title: Busy Philipps

text: On June 4, 2019, Philipps gave a testimonial before the House Judiciary Committee, defending the right for women to have access to more abortion clinics. In doing so, Philipps talked about her own experience with abortion, saying: I am a human being that deserves autonomy in this country that calls itself free, and choices that a human being makes about their own bodies should not be legislated by strangers who can’t possibly know or understand each individual’s circumstances or beliefs.


title: Busy Philipps

text: Philipps married screenwriter Marc Silverstein on June 16, 2007. They have two children: Birdie, born in 2008, and Cricket, born in 2013. They separated in February 2021.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Super Bowl LIII was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2018 season. The American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots defeated the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Los Angeles Rams, 13–3. The game was played on February 3, 2019, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and was the first Super Bowl played at the stadium.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The Patriots' victory was their sixth, tying the Pittsburgh Steelers for the most Super Bowl championships. New England, after finishing the regular season with an 11–5 record, advanced to their 11th Super Bowl appearance, their third in a row, and their ninth under the leadership of head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. The Rams finished the regular season with a 13–3 record under head coach Sean McVay, the youngest head coach in the Super Bowl at 33, as they advanced to their fourth Super Bowl appearance and their first since relocating back from St. Louis to Los Angeles in 2016. Super Bowl LIII was a rematch of 2001's Super Bowl XXXVI, the first championship won by Belichick and Brady and the beginning of the Patriots dynasty. It was the 14th meeting in a major sports championship between the Greater Los Angeles and Greater Boston areas and the first championship between the two regions in the NFL. The game also marked the first Super Bowl appearance of a Los Angeles-based team since the Los Angeles Raiders appeared in 1983's Super Bowl XVIII and the Rams' first as a Los Angeles team since 1979's Super Bowl XIV.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Super Bowl LIII was the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in NFL history, a stark contrast to the previous year's which was the second-highest. The game marked the first Super Bowl in which neither team had a touchdown through the first three quarters, as the Patriots and the Rams fought to a 3–3 tie entering the fourth. In the final quarter, New England scored 10 unanswered points to claim victory, including the game's only touchdown by running back Sony Michel. The Patriots' one touchdown tied them with the New York Jets in Super Bowl III for the fewest by a winning Super Bowl team, while the Rams became the second Super Bowl team to not score a touchdown after the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI. Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, who caught 10 passes for 141 yards, was named Super Bowl MVP. Brady and Belichick became the oldest starting quarterback and head coach to win the Super Bowl at 41 and 66, respectively, and Brady was also the first starting quarterback to win the Super Bowl in his 40s. It marked the final Super Bowl of the Patriots dynasty, as Brady departed New England after the 2019 season.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The broadcast of the game on CBS, along with the halftime show headlined by U.S. pop group Maroon 5, saw the smallest Super Bowl audience in 10 years. Due to its low-scoring nature and both teams' offensive struggles, the game has been regarded as one of the worst Super Bowls, although the defensive performances of both teams are considered among the greatest.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: On May 19, 2015, the league announced the four finalists that would compete to host Super Bowl LIII in 2019, LIV in 2020 and LV in 2021. NFL owners voted on these cities on May 24, 2016, with the first round of voting determining the host for Super Bowl LIII, the second round deciding a different site for Super Bowl LIV and the third round deciding the site for Super Bowl LV. The four finalists for Super Bowl LIII, all in the Southeastern United States, were:


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: After three votes, Atlanta was awarded Super Bowl LIII at the NFL owners' meeting on May 24, 2016. The losing candidates, except for New Orleans which removed itself from the voting for all games except Super Bowl LIII due to event conflicts in 2020 and 2021, were then pitted against SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California for Super Bowl LIV and Super Bowl LV hosting rights. Miami eventually won the rights to host Super Bowl LIV and Los Angeles won the rights to host Super Bowl LV. However on May 23, 2017, NFL owners opted to award Super Bowl LV to Tampa and give Super Bowl LVI to Los Angeles after it was announced that SoFi Stadium would open in 2020 due to construction delays. New Orleans would be awarded Super Bowl LVIII.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The NFL unveiled the official logo for Super Bowl LIII in February 2018; it is a navy blue-tinted version of the design that was introduced at Super Bowl LI, and the overall branding of the game featured use of blue and red. The host committee logo featured a stylized overhead rendition of Mercedes-Benz Stadium's roof.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The Patriots finished the 2018 season with an 11–5 record to earn the #2 seed in the AFC and their 17th season with at least ten wins in their 19 years under 66-year-old head coach Bill Belichick. They went on to join the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills as the only teams in NFL history to ever reach three consecutive Super Bowls. Though the team had only two Pro Bowl selections, they scored 436 points (fourth in the league) while giving up only 325 (seventh fewest).


