vote for them and signing them into law?
scott_w
I would read the 2019 Conservative manifesto, then. Crushing democracy and judicial oversight was very much Tory policy.
asib
Laughable. Allow me to introduce you to the anti protest legislation brought into law by Suella Braverman.
Hammershaft
Conservatism isn't libertarianism. Conservative parties across the world, including in the anglosphere, often advocate for laws that limit freedom but accomplish ulterior conservative goals.
Throwkin
[dead]
arrowsmith
The Conservatives aren't a conservative party.
thorum
Unintended side effect, UK MPs can now watch as much porn as they want with plausible deniability.
ljm
I don’t know about this law specifically, but every other law attacking the internet or encryption has attempted to exempt people in government.
That defeats the point of the legislation since it creates a gaping wide backdoor to exploit official people, who are now the most valuable targets because of that exemption.
Never mind the matter of providing a rule for the people and making the people who made the rule immune to it.
varispeed
Have they researched how many of these "age check" companies are actually run by Russian intelligence services?
spacebanana7
Even having a single employee linked to the Russian intelligence services would be sufficient.
ben_w
Unless they're being filmed while watching it because they watched it in parliament: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/neil-parish-b...
NekkoDroid
Didn't something similar also happen recently in the US (I think on a state level)?
lambertsimnel
That was Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/07/28/oklahoma-superintende...
jakkos
It's a matter of time before the online safety act leads to horrendous data breaches. Once it's normalized to have to show your id to visit sites, any website will be able to pretend it's using a third party verification service but just save your id and sell the data on what you were doing.
The blackmail trade will be incredibly lucrative.
qualeed
I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such?
I'm not in the UK, so I don't have any idea about their laws, but I'd be shocked to find this was above board. Your FAQ claims it's a parody site and claims "The ID number isn't valid and you can't use the card for anything real." but you've just confirmed here it can indeed be used for real things (discord, reddit).
Your domain registration is UK-based, so, be careful!
nemomarx
If you can fool discords implementation with a video game character they can't actually be checking very well?
qualeed
I certainly agree!
However, I doubt that's a strong legal argument.
arrowsmith
What law is being broken here exactly?
It's certainly illegal to make fake IDs, but I don't know if that applies to just generating an image rather than fully forging a physical copy. And anyway these images look nothing like the real IDs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_...
AlecSchueler
True but the wording of the act actually places the onus on the service provider to verify the identities, not on the user to give them. It would be Discord in this case having to make the legal defence.
dotancohen
Which actually does not refute GPs query. Breaking a Masterlock or Abus is the same in the eye of the law.
belorn
Law often focus on intent. I am not sure if identity fraud can be applied if the person are not gaining anything (assuming they are of the right age). Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity.
To me this seems more similar to a people participating in a masquerade or comedian who dress themselves in the likeness of a politician. They are using the identity of the politician, but not in the way that identity fraud is intended to prevent.
Domain registration is an interesting example. To my knowledge, falsifying domain registration data is not a crime. Domain registrars have regulations to verify the identity of customers, including the recourse to suspend a domain if the data is incorrect. I could see a case if a person impersonate a politician in order to falsely attribute content of a website, under a registered domain name, as belonging/sanctioned by that politician, but that would likely fall under defamation laws. The crime could also be identity fraud, but the intent would be defamation.
qualeed
>Service providers might be of fault if their verification practices are not compliant with regulations, but I don't know if the law puts any requirements on users to verify their identity.
As I mentioned in another comment, I've heard no compelling argument that differentiates between this scenario (e.g. kid uses this site to access a nsfw subreddit) and an underage kid buying smokes with a fake ID.
In that scenario, the police don't just pick 1 entity to punish. The kid gets in trouble, the store (most likely) gets in trouble, and (if found) the fake ID supplier gets in trouble.