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Patriots quarterback Tom Brady earned his 14th Pro Bowl selection at age 41, finishing the season with 4,355 passing yards and 29 touchdowns, with only 11 interceptions, while also rushing for 35 yards and two more scores on the ground. These totals made him just the second quarterback in NFL history to amass 70,000 career passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards. His top receiver from the previous season, Brandin Cooks, was traded to the eventual Super Bowl rival Rams, but Julian Edelman, who had missed the previous season with an torn ACL injury, returned to catch 74 receptions for a team-leading 850 yards and six touchdowns, while also returning 20 punts for 154 yards. Other key receivers included Chris Hogan (35 receptions for 553 yards and three touchdowns) and Josh Gordon (40 receptions for 720 yards and three touchdowns), though Gordon would end up leaving the team to focus on his mental health after 11 games when faced with a suspension for violating the league's substance abuse policy. Tight end Rob Gronkowski added 47 receptions for 682 yards and three touchdowns. Meanwhile, the running game featured a dynamic new weapon, rookie halfback Sony Michel, who lead the team with 931 rushing yards and 6 touchdowns, along with veteran James White who racked up 1,176 yards from scrimmage while leading the team in receptions (87) and total touchdowns (12). On special teams, receiver Cordarrelle Patterson returned 23 kickoffs for 663 yards and a touchdown, an average of 28.8 yards per return (third in the NFL), while also catching 21 passes for 247 yards, rushing for 228 yards and scoring four touchdowns on offense.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: On defense, defensive end Trey Flowers led the team with 7.5 sacks and also forced three fumbles. Linebacker Kyle Van Noy led the team in total tackles (92), while also recording 3.5 sacks, a forced fumble and two fumble recoveries. In the secondary, safety Duron Harmon led the team in interceptions for the second year in a row with four, while Pro Bowl cornerback Stephon Gilmore intercepted two passes and forced two fumbles. Safety Patrick Chung also made an impact with 84 total tackles to go with an interception and a fumble recovery. The Patriots secondary also featured twin brothers Jason McCourty and Devin McCourty, who both had an interception each. Devin had 82 tackles, while Jason had 70.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The Rams finished the 2018 season earning the #2 seed in the NFC, before knocking off the fourth seeded Dallas Cowboys in the divisional round and top seeded New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship to earn their fourth Super Bowl in franchise history. The Rams went from 2004 to 2016 without recording a winning record. After relocating from St. Louis back to Los Angeles and posting a dismal 4–12 season in 2016, the team's fortunes changed with the hiring of 30-year-old head coach Sean McVay, the youngest head coach in NFL history. Under McVay and second year quarterback Jared Goff, who recovered from a lackluster winless rookie season to record a triple digit passer rating, the Rams improved to an 11–5 record in 2017. Then in 2018, they won their first eight games and finished the year with a 13–3 record, tying the Saints for the best record in the NFC. New Orleans won the top seed since they had defeated the Rams in the regular season.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The Rams offense ranked second in the NFL in both points scored (527) and yards gained (6,738). Goff continued to improve in his third season, setting new career highs in passing yards (4,688, fourth in the NFL), passing touchdowns (32), passer rating (101.1), rushing yards (108) and rushing touchdowns (two). His top receiver was Robert Woods, who caught 86 passes for 1,219 yards and 6 touchdowns. Brandin Cooks, an off-season pickup from the Patriots via trade, also made a big impact with 80 receptions for 1,204 yards and 5 scores. The team's #3 receiver, Cooper Kupp, suffered a season ending injury after catching 40 passes for 566 yards in 8 games, forcing Goff to rely heavily on other targets like Gerald Everett (32 receptions) and Josh Reynolds (29). Pro Bowl running back Todd Gurley was the team's leading rusher with 1,251 yards (fourth in the NFL) and 17 touchdowns, while also catching 59 passes for 580 yards and five more touchdowns. His 17 rushing touchdowns led the league, while his 22 total touchdowns gave him 132 points, fifth in the NFL. Running back C. J. Anderson, who made the Rams his third different team in 2018 after signing up with them in December, also was a key aspect of the running game, finishing the season with 405 yards and leading the team in rushing in both of their playoff victories. On special teams, JoJo Natson returned 26 punts for 280 yards, while kicker Greg Zuerlein made 87.1% of his field goals, including a franchise postseason record 57-yard kick to defeat the Saints in overtime in the NFC championship game.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The Rams defense featured Pro Bowl defensive tackle Aaron Donald, who led the league in sacks with 20.5, as many sacks as the rest of the team combined. He also had 59 tackles (25 for loss), four forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries. Veteran defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh was second on the team with 4.5 sacks, while also getting 59 tackles and recovering two fumbles. Pro Bowl linebacker Cory Littleton led the team in total tackles with 125, while also picking up four sacks, three interceptions and blocking two punts. The Rams also had a strong secondary, led by John Johnson (119 tackles and four interceptions), Marcus Peters (three interceptions), Lamarcus Joyner (78 tackles) and Aqib Talib.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: In the playoffs, the Patriots earned a first-round bye as the AFC's second overall seed. In the divisional round, they defeated the Los Angeles Chargers 41–28, scoring touchdowns on five of their first six possessions. Brady passed for 343 yards and a touchdown, while running back Sony Michel rushed for 129 yards and three touchdowns. They then defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 37–31 in the AFC Championship Game, scoring the game-winning touchdown in overtime. The Patriots held a 14–0 lead at halftime, before the Chiefs rallied to take the lead 21–17 in the fourth quarter. From there, both teams took turns taking the lead, until the Chiefs forced overtime with a 39-yard field goal by Harrison Butker to tie the game 31–31. In overtime, Rex Burkhead scored a two-yard touchdown to win the game. Michel ended up rushing for a combined total of 242 yards and five touchdowns in the Patriots' two playoff games, setting an NFL record for postseason rushing touchdowns by a rookie. In the AFC championship game, the Patriots defense held Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill and tight end Travis Kelce, who had both gained over 1,300 receiving yards during the season, to a combined total of just four receptions for 65 yards.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Meanwhile, the Rams also had a first-round bye as the NFC's second overall seed. They started off the divisional round by defeating the Dallas Cowboys 30–22. The Rams gained 273 yards on the ground with running backs Todd Gurley and C. J. Anderson rushing for over 100 yards each. They then defeated the New Orleans Saints 26–23 in the NFC Championship Game, scoring a game-winning field goal in overtime. The Saints jumped out to an early 13–0 first quarter lead, before the Rams rallied to close the lead to 13–10 at halftime. In the fourth quarter, Greg Zuerlein tied the game at 20–20, with just over 5 minutes remaining. The Saints moved the ball to the Rams' 13 yard line, but could not gain a first down. On third down, quarterback Drew Brees threw a pass to receiver Tommylee Lewis, who was covered by Nickell Robey-Coleman. Though Robey-Coleman knocked Lewis to the ground early and the pass fell incomplete, the obvious penalty was not called and the Saints' Wil Lutz kicked a 31-yard field goal to take the lead. The Rams took possession and sent the game to overtime with a 48-yard field goal by Greg Zuerlein. In overtime, Brees threw an interception on their first drive and Zuerlein kicked a 57-yard field goal to win the game.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The game was a rematch of Super Bowl XXXVI between the Patriots and the Rams; the Rams at the time were based in St. Louis. However, only one player, Patriots starting quarterback Tom Brady, remained on either roster from that contest. Bill Belichick, the Patriots' head coach in the previous contest, also remained in that position for this game. Super Bowl LIII featured record setting age differences between each team's starting quarterbacks and head coaches, pitting 41-year-old Brady against 24-year-old Jared Goff, as well as 66-year-old Belichick against 33-year-old Sean McVay.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The then-St. Louis Rams won their sole Super Bowl title in Atlanta, Super Bowl XXXIV, hosted at the now-demolished Georgia Dome in 2000, which was located adjacent to Mercedes-Benz Stadium.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: As the designated home team in the annual rotation between AFC and NFC teams, the Rams elected to wear their royal blue and yellow throwback uniforms for the game, which they have previously worn for six home games including a home playoff game during the 2018 season. The Patriots wore their standard white away uniforms.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Gambling establishments had the Patriots as 2 ½ point favorites and projected 56 total points would be scored.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Boston and Los Angeles teams of other professional sports have met in the championship rounds, popularizing the "Beat L.A." chant and the hashtag "#BeatLA". The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have contested a record twelve NBA Finals. Furthermore, Los Angeles Galaxy and New England Revolution have contested three MLS Cups. The Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers faced off in the 2018 World Series, and with the Patriots and Rams meeting in Super Bowl LIII, it was only the second time in 50 years that two cities' MLB and NFL teams have competed for the league title in the same season (or calendar year), the first time being in 1969 when the New York Jets and Baltimore Colts competed for Super Bowl III in January 1969 followed by the 1969 World Series featuring the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles. The Patriots faced another Los Angeles-based team in the same playoffs, the Chargers in the divisional round, en route to their Super Bowl meeting with the Rams.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Pre-game events and entertainment were centered around downtown Atlanta, with State Farm Arena having hosted Super Bowl Opening Night, the Georgia World Congress Center hosting the Super Bowl Experience and Super Bowl Live at Centennial Olympic Park. State Farm Arena also hosted the inaugural "Bud Light Super Bowl Music Fest", a three-night concert series that was headlined by Ludacris and Migos (night 1), Aerosmith and Post Malone (night 2), and Bruno Mars and Cardi B (night 3). The show competed with a "Super Saturday Night" concert held by DirecTV at a temporary venue near Atlantic Station, headlined by the Foo Fighters and featuring Roger Taylor, Zac Brown, Tom Morello, Perry Farrell and Dave Koz as special guests.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The NFL officially launched its centennial commemorations at Super Bowl LIII, ahead of its 100th season. A themed, two-minute advertisement was aired during the game.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: CBS broadcast Super Bowl LIII as part of an annual rotation between the three main broadcast television partners of the NFL; it was the 20th time CBS has broadcast the game. As with CBS's most recent Super Bowl (Super Bowl 50), ESPN Deportes aired a Spanish-language broadcast of the game (additional to CBS's SAP channel Spanish version). CBS' coverage utilized a total of 115 cameras, including 8K resolution cameras (for the first time in a U.S. network sports telecast) in the end zones, as well as field-level and "up close" augmented reality graphics (with the latter generated by a wireless, handheld camera).


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Digitally, the game was available via the CBS Sports app, CBSSports.com, the Yahoo! Sports app, Tumblr app, the NFL app and through CBS's subscription service CBS All Access. The Yahoo! Sports app and Tumblr app streams are part of a long-term deal between then NFL and Verizon Media.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Westwood One affiliates carried the game on radio for free, with SiriusXM carrying the game in eight languages and hometown broadcasts from Boston's WBZ-FM and Los Angeles's KSPN and KCBS-FM, along with the main feed on Sirius XM NFL Radio.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: With a base price slightly higher than $5 million for a 30-second ad, the cost of commercial time remained even with the previous three events. There were fewer spots sold overall in comparison to the previous Super Bowl; CBS aired more than double the number of promos for its own programming (as well as that of its subscription service CBS All Access) than NBC did at Super Bowl LII. Despite this, Kantar estimated its total revenue to be the third-highest in Super Bowl history, at $382 million.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Perennial Super Bowl advertiser Anheuser-Busch made its largest-ever advertising purchase for a single game, with a total of eight different commercials of various lengths (covering five-and-a-half minutes of airtime) across seven product brands, including three being advertised during the game for the first time. Mercedes-Benz aired a minute long ad for the 2019 A-Class Sedan featuring cameos by Ludacris. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures aired a half-minute long Teaser for highly anticipated . CBS rejected an ad from medical cannabis company Acreage Holdings advocating for legalization.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: For the first time in its history, the NFL itself won "USA Today"s Super Bowl Ad Meter survey determining the best commercial aired during the game, with an advertisement launching a campaign celebrating its 100th season.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: CBS's lead-out program was the series premiere of the talent competition series "The World's Best". After late local programs, CBS also aired a special Sunday-night episode of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert".


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Initial overnight Nielsen Ratings measured a 44.9 rating for the game, down 5% from the previous year and the lowest rating for a Super Bowl since Super Bowl XLIII ten years prior. 98.2 million viewers were measured, the fewest since Super Bowl XLII. Jemele Hill of "The Atlantic" attributed the low ratings "to the game being the lowest-scoring Super Bowl ever, moderate national interest in the Rams, the lingering bad taste from the huge blown call in the NFC Championship Game, and Patriots fatigue". In New Orleans, whose Saints had lost the NFC Championship in part because of the blown call, ratings were down 51% compared to Super Bowl LII as Louisianans boycotted and refused to watch the game. Outside the Boston market, where the 57.1 overnight rating was the highest among local markets, the highest-rated markets were in Richmond, Virginia and Buffalo, New York (the latter having traditionally high ratings for sporting events and being the home of the Patriots' division rivals the Buffalo Bills); Los Angeles was near the national average. A downturn of approximately 5% was noted during the halftime show. The fewer television viewers did not migrate to online or mobile platforms; viewership online and on mobile only totaled 2.5 million viewers, which was not an appreciable enough change to affect the overall viewership decline.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: In Canada, the game was aired by CTV, CTV 2 and TSN. Unifor purchased time on the Canadian broadcast to air an attack ad criticizing General Motors' decision to close the Oshawa Car Assembly plant, defying demands from the company to pull the ad because they deemed it to be misleading.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: In Australia and New Zealand, ESPN Australia aired an ESPN-produced broadcast of the game that featured the "Monday Night Football" commentary crew of Joe Tessitore, Jason Witten and Booger McFarland (McFarland was in the booth rather than the Booger Mobile, the controversial sideline vehicle he used that was abandoned before the end of the 2018 "MNF" season). It would prove to be Witten's last commentary appearance for the time being, due to his unretirement and return to the Dallas Cowboys. Additionally in Australia the game was broaadcast for the second year in a row by Melbourne Radio Station 1116 SEN and commentated by Gerard Whateley.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the game was broadcast on the free-to-air channel BBC One, and paid-subscription channels Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Mix and Sky Sports USA.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The musical artists who agreed to perform at the show—including Gladys Knight, Maroon 5, Travis Scott, and Big Boi—were criticized by media outlets, other artists and members of the public for performing at Super Bowl LIII because of the NFL's alleged blacklisting of Colin Kaepernick for protesting police brutality by kneeling during the pre-game national anthem. Several artists, including Jay-Z and Cardi B, turned down offers to perform at the game in support of Kaepernick.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Quinton Peron and Napoleon Jinnies became the first male cheerleaders to perform at a major US sporting event. Scott Winer was the first openly gay cameraman to film the Super Bowl.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The NFL had Mercedes-Benz Stadium's retractable roof open for the pre-game ceremonies and closed it prior to kickoff.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Atlanta natives Chloe x Halle performed "America the Beautiful". Gladys Knight, also from Atlanta, performed "The Star-Spangled Banner". D.C. resident Aarron Loggins performed a sign-language interpretation for both songs.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Bernice King—the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.—and civil rights movement leaders Andrew Young and John Lewis participated in the coin toss ceremony. King had the honors of flipping the coin.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: On January 13, 2019, the NFL announced that pop band Maroon 5 would headline the Super Bowl LIII halftime show. They were joined by Big Boi of Outkast and Travis Scott as guests. A short clip featuring the cast of "SpongeBob SquarePants" and a clip from the 2001 episode "Band Geeks" was aired as a tribute to series creator Stephen Hillenburg, who died in November 2018 due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The full clip of the "Sweet Victory" song, including a dedication to Hillenburg, was played inside the stadium prior to the game.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The Patriots received first possession as Cordarrelle Patterson returned the opening kickoff 38 yards to the Patriots' 39-yard line and the team picked up 27 yards with their next five plays. But on Tom Brady's first pass attempt of the day, Nickell Robey-Coleman, who was notable for a non-call on pass interference in the NFC Championship two weeks earlier, deflected the ball, allowing linebacker Cory Littleton to make an interception. The turnover had no avail, and following a punt, the Patriots drove 45 yards in 11 plays, the longest a 19-yard catch by tight end Rob Gronkowski. Placekicker Stephen Gostkowski missed a field goal attempt from 46 yards, still keeping the score at zero. The Rams were again unable to move the ball and again, the Patriots threatened to score when Brady completed a 25-yard pass to Julian Edelman at the Rams 45-yard line. But on the next play, Brady was sacked by defensive end John Franklin-Myers and fumbled the ball. Center David Andrews recovered the fumble, but the team was only able to get as far as the Rams' 40 before 4th down and had to punt with 18 seconds left in the first quarter.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: After forcing another three-and-out, the Patriots managed to drive 39 yards in seven plays, most of which came from another 25-yard completion from Brady to Edelman. Gostkowski finished the possession with a 42-yard field goal, giving the team a 3–0 lead with 10:29 left in the second quarter. After the next three drives ended in punts, the Patriots took the ball and drove 36 yards to the Rams 32-yard line. But on a 4th-and-1 conversion attempt, Brady threw an incomplete pass with 1:16 left on the clock.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The two teams went into their locker rooms with the Patriots leading, 3–0, the second lowest halftime score in Super Bowl history and the lowest since the 2–0 halftime score in Super Bowl IX after the 1974 season. In the entire first half, the Rams had gained just 57 yards and two first downs, both record lows for coach Sean McVay. This was also the first time that McVay's Rams had ever been shut out in a first half.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The defensive battle continued into the second half as both teams punted twice (one of them was a Super Bowl record 65-yard punt by the Rams' Johnny Hekker). With 6:33 left in the third quarter, the Rams opened their first drive of more than five plays and their first not to end in a punt, moving the ball 42 yards in 10 plays. On the third play of the drive, Jared Goff completed a 15-yard pass to Brandin Cooks and later made his first third-down conversion with an 18-yard pass to Robert Woods on 3rd-and-6. On 3rd-and-7 from the Patriots' 26-yard line, Goff was sacked for a 9-yard loss by Dont'a Hightower, but Greg Zuerlein was able to pull off a 53-yard field goal, the second-longest in Super Bowl history, to tie the game at 3–3 with 2:11 left in the third quarter. It would be their only score. The Patriots took the ball back and drove to the Rams' 44-yard line, but could not go any further and had to punt on the first play of the fourth quarter. For the first time in Super Bowl history, both teams had gone three quarters without scoring a touchdown.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: After forcing the Rams to punt, the Patriots mounted the longest drive of the game as Brady completed an 18-yard pass to Gronkowski, a 13-yard pass to Edelman, a 7-yard pass to running back Rex Burkhead and a 29-yard pass to Gronkowski, bringing them to the Rams' 2-yard line. On the next play, Sony Michel gave the Patriots the lead with a touchdown run, extending his rookie postseason rushing touchdown record to six. With the extra point by Gostkowski, the Patriots had a 10–3 lead with seven minutes left in regulation. On the first play of the Rams' next drive, Goff completed a 19-yard pass to Cooks and later converted a 3rd-and-9 with an 11-yard throw to Josh Reynolds. On the next play, his 17-yard completion to Woods moved the ball to the Patriots' 27-yard line. But with just over 4 minutes left in the game, Goff threw a pass that was intercepted by Stephon Gilmore on the 3-yard line.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: The Rams needed to force a punt or turnover, however were unable to contain the Patriots on the ground. On the second play of the Patriots' possession, Michel stormed through the line for a 26-yard run. After he picked up 10 more yards with his next two carries, Burkhead's 26-yard run gave the Patriots a first down on the Rams' 33-yard line. Three plays later, Gostkowski succeeded on a 41-yard field goal, giving the Patriots a 13–3 lead with 1:12 left on the clock. Taking the ball back on their own 25, Goff completed a 10-yard pass to Woods, as well as completions to Cooks for gains of 24 and 21 yards, moving the ball to the Patriots' 30-yard line. With 8 seconds left, the Rams decided to kick a field goal, which would have been followed by an onside kick attempt, but Zuerlein missed wide left from 48 yards and the Patriots ran out the last few seconds of the game clock.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Brady completed 21 of 35 passes for 262 yards, with one interception. Edelman was his top target with 10 receptions for 141 yards, while Gronkowski made six receptions for 87 yards in his final game with the Patriots. Michel was the top rusher of the game with 94 yards and a touchdown. Gilmore had five solo tackles and an interception. Goff finished the day 19-for-38 passing, for 229 yards and an interception. Cooks was his top receiver with eight receptions for 120 yards. Littleton had 10 tackles (six solo) and an interception. Hekker punted nine times for 417 yards, an average of 46.3 yards per punt, and put five punts inside the 20. The Rams were only the second team in Super Bowl history to not score a touchdown, the first having been the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI after the 1971 season.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Brady became the first player in NFL history to win six Super Bowls, surpassing Charles Haley's only NFL record of five. Brady, also, at age 41, became the oldest quarterback to win and appear in a Super Bowl (although he did not play, the oldest quarterback ever to appear in a Super Bowl was Steve DeBerg in Super Bowl XXXIII at the age of 45), and, at the time, Bill Belichick was the oldest coach to win a Super Bowl, at age 66, until Bruce Arians surpassed that record at age 68 in Super Bowl LV. Edelman was named the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player, and he was the first wide receiver to win the award since Santonio Holmes in Super Bowl XLIII after the 2008 season. Despite holding the Rams to just three points, no Patriots defender received a vote.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: Super Bowl LIII had seven officials. The numbers in parentheses below indicate their uniform numbers. John Parry became the second referee in a row to retire after officiating the Super Bowl after Gene Steratore, who retired after Super Bowl LII.