In the end, I hope that the owner of the website never has to find out exactly where and how the laws shake out, and that "it's a satirical website" is a strong enough defense. But from my armchair, I would suspect that the UK police/legislators would not look favorably on the "it's satire" defense. Especially because of this post which advertises that the fake ID works for some services, and there are under-18s on HN.
>Law often focus on intent.
I would expect that advertising that the IDs work on real services undermines any defense of "my intent was satire".
belorn
In the case of the underage kid, they are actually gaining something by using a fake ID to buy smokes for which they otherwise would not be able to buy. The situation that the website is promoting would be if the kid used an ID of an other underage kid, for which they would be equally denied to buy smokes with. The outcome (and intent) need to be one where the user do not gain anything practical.
I work at a domain registrar and I have yet to here anyone talking about criminal punishment for false registration data. I have also never heard about any one being charged for filling in the wrong phone or email address when signing up for a service or membership.
Looking at my local laws here in Sweden, the law text for identity fraud explicitly requires that the use of something else identity must result in some for of direct harm to the person. UK law could be different, but I have yet to hear something to indicate this.
pjc50
What does the online safety act actually say about this? It's only supposed to be age verification, and if you are actually old enough does it matter how you proved it?
Many of the age verification services explicitly promise not to retain photos!
AlecSchueler
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/part/4/chapter/...
It talks explicitly about verifying your identity, not your age, so no loopholes today I'm afraid
pjc50
.. for Category 1 services. I've already noted that several age verification services explicitly promise _not_ to retain your identity.
I'm having trouble working out what's category 1. Schedule 1 defines exemptions https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/schedule/1/part... ; otherwise this refers OFCOM to "critera" which I can't find.
As I understand it, Wikipedia are seeking judicial review of OFCOM's placing them in category 1, which requires the most stringent checks including identity.
Mindwipe
The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained...
arrowsmith
The generated addresses aren't real. It gave a London address for my MP; I know where he lives and it isn't London.
Most MPs' home addresses are actually quite easy to find. Mine's was printed below his name on the ballot paper last election – a nice reminder of how we used to have a high-trust society. I doubt this practice will be continued for much longer.
timje1
Yeah the address on all the IDs is for parliament. I assume one could find em there
qualeed
>The only way you'd ever get found out is if the affected MP was lying to the public and the identity documents do indeed get retained...
I'm more talking about the developer of the site rather than the users. And the developer could potentially be found out if they posted it on a popular hacking website and used a known alias and registered the domain in the UK.
But, if they're comfortable, all the more power to them. As I said, I do really like the spirit of the site.
shubb
If I was that developer, I'd blacklist embedding of all British MPs and councilors to avoid fraud. This would also block the entire UK political class from accessing adult materials (I got blocked by a wine forum), which would be a very effective protest...
ralferoo
> I like the spirit but wouldn't this run afoul of one or two laws? Identity fraud or some such?
I would say not, but then again I'm no lawyer.
There's plausible deniability in that there's a big "this is satire" watermark on top of the licence. The DOB in part 3 is wrong, and the driver number in part 5 is modified to include the 5 letters of the surname, but is otherwise incorrect. The DOB encoded in the licence number doesn't even match the wrong DOB in part 3 either.
If anything accepts this as valid ID, then it just shows how farcical the system is.
chippiewill
I agree, the UK Police wouldn't typically let you get away with "it's just a joke". This would constitute a mixture of identity theft, fake ID and misuse of computers.
timje1
It's literally just sticking the MPs name into an AI and asking for it to generate a mock ID for them. None of their real data is being used (e.g. their face, their DoB, the address) and the mock IDs wouldn't fool anyone for a second. I'd love if someone who understands the law would weigh in though
NicuCalcea
I don't think "It was actually ChatGPT that committed the crime, not me" would fly in a British court.
zmmmmm
the law is pretty fickle that way. It's illegal to rob a bank no matter how badly you bungle it. Saying afterwards "but my gun was clearly made of plastic" probably won't get you completely off the hook if you actually threatened someone with it and asked for money (this site is literally titled Use Your Local MP's ID - it's expressing an intent).