title: Super Bowl LIII

text: On the morning of February 5, the Patriots celebration duck boat parade was held in Boston, starting at Boylston Street and ending at City Hall Plaza. The date of the parade was unseasonably warm for New England. The high temperature for the day was 65 degrees Fahrenheit, with a low of 40. Temperatures in Boston during this time of year average in the mid to low 40’s. It was attended by an estimated 1.5 million fans.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Local elections took place in most areas on the same day.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Polls and commentators had predicted the outcome would be too close to call and would result in a second consecutive hung parliament whose composition would be either similar to or more complicated than the 2010 general election. Opinion polls were eventually proven to have underestimated the Conservative vote as the party, having governed in coalition with the Liberal Democrats since 2010, won 330 seats and 36.9% of the vote share, giving them a small overall majority of 12 seats (including Speaker John Bercow—ten seats without him) and their first outright win since 1992. It therefore won a mandate to govern alone with David Cameron continuing as Prime Minister.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband, who had succeeded Gordon Brown following his resignation after defeat the 2010 general election following 13 years in Government, saw a small increase in its share of the vote to 30.4%; but incurred a net loss of seats to return 232 MPs. This was its lowest seat tally since the 1987 general election. Several senior Labour Shadow Cabinet members, notably Ed Balls, Douglas Alexander, and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy, were defeated.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Scottish National Party, enjoying a surge in support after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum (which saw the majority of voters in Scotland to reject independence and stay as part of the United Kingdom), won a landslide victory in Scotland at the expense of Labour; who had dominated Scottish politics in terms of numbers of seats since 1964. The SNP won all but three of the 59 Scottish seats to become the third-largest party in the Commons.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Liberal Democrats, led by outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, had their worst result since their formation in 1988, losing all but eight of their 57 seats, with Cabinet ministers Vince Cable, Ed Davey and Danny Alexander losing their seats, although Clegg himself managed to retain his seat. UKIP came third in terms of votes with a 12.6% but won only a single seat, with party leader Nigel Farage failing to win the seat of South Thanet; but finished in a close second to the Conservatives in his most successful election result to date. The Green Party won its highest-ever share of the vote with 3.8%, and retained their only seat. Ed Miliband and Jim Murphy both resigned from the Leadership of the Labour Party, as did Clegg for the Liberal Democrats. In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party returned to the Commons with two MPs after a five-year absence, while the Alliance Party lost its only seat despite an increase in total vote share.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The election is in retrospect considered to have begun a political realignment in the UK's electoral politics, marking the end of the traditional three-party domination seen for most of the previous century. The Scottish National Party began its domination of Scottish representation in Westminster (having already begun dominating elections to the Scottish Parliament since 2007). It also saw one of the last public appearances of former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy who lost his seat in Ross, Skye and Lochaber to the Scottish Nationalist Ian Blackford, before his death on 1 June.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Other notable members that stepped down at this election included: Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, Frank Dobson, former Conservative leader William Hague, former Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell and Malcolm Rifkind. Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included future Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, future Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and future Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner. Another future Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who previously stepped down in 2008 to serve as the Mayor of London returned to Parliament as the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (as amended by the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013) led to the dissolution of the 55th Parliament on 30 March 2015 and the scheduling of the election on 7 May, the House of Commons not having voted for an earlier date. There were local elections on the same day in most of England, with the exception of Greater London. No other elections were scheduled to take place in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, apart from any local by-elections.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: All British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens over the age of 18 on the date of the election were permitted to vote. In general elections, voting takes place in all parliamentary constituencies of the United Kingdom to elect members of parliament (MPs) to seats in the House of Commons, the dominant (historically termed the lower) house of Parliament. Each parliamentary constituency of the United Kingdom elects one MP to the House of Commons using the "first-past-the-post" system. If one party obtains a majority of seats, then that party is entitled to form the Government. If the election results in no single party having a majority, then there is a hung parliament. In this case, the options for forming the Government are either a minority government or a coalition government.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Although the Conservative Party planned the number of parliamentary seats to be reduced from 650 to 600, through the Sixth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies under the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, the review of constituencies and reduction in seats was delayed by the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 amending the 2011 Act. The next boundary review was set to take place in 2018; thus, the 2015 general election was contested using the same constituencies and boundaries as in 2010. Of the 650 constituencies, 533 were in England, 59 in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: In addition, the 2011 Act mandated a referendum in 2011 on changing from the current first-past-the-post voting system to an alternative vote (instant-runoff) system for elections to the Commons. The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement committed the coalition government to such a referendum. The referendum was held in May 2011 and resulted in the retention of the existing voting system. Before the previous general election the Liberal Democrats had pledged to change the voting system, and the Labour Party pledged to have a referendum about any such change. The Conservatives, however, promised to keep the first-past-the-post system, but to reduce the number of constituencies by 10%. Liberal Democrat plans were to reduce the number of MPs to 500, and for them to be elected using a proportional system.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Ministers increased the amount of money that parties and candidates were allowed to spend on the election by 23%, a move decided against Electoral Commission advice. The election saw the first cap on spending by parties in individual constituencies during the 100 days before Parliament's dissolution on 30 March: £30,700, plus a per-voter allowance of 9p in county constituencies and 6p in borough seats. An additional voter allowance of more than £8,700 is available after the dissolution of Parliament. UK political parties spent £31.1m in the 2010 general election, of which the Conservative Party spent 53%, the Labour Party spent 25% and the Liberal Democrats 15%.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: An election is called following the dissolution of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The 2015 general election was the first to be held under the provisions of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Prior to this, the power to dissolve Parliament was a royal prerogative, exercised by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister. Under the provisions of the Septennial Act 1716, as amended by the Parliament Act 1911, an election had to be announced on or before the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the previous parliament, barring exceptional circumstances. No sovereign had refused a request for dissolution since the beginning of the 20th century, and the practice had evolved that a prime minister would typically call a general election to be held at a tactically convenient time within the final two years of a Parliament's lifespan, to maximise the chance of an electoral victory for his or her party.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Prior to the 2010 general election, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats pledged to introduce fixed-term elections. As part of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement, the Cameron ministry agreed to support legislation for fixed-term Parliaments, with the date of the next general election being 7 May 2015. This resulted in the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, which removed the prime minister's power to advise the monarch to call an early election. The Act only permits an early dissolution if Parliament votes for one by a two-thirds supermajority, or if a majority of MPs pass a vote of no confidence and no new government is subsequently formed within 14 days. However, the prime minister had the power, by order made by Statutory Instrument under section 1(5) of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, to fix the polling day to be up to two months later than 7 May 2015. Such a Statutory Instrument must be approved by each House of Parliament. Under section 14 of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was amended to extend the period between the dissolution of Parliament and the following general election polling day from 17 to 25 working days. This had the effect of moving forward the date of the dissolution of the Parliament to 30 March 2015.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: While at the previous election there had been a record 148 MPs not standing for re-election, the 2015 election saw 90 MPs standing down. These comprised 38 Conservative, 37 Labour, 10 Liberal Democrat, 3 Independent, 1 Sinn Féin and 1 Plaid Cymru MP. The highest-profile members of parliament leaving were: Gordon Brown, a former Prime Minister, Leader of the Labour Party (both 2007–2010) and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1997–2007); and William Hague, the outgoing First Secretary of State and Leader of the House of Commons and former Foreign Secretary (2010–2014), Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition (both 1997–2001). Alongside Brown and Hague, 17 former cabinet ministers stood down at the election, including Stephen Dorrell, Jack Straw, Alistair Darling, David Blunkett, Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Dame Tessa Jowell. The highest profile Liberal Democrat to stand down was former leader Sir Menzies Campbell, while the longest-serving MP (the "Father of the House") Sir Peter Tapsell also retired, having served from 1959 to 1964 and then continuously since the 1966 general election.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: , the deadline for standing for the general election, the Electoral Commission's Register of Political Parties included 428 political parties registered in Great Britain, and 36 in Northern Ireland. Candidates who did not belong to a registered party could use an "independent" label, or no label at all.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Conservative Party and the Labour Party had been the two biggest parties since 1922, and had supplied all UK prime ministers since 1935. Polls predicted that these parties would together receive between 65% and 75% of votes, and would together win between 80% and 85% of seats; and that, as such, the leader of one of those parties would be the prime minister after the election. The Liberal Democrats had been the third party in the UK for many years; but as described by various commentators, other parties had risen relative to the Liberal Democrats since the 2010 election. "The Economist" described a "familiar two-and-a-half-party system" (Conservatives, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats) that "appears to be breaking down" with the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), the Greens and the Scottish National Party (SNP). "Newsnight" and "The Economist" described the country as moving into a six-party system, with the Liberal Democrats, SNP, UKIP and Greens all being significant. Ofcom, in their role regulating election coverage in the UK, ruled that, for the general election and local elections in May 2015, the major parties in Great Britain were the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats, with UKIP a major party in England and Wales, the SNP a major party in Scotland, and Plaid Cymru (PC) in Wales, and that the Greens were not a major party. The BBC's guidelines were similar but excluded UKIP from the category of "larger parties" in Great Britain, and instead stated that UKIP should be given "appropriate levels of coverage in output to which the largest parties contribute and, on some occasions, similar levels of coverage". Seven parties (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, UKIP, SNP, PC and Green) participated in the election leadership debates. Political parties based in Northern Ireland were ignored, despite the DUP being the fourth largest party in the UK in the previous election, in terms of seats won, and gaining the same number of seats as the Liberal Democrats in this election.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Several parties operate in specific regions only. The main national parties, standing for seats across all (or most of) the country, are listed below in order of seats being contested:


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Dozens of other minor parties stood in 2015. The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, founded as an electoral alliance of socialist parties in 2010, had 135 candidates and was the only other party to have more than forty candidates. Respect came into the election with one MP (George Galloway), who was elected at the 2012 Bradford West by-election, but stood just four candidates. The British National Party, which finished fifth with 1.9% of the vote for its 338 candidates at the 2010 general election, stood only eight candidates following a collapse in support. 753 other candidates stood at the general election, including all independents, Scottish-based, Northern Ireland-based and Wales-based party candidates, and candidates from other parties.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The main parties in Northern Ireland (which had 18 constituencies) described by Ofcom, the BBC and others, in order of seats won, were:


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Smaller parties in Northern Ireland included Traditional Unionist Voice (standing in seven seats) and the Green Party in Northern Ireland (standing in five seats). In 2015 TUV and the Greens each held one seat in the Legislative Assembly. The North Down seat was retained by independent Sylvia Hermon. The Northern Ireland Conservatives and UKIP fielded candidates, whereas Labour and the Liberal Democrats do not contest elections in Northern Ireland.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Smaller parties in Scotland include the Scottish Libertarian Party, but none of the smaller parties make much of an impact in general elections in Scotland.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Wales has a number of smaller parties which, again, do not tend to make much impact in the general elections. In 2015, the Labour Party continued to dominate Welsh politics at the general elections.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Coalitions have been rare in the United Kingdom, because the first-past-the-post system has usually led to one party winning an overall majority in the Commons. However, with the outgoing Government being a coalition and with opinion polls not showing a large or consistent lead for any one party, there was much discussion about possible post-election coalitions or other arrangements, such as confidence and supply agreements.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Some UK political parties that only stand in part of the country have reciprocal relationships with parties standing in other parts of the country. These include:


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: On 17 March 2015 the Democratic Unionist Party and the Ulster Unionist Party agreed an election pact, whereby the DUP would not stand candidates in Fermanagh and South Tyrone (where Michelle Gildernew, the Sinn Féin candidate, won by only four votes in 2010) and in Newry and Armagh. In return the UUP would stand aside in Belfast East and Belfast North. The SDLP rejected a similar pact suggested by Sinn Féin to try to ensure that an agreed nationalist would win that constituency. The DUP also called on voters in Scotland to support whichever pro-Union candidate was best placed to beat the SNP.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The deadline for parties and individuals to file candidate nomination papers to the acting returning officer (and the deadline for candidates to withdraw) was 4 p.m. on 9 April 2015. The total number of candidates was 3,971; the second-highest number in history, slightly down from the record 4,150 candidates at the last election in 2010.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: There were a record number of female candidates standing in terms of both absolute numbers and percentage of candidates: 1,020 (26.1%) in 2015, up from 854 (21.1%) in 2010. The proportion of female candidates for major parties ranged from 41% of Alliance Party candidates to 12% of UKIP candidates. According to UCL's Parliamentary Candidates UK project the major parties had the following percentages of black and ethnic minority candidates: the Conservatives 11%, the Liberal Democrats 10%, Labour 9%, UKIP 6%, the Greens 4%. The average age of the candidates for the seven major parties was 45.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The youngest candidates were all aged 18: Solomon Curtis (Labour, Wealden); Niamh McCarthy (Independent, Liverpool Wavertree); Michael Burrows (UKIP, Inverclyde); Declan Lloyd (Labour, South East Cornwall); and Laura-Jane Rossington (Communist Party, Plymouth Sutton and Devonport). The oldest candidate was Doris Osen, 84, of the Elderly Persons' Independent Party (EPIC), who was standing in Ilford North. Other candidates aged over 80 included three long-serving Labour MPs standing for re-election: Sir Gerald Kaufman (aged 84; Manchester Gorton), Dennis Skinner (aged 83; Bolsover) and David Winnick (aged 81; Walsall North).


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: A number of candidates—including two for Labour and two for UKIP – were suspended from their respective parties after nominations were closed. Independent candidate Ronnie Carroll died after nominations were closed.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Labour campaign was launched on 27 March at Olympic Park in London. Ed Miliband's EdStone was a major feature of the campaign which was covered by the media. Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Harriet Harman embarked on a pink bus tour as part of her Woman to Woman campaign.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Conservative manifesto committed to "a straight in-out referendum on our membership of the European Union by the end of 2017". Labour did not support this, but did commit to an EU membership referendum if any further powers were transferred to the European Union. The Lib Dems also supported the Labour position, but explicitly supported the UK's continuing membership of the EU.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The election was the first following the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. None of the three major party manifestos supported a second referendum and the Conservative manifesto stated that "the question of Scotland's place in the United Kingdom is now settled". In the run-up to the election, David Cameron coined the phrase "Carlisle principle" for the idea that checks and balances are required to ensure that devolution to Scotland has no adverse effects on other parts of the United Kingdom. The phrase references a fear that Carlisle, being the English town closest to the Scottish border, could be affected economically by preferential tax rates in Scotland.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The deficit, who was responsible for it and plans to deal with it were a major theme of the campaign. While some smaller parties opposed austerity, the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP all supported some further cuts, albeit to different extents.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Conservative campaigning sought to blame the deficit on the previous Labour government. Labour, in return, sought to establish their fiscal responsibility. With the Conservatives also making several spending commitments ("e.g." on the NHS), commentators talked of the two main parties' "political crossdressing", each trying to campaign on the other's traditional territory.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Hung Parliaments have been unusual in post-War British political history, but with the outgoing Government a coalition and opinion polls not showing a large or consistent lead for any one party, it was widely expected and predicted throughout the election campaign that no party would gain an overall majority, which could have led to a new coalition or other arrangements such as confidence and supply agreements. This was also associated with a rise in multi-party politics, with increased support for UKIP, the SNP and the Greens.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The question of what the different parties would do in the event of a hung result dominated much of the campaign. Smaller parties focused on the power this would bring them in negotiations; Labour and the Conservatives both insisted that they were working towards winning a majority government, while they were also reported to be preparing for the possibility of a second election in the year. In practice, Labour were prepared to make a "broad" offer to the Liberal Democrats in the event of a hung Parliament. Most predictions saw Labour as having more potential support in Parliament than the Conservatives, with several parties, notably the SNP, having committed to keeping out a Conservative government. The Conservatives described a potential Labour-led hung parliament as a "coalition of chaos", and David Cameron described (in a tweet) the electoral choice as one between "stable and strong government with me, or chaos with Ed Miliband". The political turmoil in Britain in the wake of the 2015 election has since made the tweet "infamous".


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Conservative campaigning sought to highlight what they described as the dangers of a minority Labour administration supported by the SNP. This proved effective at dominating the agenda of the campaign and at motivating voters to support them. The Conservative victory was "widely put down to the success of the anti-Labour/SNP warnings", according to a BBC article and others. Labour, in reaction, produced ever stronger denials that they would co-operate with the SNP after the election. The Conservatives and Lib Dems both also rejected the idea of a coalition with the SNP. This was particularly notable for Labour, to whom the SNP had previously offered support: their manifesto stated that "the SNP will never put the Tories into power. Instead, if there is an anti-Tory majority after the election, we will offer to work with other parties to keep the Tories out". SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon later confirmed in the Scottish leaders' debate on STV that she was prepared to "help make Ed Miliband prime minister". However, on 26 April, Miliband ruled out a confidence and supply arrangement with the SNP too. Miliband's comments suggested to many that he was working towards forming a minority government.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Liberal Democrats said that they would talk first to whichever party won the most seats. They later campaigned on being a stabilising influence should either the Conservatives or Labour fall short of a majority, with the slogan "We will bring a heart to a Conservative Government and a brain to a Labour one".