gus_massa
Does the AI has access to newspapers? If John Doe is a MP, then he is probably the most famous Joe Doe in the last 5 years and the AI may grab his photo from a newspaper. I don't know about the national ID in UK, but here in Argentina the national ID number is public. A lot of public documents include "John Doe (DNI 23.456.789)", and the are sites where you can search it (the DB has problems with almost coalitions, so you may get a number 23.456.789 from one "John X. Doe" that is a 50yo in Buenos Aires and another "John Y. Doe" with number 59.876.653 that is a 3yo in Ushuaia, so in many cases it's easy to guess)
undefined
aembleton
It does use their face
John7878781
It's better to be safe than sorry. For your own best interest, I would shut down the site and delete this post.
hacker_homie
It's not just a joke, it's parody and political commentary right?
timje1
I've scribbled 'this is satire' across each and every generated ID, so they can't realistically be used for anything.
Aeolun
You could go with misuse of computers, but unless the ID’s are actually used by yourself it’s not identity theft right?
yegle
Chinese Netizens are very familiar with Xi Jinping's national ID number precisely for this reason :-)
ID verification is enforced on all Chinese websites. People figured out they can just use Xi's ID number.
Gathering6678
This is not true. A) personal ID numbers are not publicly available (you could certainly get your hands on some, but I doubt a lot would know Xi's ID), and B) more importantly, nowadays ID verification in China uses more sophisticated methods, e.g. in order to not be restricted when playing games, users need to prove they are over 18. The user would permit the game to verify through a payment provider such as Alipay (I don't think one would even need to give their ID to the game, as it is handled by Alipay which has done KYC already).
Although I suspect such ... "innovations" ... would soon get to the western world including UK.
djrj477dhsnv
> ID verification is enforced on all Chinese websites.
Is that really true? So search engines? News sites? Pseudo-anonymous discussion forums?
raincole
Don't listen to the sibling commenter who doesn't know what they're talking about.
No, you don't need ID verification to use search engine or read news in China.
However, sites that depend on user-generated content (like forums) would ask for at least your phone number.
djoldman
How easily can a burner be used?
Are sim cards easily swapped?
budududuroiu
No, but some features are locked until you do. For example, you can join voice chat rooms on Xiaohongshu, but can’t turn on your camera until you verify ID. You can join others’ broadcasts but you can’t create your own, etc
yegle
You can have "read" access anonymously (with a big asterisk, see the end), but as soon as you need "write" access, the service provider (the website etc) is legally required to verify your ID. It's why there's no pseudo-anonymous discussion forum in China, at least legally.
Source: https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2016-11/07/content_5129723.htm
> Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China, Article 24: When network operators provide users with network access, domain name registration services, fixed-line and mobile phone network access procedures, or provide users with information publishing, instant messaging and other services, they shall require users to provide real identity information when signing an agreement with the user or confirming the provision of services. If the user does not provide real identity information, the network operator shall not provide the relevant services to the user.
The big asterisk: there's no anonymous internet service in China, you have to ID yourself to get access to the internet (article 24), and the service provider are required to keep record of you (IP and everything) (article 21), and they are also required to cooperate with the authority (no surprise here) (article 28). And using VPN or Tor is likely illegal (article 27).
bobsmooth
Yes. You need an ID to use the internet.
qingcharles
What about visitors?
anonzzzies
Stop talking nonsense.
MiddleEndian
lol on a much lighter note, for many years I used to use 111-111-1111 as a general phone number for CVS card discounts. It stopped working several years ago though.