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats ruled out coalitions with UKIP. Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, asked about a deal with UKIP in the Scottish leaders' debate, replied: "No deals with UKIP." She continued that her preference and the Prime Minister's preference in a hung Parliament was for a minority Conservative government. UKIP said they could have supported a minority Conservative government through a confidence and supply arrangement in return for a referendum on EU membership before Christmas 2015. They also spoke of the DUP joining UKIP in this arrangement. UKIP and DUP said they would work together in Parliament. The DUP welcomed the possibility of a hung Parliament and the influence that this would bring them. The party's deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, said the party could work with the Conservatives or Labour, but that the party is "not interested in a full-blown coalition government". Their leader, Peter Robinson, said that the DUP would talk first to whichever party wins the most seats. The DUP said they wanted, for their support, a commitment to 2% defence spending, a referendum on EU membership, and a reversal of the under-occupation penalty. They opposed the SNP being involved in government. The UUP also indicated that they would not work with the SNP if it wanted another independence referendum in Scotland.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Green Party of England & Wales, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party all ruled out working with the Conservatives, and agreed to work together "wherever possible" to counter austerity. Each would also make it a condition of any agreement with Labour that Trident nuclear weapons was not replaced; the Green Party of England and Wales stated that "austerity is a red line". Both Plaid Cymru and the Green Party stated a preference for a confidence and supply arrangement with Labour, rather than a coalition. The leader of the SDLP, Alasdair McDonnell, said: "We will be the left-of-centre backbone of a Labour administration" and that "the SDLP will categorically refuse to support David Cameron and the Conservative Party". Sinn Féin reiterated their abstentionist stance. In the event the Conservatives did secure an overall majority, rendering much of the speculation and positioning moot.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The first series of televised leaders' debates in the United Kingdom was held in the previous election. Following much debate and various proposals, a seven-way debate with the leaders of Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru was held. with a series of other debates involving some of the parties.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The campaign was notable for a reduction in the number of party posters on roadside hoardings. It was suggested that 2015 saw "the death of the campaign poster".


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Various newspapers, organisations and individuals endorsed parties or individual candidates for the election. For example, the main national newspapers gave the following endorsements:


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Despite speculation that the 2015 general election would be the 'social media election', traditional media, particularly broadcast media, remained more influential than new digital platforms. A majority of the public (62%) reported that TV coverage had been most influential for informing them during the election period, especially televised debates between politicians. Newspapers were next most influential, with the "Daily Mail" influencing people's opinions most (30%), followed by "The Guardian" (21%) and "The Times" (20%). Online, major media outlets—like BBC News, newspaper websites, and Sky News—were most influential. Social media was regarded less influential than radio and conversations with friends and family.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: During the campaign, TV news coverage was dominated by horse race journalism, focusing on the how close Labour and the Conservatives (supposedly) were according to the polls, and speculation on possible coalition outcomes. This 'meta-coverage' was seen to squeeze out other content, namely policy. Policy received less than half of election news airtime across all five main TV broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky) during the first five weeks of the campaign. When policy was addressed, the news agenda in both broadcast and print media followed the lead of the Conservative campaign, focusing on the economy, tax, and constitutional matters (e.g., the possibility of a Labour-SNP coalition government), with the economy dominating the news every week of the campaign. On TV, these topics made up 43% of all election news coverage; within the papers, nearly a third (31%) of all election-related articles were on the economy alone. Within reporting and comment about the economy, newspapers prioritised Conservative party angles (i.e., spending cuts (1,351 articles), economic growth (921 articles), reducing the deficit (675 articles)) over Labour's (i.e., Zero-hour contracts (445 articles), mansion tax (339 articles), non-domicile status (322 articles)). Less attention was given to policy areas that might have been problematic for the Conservatives, like the NHS or housing (policy topics favoured by Labour) or immigration (favoured by UKIP).


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Reflecting on analysis carried out during the election campaign period, David Deacon of Loughborough University's Communication Research Centre said there was "aggressive partisanship [in] many section of the national press" which could be seen especially in the "Tory press". Similarly, Steve Barnett, Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster, said that, while partisanship has always been part of British newspaper campaigning, in this election it was "more relentless and more one-sided" in favour of the Conservatives and against Labour and the other parties. According to Bart Cammaerts of the Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics, during the campaign "almost all newspapers were extremely pro-Conservative and rabidly anti-Labour". 57.5% of the daily newspapers backed the Conservatives, 11.7% Labour, 4.9% UKIP, and 1.4% backed a continuation of the incumbent Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government; 66% of Sunday national newspapers backed the Conservatives. Of newspaper front-page lead stories, the Conservatives received 80 positive splashes and 26 negative; Labour received 30 positive against 69 negative. Print media was hostile towards Labour at levels "not seen since the 1992 General Election", when Neil Kinnock was "attacked hard and hit below the belt repeatedly". Roy Greenslade described the newspaper coverage of Labour as "relentless ridicule". Of the leader columns in "The Sun" 95% were anti-Labour. The SNP also received substantial negative press in English newspapers: of the 59 leader columns about the SNP during the election, one was positive. The "Daily Mail" ran a headline suggesting SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon was "the most dangerous woman in Britain" and, at other times, called her a "glamorous power-dressing imperatrix" and said that she "would make Hillary Clinton look human". While the Scottish edition of "The Sun" encouraged people north of the border to vote for the SNP, the English edition encouraged people to vote for the Conservatives in order to "stop the SNP running the country". The negative coverage of the SNP increased towards the end of the election campaign. While TV news airtime given to quotations from politicians was more balanced between the two larger parties (Con.: 30.14%; Lab.: 27.98%), more column space in newspapers was dedicated to quotes from Conservative politicians (44.45% versus 29.01% for Labour)—according to analysts, the Conservatives "benefitted from a Tory supporting press in away the other leaders did not". At times, the Conservatives worked closely with newspapers to co-ordinate their news coverage. For example, "The Daily Telegraph" printed a letter purportedly sent directly to the paper from 5,000 small business owners; the letter had been organised by the Conservatives and prepared at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: According to researchers at Cardiff University and Loughborough University, TV news agendas focused on Conservative campaign issues partly because of editorial choices to report on news originally broken in the rightwing press but not that broken in the leftwing press. Researchers also found that most airtime was given to politicians from the Conservative party—especially in Channel 4's and Channel 5's news coverage, where they received more than a third of speaking time. Only ITV gave more airtime to Labour spokespeople (26.9% compared with 25.1% for the Conservatives). Airtime given to the two main political leaders, Cameron (22.4%) and Miliband (20.9%), was more balanced than that given to their parties.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Smaller parties—especially the SNP—received unprecedented levels of media coverage because of speculation about a minority or coalition government. The five most prominent politicians were David Cameron (Con) (15% of TV and press appearances), Ed Miliband (Lab) (14.7%), Nick Clegg (Lib Dem) (6.5%), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) (5.7%), and Nigel Farage (UKIP) (5.5%). However, according to analysts from Loughborough University Communication Research Centre, "the big winners of the media coverage were the Conservatives. They gained the most quotation time, the most strident press support, and coverage focused on their favoured issues (the economy and taxation, rather than say the NHS)".