Waterluvian
As a Canadian I was lost and confused when visiting the States (in the before time) and a gas pump asked for my zip code. So I put in the one and only zip code I know. I bet you can guess.
enlightens
Glad you could come visit from Beverly Hills ;)
EDIT: actually, depending on your age and what you watched on TV, maybe you were visiting from Boston?
s3graham
I used to use that one too, but you're supposed to put the 3 numerical digits of your postal code followed by 00. (I have no idea how you're supposed to know that though.)
DonHopkins
Ubow Tubu Wobun Thrube Fubor?
ethagnawl
Did it work?
ethagnawl
This reminds me: I've noticed that Starbucks now requires a few pieces of information to use their WiFi network. One is email and they are doing some sort of validation which will reject emails like whoopsileanedonxxxxxxxx@aol.com but will accept other, legit AOL emails. How are they deciding what is/not a valid email? Are they using a compiled list of emails that have been seen in the wild? What if it's a brand new address, though? Presumably AOL isn't exposing a service for them to use in realtime. I haven't tested this extensively or with other providers.
It's obvious that they care (to some extent) that they're getting valid emails, so why not use a basic regex on the FE and an OTP which gets sent to the provided address?
codedokode
They can connect to a mail server and pretend that they are going to send a message and the server would reject the invalid recipient email.
toast0
> why not use a basic regex on the FE and an OTP which gets sent to the provided address?
I can't prove I control an email in order to use your wifi, if I can't use your wifi.
aembleton
Use *@example.com, it usually works.
marssaxman
XXX-867-5309 still works everywhere I try it, where "XXX" is the local area code.
davidcollantes
I have also used XXX-555-1212, and it has worked everywhere.
kstrauser
I used 888-888-8888 at Target yesterday. Shhh.
elcritch
Lookup the stores phone number of maps. That usually works.
protocolture
If you really want to piss off the UK government, add a comment section.
1a527dd5
I think this is a fun project, but I'm not sure I'd leave this up for much longer.
MPs can be litigious. Especially if this is seen to be enabling things like ID fraud.
Also, there are only 650 constituencies. I would pre-populate the list so when entering a new postcode, it doesn't stall waiting for AI.
crinkly
MPs will be immediately trying to hang the civil service for telling them this was a good idea. Don't expect legal action. Do expect buck passing.
travisgriggs
I wish there was a modern day version of "Yes, [Prime] Minister" for this kind of stuff. It's like the episodes could write themselves by the week.
averageRoyalty
In Australia we have a show called "Utopia" that does fill this gap reasonably well. Australian politics are close enough to the UK that it'd probably translate well enough to be enjoyable.
I've heard many government workers say that it's funny but they can't watch it, as it's so accurate it's depressing.
crinkly
Well having worked for the government in an ancillary security role about 20 years ago on contract, I don't think they could produce a parody notably worse than reality to use as a contrast. Today, I suspect it is worse.
Hire an expert they said. From the pool of experts they had heard about through contacts in the civil service. None of whom have any industry or real world experience. At best, someone was on an industry eating and drinking with the right people panel. I was there for 3 months and crawled back to my previous job cap in hand, bruised and educated.
It was long enough ago that I can away with rounding errors of months on my CV thank goodness...
pjc50
"The Thick Of It", but even that's quite old now.
Political satire is kind of dead in an age of unironic stupidity.
edent
Not really. I was a civil servant and gave advice on this.
Civil servants aren't there to say whether a policy is good, sensible, or a vote-winner. The CS policy profeasion is there, in part, to advise on risks. Ministers decide whether to accept those risks.
There were plenty of people (like me) who would have pointed out the various risks and problems. Some of which caused policy to change, and some were accepted.
I don't think I've ever seen in recent years the CS be blamed for something like this.
arrowsmith
The generated images are very obviously AI fakes. I don't think anyone is going to be seriously fooled by this.
> I would pre-populate the list so when entering a new postcode, it doesn't stall waiting for AI.
It looks like it already works like this? It was slow the first time I searched for my postcode, subsequent times have been very fast.
FabHK
> I don't think anyone is going to be seriously fooled by this.
Do you think porn sites are more interested in a) correctly preventing unauthorized people from accessing their site, or b) selling as many subscriptions as they can while nominally complying with the law?
DonHopkins
The AI should generate nude photos festooned in kink accessories, brown noses, pearl necklaces, and dripping facials.
guessmyname
I wouldn't say they’re “obviously” AI fakes.
I’m not from the UK, so I’m not familiar with what their IDs are supposed to look like.
I was suspicious, though—the hands holding the ID cards looked kind of “crispy.” But at the same time, I thought, “woah, where did the website owner even get these photos?” It wasn’t until I read the Hacker News post that I realized they were all AI-generated (and now cached).
And here’s the thing: I’m an engineer at Apple with decades of experience in the tech industry—I’m not exactly new to this stuff. If I got fooled even for a couple of seconds, imagine how easy it would be to trick someone who isn’t technical.
arrowsmith
The text is slightly misaligned and weird-looking; it screams "AI". The hand holding the ID looks like CGI. And the photos don't look anything like the actual MP, at least for the ones that I tried.
There's also some obvious tells if you know what UK driving licenses look like: the layout is wrong, the background is too plain, and all the anti-forgery features are missing. Real licenses have much more detail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driving_licence_in_the_United_...
KomoD
> I wouldn't say they’re “obviously” AI fakes.
I'd say they're obviously AI fakes, just trying a few: B249AL (it made her bald), SA487AB (different shape, hair color and hair), TN248DF (it grew his hair back), HA26ND (bald, again) and NG166QE (I don't even need to explain)...
crinkly
This is great. Weaponising the stupidity of the idea, compromising it entirely until it's so obviously ineffectual it's unenforceable, then going after the politicians who pushed it for the waste of money and effort.
Create a scandal. Bad PR is the only way out now.
gardnr
It looks like the code was/is going to be published?
From the FAQ:
> How did you do this?
> This site uses React for the frontend and Node.js for the backend. The MP data is fetched from the UK government public API, and the AI-generated images use the latest model from open AI. The images are stored on a Cloudflare R2 bucket. The code is open source, so you can check it out on GitHub. It was done in a hurry.
The git repo linked from that FAQ shows a 404: https://github.com/timje/use-my-mps-id
Arubis
This is the sort of thing that brought me into tech in the first place, before it became the villain it had started off fighting: humorous, effective pushback against stodgy power structures. More please!
ta1243
Your MP
Name: Mike Wood
Party: Conservative
Constituency: Stafford
Err, Stafford has been Labour since the last election, and before that it was a Conservative, but it was Theodora Clarke. Mike Wood is MP for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire.Surely the way you build something like this is a postcode -> constituency table (I assume available free), a constituency -> mp table, and mp -> image generation (with caching or generate multiple versions)
Even if the lookup data mis-selected the constituency (I think some postcodes can straddle constituencies), surely the Constituency/Name/Party would be consistent.
I'm guessing you're using chat-gpt for the entire program?
timje1
Nope! Office of national statistics published a CSV for postcode -> constituency name [ https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/6f2f35a9a0b94e7... ], and then the official gov.uk parliament API for a constituency name -> MP lookup [ https://members-api.parliament.uk/index.html ]. So all of the data is the officially available data. I humbly posit that this is a publicly owned bug.
ta1243
I would guess you're taking the constituency name and doing something like this:
https://members-api.parliament.uk/api/Location/Constituency/...
returns three constituencies, all of which look fine to me, but the "Stafford" one is the middle, and you're using the data from the first returned constituency
Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
Hi HN - I made a site that takes a UK postcode, grabs the local MP's information and generates an AI mockup of what their ID might look like.
It's a small, silly protest at the stupidity of the Online Safety Act that just came into force.
edit - My open AI credits got hugged to death, please use a known postcode (like one from Kier Starmer's constituency, WC2B6NH) in the meantime.