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Other than politicians, 'business sources' were the most frequently quoted in the media. On the other hand, trade unions representatives, for example, received very little coverage, with business representatives receiving seven times more coverage than unions. Tony Blair was also in the top ten most prominent politicians (=9), warning people about the threat of the UK leaving the EU.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Throughout the 55th parliament of the United Kingdom, first and second place in the polls without exception alternated between the Conservatives and Labour. Labour took a lead in the polls in the second half of 2010, driven in part by a collapse in Liberal Democrat support. This lead rose to approximately 10 points over the Conservative Party during 2012, whose ratings dipped alongside an increase in UKIP support. UKIP passed the Liberal Democrats as the third-most popular party at the start of 2013. Following this, Labour's lead over the Conservatives began to fall as UKIP gained support from it as well, and by the end of the year Labour were polling at 39%, compared to 33% for the Conservative Party and 11% for UKIP.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: UKIP received 26.6% of the vote at the European elections in 2014, and though their support in the polls for Westminster never reached this level, it did rise up to over 15% through that year. 2014 was also marked by the Scottish independence referendum. Despite the 'No' vote winning, support for the Scottish National Party rose quickly after the referendum, and had reached 43% in Scotland by the end of the year, up 23 points from the 2010 general election, largely at the expense of Labour (−16 points in Scotland) and the Liberal Democrats (−13 points). In Wales, where polls were less frequent, the 2012–2014 period saw a smaller decline in Labour's lead over the second-placed Conservative Party, from 28 points to 17. These votes went mainly to UKIP (+8 points) and Plaid Cymru (+2 points). The rise of UKIP and SNP, alongside the smaller increases for Plaid Cymru and the Green Party (from around 2% to 6%) saw the combined support of the Conservative and Labour party fall to a record low of around 65%. Within this the decline came predominantly from Labour, whose lead fell to under 2 points by the end of 2014. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat vote, which had held at about 10% since late 2010, declined further to about 8%.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Early 2015 saw the Labour lead continue to fall, disappearing by the start of March. Polling during the election campaign itself remained relatively static, with the Labour and Conservative parties both polling between 33 and 34% and neither able to establish a consistent lead. Support for the Green Party and UKIP showed slight drops of around 1–2 points each, while Liberal Democrat support rose up to around 9%. In Scotland, support for the SNP continued to grow with polling figures in late March reaching 54%, with the Labour vote continuing to decline accordingly, while Labour retained their (reduced) lead in Wales, polling at 39% by the end of the campaign, to 26% for the Conservatives, 13% for Plaid Cymru, 12% for UKIP and 6% for the Liberal Democrats. The final polls showed a mixture of Conservative leads, Labour leads and ties with both between 31 and 36%, UKIP on 11–16%, the Lib Dems on 8–10%, the Greens on 4–6%, and the SNP on 4–5% of the national vote.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: In addition to the national polls, Lord Ashcroft funded from May 2014 a series of polls in marginal constituencies, and constituencies where minor parties were expected to be significant challengers. Among other results, Lord Ashcroft's polls suggested that the growth in SNP support would translate into more than 50 seats; that there was little overall pattern in Labour and Conservative Party marginals; that the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas would retain her seat; that both Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and UKIP leader Nigel Farage would face very close races to be elected in their own constituencies;<ref name="Clegg/Farage"></ref> and that Liberal Democrat MPs would enjoy an incumbency effect that would lose fewer MPs than their national polling implied. As with other smaller parties, their proportion of MPs remained likely to be considerably lower than that of total, national votes cast. Several polling companies included Ashcroft's polls in their election predictions, though several of the political parties disputed his findings.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The first-past-the-post system used in UK general elections means that the number of seats won is not closely related to vote share. Thus, several approaches were used to convert polling data and other information into seat predictions. The table below lists some of the predictions. ElectionForecast was used by "Newsnight" and FiveThirtyEight. May2015.com is a project run by the "New Statesman" magazine.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Seat predictions draw from nationwide polling, polling in the constituent nations of Britain and may additionally incorporate constituency level polling, particularly the Ashcroft polls. Approaches may or may not use uniform national swing (UNS). Approaches may just use current polling, "i.e." a "nowcast" ("e.g." Electoral Calculus, May2015.com and "The Guardian"), or add in a predictive element about how polling shifts based on historical data ("e.g." ElectionForecast and Elections Etc.). An alternative approach is to use the wisdom of the crowd and base a prediction on betting activity: the Spreadex and Sporting Index columns below cover bets on the number of seats each party will win with the midpoint between asking and selling price, while FirstPastThePost.net aggregates the betting predictions in each individual constituency. Some predictions cover Northern Ireland, with its distinct political culture, while others do not. Parties are sorted by current number of seats in the House of Commons:


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Other predictions were published. An election forecasting conference on 27 March 2015 yielded 11 forecasts of the result in Great Britain (including some included in the table above). Averaging the conference predictions gives Labour 283 seats, Conservatives 279, Liberal Democrats 23, UKIP 3, SNP 41, Plaid Cymru 3 and Greens 1. In that situation, no two parties (excluding a Lab-Con coalition) would have been able to form a majority without the support of a third. On 27 April, Rory Scott of the bookmaker Paddy Power predicted Conservatives 284, Labour 272, SNP 50, UKIP 3, and Greens 1. LucidTalk for the "Belfast Telegraph" predicted for Northern Ireland: DUP 9, Sinn Féin 5, SDLP 3, Sylvia Hermon 1, with the only seat change being the DUP gaining Belfast East from Alliance.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: An exit poll, collected by Ipsos MORI and GfK on behalf of the BBC, ITN and Sky News, was published at 10 pm at the end of voting. It interviewed around 22,000 people across a sample of 133 constituencies:


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: This predicted the Conservatives to be 10 seats short of an absolute majority, although with the 5 predicted Sinn Féin MPs not taking their seats, it was likely to be enough to govern. (In the event, Michelle Gildernew lost her seat, reducing the number of Sinn Féin MPs to 4.)


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The exit poll was markedly different from the pre-election opinion polls, which had been fairly consistent; this led many pundits and MPs to speculate that the exit poll was inaccurate, and that the final result would have the two main parties closer to each other. Former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown vowed to "eat his hat" and former Labour "spin doctor" Alastair Campbell promised to "eat his kilt" if the exit poll, which predicted huge losses for their respective parties, was right.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: As it turned out, the results were even more favourable to the Conservatives than the poll predicted, with the Conservatives obtaining 330 seats, an absolute majority. Ashdown and Campbell were presented with hat- and kilt-shaped cakes (labelled "eat me") on BBC "Question Time" on 8 May.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: With the eventual outcome in terms of both votes and seats varying substantially from the bulk of opinion polls released in the final months before the election, the polling industry received criticism for their inability to predict what was a surprisingly clear Conservative victory. Several theories have been put forward to explain the inaccuracy of the pollsters. One theory was that there had simply been a very late swing to the Conservatives, with the polling company Survation claiming that 13% of voters made up their minds in the final days and 17% on the day of the election. The company also claimed that a poll they carried out a day before the election gave the Conservatives 37% and Labour 31%, though they said they did not release the poll (commissioned by the "Daily Mirror") on the concern that it was too much of an outlier with other poll results.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: However, it was reported that pollsters had in fact picked up a late swing to Labour immediately prior to polling day, not the Conservatives. It was reported after the election that private pollsters working for the two largest parties actually gathered more accurate results, with Labour's pollster James Morris claiming that the issue was largely to do with surveying technique. Morris claimed that telephone polls that immediately asked for voting intentions tended to get a high "Don't know" or anti-government reaction, whereas longer telephone conversations conducted by private polls that collected other information such as views on the leaders' performances placed voters in a much better mode to give their true voting intentions. Another theory was the issue of 'shy Tories' not wanting to openly declare their intention to vote Conservative to pollsters. A final theory, put forward after the election, was the 'Lazy Labour' factor, which claimed that Labour voters tend to not vote on polling day whereas Conservative voters have a much higher turnout.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The British Polling Council announced an inquiry into the substantial variance between the opinion polls and the actual election result. The inquiry published preliminary findings in January 2016, concluding that "the ways in which polling samples are constructed was the primary cause of the polling miss". Their final report was published in March 2016.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: One result of the 2015 general election was that a different political party won the popular vote in each of the countries of the United Kingdom. This was reflected in terms of MPs elected:


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Conservatives won in England with 319 MPs out of 533 constituencies, the SNP won in Scotland with 56 out of 59, Labour won in Wales with 25 out of 40, and the Democratic Unionist Party won in Northern Ireland with 8 out of 18.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Despite most opinion polls predicting that the Conservatives and Labour were neck and neck, the Conservatives secured a surprise victory after having won a clear lead over their rivals and incumbent Prime Minister David Cameron was able to form a majority single-party government with a working majority of 12 (in practice increased to 15 due to Sinn Féin's four MPs' abstention). Thus the result bore resemblance to 1992. The Conservatives gained 38 seats while losing 10, all to Labour; Employment Minister Esther McVey, in Wirral West, was the most senior Conservative to lose her seat. Cameron became the first Prime Minister since Lord Salisbury in 1900 to increase his popular vote share after a full term, and is sometimes credited as being the only Prime Minister other than Margaret Thatcher (in 1983) to be re-elected with a greater number of seats for his party after a 'full term'.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Labour Party polled below expectations, winning 30.4% of the vote and 232 seats, 24 fewer than its previous result in 2010—even though in 222 constituencies there was a Conservative-to-Labour swing, as against 151 constituencies where there was a Labour-to-Conservative swing. Its net loss of seats were mainly a result of its resounding defeat in Scotland, where the Scottish National Party took 40 of Labour's 41 seats, unseating key politicians such as shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy. Labour gained some seats in London and other major cities, but lost a further nine seats to the Conservatives, recording its lowest share of the seats since the 1987 general election. Ed Miliband subsequently tendered his resignation as Labour leader.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Scottish National Party had a stunning election, rising from just 6 seats to 56 – winning all but 3 of the constituencies in Scotland and securing 50% of the popular vote in Scotland. They recorded a number of record breaking swings of over 30% including the new record of 39.3% in Glasgow North East. They also won the seat of former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, overturning a majority of 23,009 to win by a majority of 9,974 votes and saw Mhairi Black, then a 20-year-old student, defeat Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander with a swing of 26.9%.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The Liberal Democrats, who had been in government as coalition partners, suffered the worst defeat they or the previous Liberal Party had suffered since the 1970 general election. Winning just eight seats, the Liberal Democrats lost their position as the UK's third party and found themselves tied in fourth place with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland in the House of Commons, with Nick Clegg being one of the few MPs from his party to retain his seat. The Liberal Democrats gained no seats, while losing 49 in the process—of them, 27 to the Conservatives, 12 to Labour, and 10 to the SNP. The party also lost their deposit in 341 seats, the same number as in every general election from 1979 to 2010 combined.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The UK Independence Party (UKIP) was only able to hold one of its two seats, Clacton, gaining no new ones despite increasing its vote share to 12.9% (the third-highest share overall). Party leader Nigel Farage, having failed to win the constituency of South Thanet, tendered his resignation, although this was rejected by his party's executive council and he stayed on as leader.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: In Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionist Party returned to the Commons with two MPs after a five-year absence, gaining one seat from the Democratic Unionist Party and one from Sinn Féin, while the Alliance Party lost its only Commons seat to the DUP, despite an increase in total vote share.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The election led to an increase in the number of female MPs, to 191 (29% of the total, including 99 Labour; 68 Conservative; 20 SNP; 4 other) from 147 (23% of the total, including 87 Labour; 47 Conservative; 7 Liberal Democrat; 1 SNP; 5 other). As before the election, the region with the largest proportion of women MPs was North East England.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: 111 seats changed hands compared to the result in 2010 plus three by-election gains reverted to the party that won the seat at the last general election in 2010 (Bradford West, Corby and Rochester and Strood).


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: On 8 May, three party leaders announced their resignations within an hour of each other: Ed Miliband (Labour) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) resigned due to their parties' worse-than-expected results in the election, although both had been re-elected to their seats in Parliament. Nigel Farage (UKIP) offered his resignation because he had failed to be elected as MP for Thanet South, but said he might re-stand in the resulting leadership election. However, on 11 May, the UKIP executive rejected his resignation on the grounds that the election campaign had been "a great success", and Farage agreed to continue as party leader.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Alan Sugar, a Labour peer in the House of Lords, also announced his resignation from the Labour Party for running what he perceived to be an anti-business campaign.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: In response to Labour's poor performance in Scotland, Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy initially resisted calls for his resignation by other senior party members. Despite surviving a no-confidence vote by 17–14 from the party's national executive, Murphy announced he would step down as leader on or by 16 May.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Financial markets reacted positively to the result, with the pound sterling rising against the Euro and US dollar when the exit poll was published, and the FTSE 100 stock market index rising 2.3% on 8 May. The BBC reported: "Bank shares saw some of the biggest gains, on hopes that the sector will not see any further rises in levies. Shares in Lloyds Banking Group rose 5.75% while Barclays was 3.7% higher", adding: "Energy firms also saw their share prices rise, as Labour had wanted a price freeze and more powers for the energy regulator. British Gas owner Centrica rose 8.1% and SSE shares were up 5.3%." BBC economics editor Robert Peston noted: "To state the obvious, investors love the Tories' general election victory. There are a few reasons. One (no surprise here) is that Labour's threat of breaking up banks and imposing energy price caps has been lifted. Second is that investors have been discounting days and weeks of wrangling after polling day over who would form the government – and so they are semi-euphoric that we already know who's in charge. Third, many investors tend to be economically Conservative and instinctively Conservative."


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The disparity between the numbers of votes and the number of seats obtained by the smaller parties gave rise to increased calls for replacement of the 'first-past-the-post' voting system with a more proportional system. For example, UKIP had 3.9 million votes per seat, whereas SNP had just 26,000 votes per seat, about 150 times greater representation for each vote cast. It is worth noting, however, that UKIP stood in 10 times as many seats as the SNP. Noting that UKIP's 13% share of the overall votes cast had resulted in the election of just one MP, Nigel Farage argued that the UK's voting system needed reforming, saying: "Personally, I think the first-past-the-post system is bankrupt."


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Re-elected Green Party MP Caroline Lucas agreed, saying: "The political system in this country is broken [...] It's ever clearer tonight that the time for electoral reform is long overdue, and it's only proportional representation that will deliver a Parliament that is truly legitimate and better reflects the people it is meant to represent."


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Following the election, "The Daily Telegraph" detailed changes to Wikipedia pages made from computers with IP addresses inside Parliament raising suspicion that "MPs or their political parties deliberately hid information from the public online to make candidates appear more electable to voters" and a deliberate attempt to hide embarrassing information from the electorate.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: On 21 December 2015, the UK Information Commissioner's Office fined the Telegraph Media Group £30,000 for sending 'hundreds of thousands of emails on the day of the general election urging readers to vote Conservative ... in a letter from Daily Telegraph editor Chris Evans, attached to the paper's usual morning e-bulletin'. The ICO concluded that subscribers had not expressed their consent to receive this kind of direct marketing.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: Four electors from Orkney and Shetland lodged an election petition on 29 May 2015 attempting to unseat Alistair Carmichael and force a by-election over what became known as 'Frenchgate'. The issue centred around the leaking of a memo from the Scotland Office about comments allegedly made by the French ambassador Sylvie Bermann about Nicola Sturgeon, claiming that Sturgeon had privately stated she would "rather see David Cameron remain as PM", in contrast to her publicly stated opposition to a Conservative government. The veracity of the memo was quickly denied by the French ambassador, French consul general and Sturgeon. At the time of the leak, Carmichael denied all knowledge of the leaking of the memo in a television interview with "Channel 4 News". but after the election Carmichael accepted the contents of the memo were incorrect, admitted that he had lied, and that he had authorised the leaking of the inaccurate memo to the media after a Cabinet Office enquiry identified Carmichael's role in the leak. On 9 December, an Election Court decided that although he had told a "blatant lie" in a TV interview, it had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that he had committed an "illegal practice" under the Representation of the People Act and he was allowed to retain his seat.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: At national party level, the Electoral Commission fined the three largest parties for breaches of spending regulations, levying the highest fines since its foundation: £20,000 for Labour in October 2016, £20,000 for the Liberal Democrats in December 2016, and £70,000 for the Conservative Party in March 2017.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: The higher fine for the Conservatives reflected both the extent of the wrongdoing (which extended to the 2014 parliamentary by-elections in Clacton, Newark and Rochester and Strood) and 'the unreasonable uncooperative conduct by the Party'. The commission also found that the Party Treasurer, Simon Day, may not have fulfilled his obligations under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and referred him for investigation to the Metropolitan Police Service.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: At constituency level, related alleged breaches of spending regulations led to 'unprecedented' police investigations for possible criminal conduct of between 20 and 30 Conservative Party MPs. On 9 May 2017, the Crown Prosecution service decided not to prosecute the vast majority of suspects, saying that "in order to bring a charge, it must be proved that a suspect knew the return was inaccurate and acted dishonestly in signing the declaration. Although there is evidence to suggest the returns may have been inaccurate, there is insufficient evidence to prove to the criminal standard that any candidate or agent was dishonest." On 2 June 2017, charges were brought under the Representation of the People Act 1983 against Craig Mackinlay, who was elected Conservative MP for South Thanet in 2015, his agent Nathan Gray, and a party activist, Marion Little. Appearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 4 July 2017, the three pleased not guilty and were released on unconditional bail pending an appearance at Southwark Crown Court on 1 August 2017. The investigation of Party Treasurer Simon Day remained ongoing.


title: 2015 United Kingdom general election

text: In 2016–18, the European Parliament found that UKIP had unlawfully spent over €173,000 of EU funding on the party's 2015 UK election campaign, via the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe and the affiliated Institute for Direct Democracy. The Parliament required the repayment of the mis-spent funds and denied the organisations some other funding. It also found that UKIP MEPs had unlawfully spent EU money on other assistance for national campaigning purposes during 2014-16 and docked their salaries to recoup the mis-spent funds.


title: Ram Pothineni

text: Ram Pothineni (born 15 May 1988) is an Indian actor who primarily works in Telugu films. He made his acting debut with the box office success "Devadasu" (2006), for which he won Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut – South. He has two Filmfare Award South and one SIIMA Awards to his credit.


title: Ram Pothineni

text: Post his debut, he starred in the commercial and critical success, "Ready" (2008). This was followed by a series of commercial failures, before success with "Kandireega" (2011). Pothineni's other notable works include "Pandaga Chesko" (2015), "Nenu Sailaja" (2016), "Vunnadhi Okate Zindagi" (2017), "Hello Guru Prema Kosame" (2018), "iSmart Shankar" (2019) and "Red" (2021).


title: Ram Pothineni

text: Ram Pothineni was born on 15 May 1988, in Hyderabad, to Murali Pothineni. He is the nephew of Telugu film producer, Sravanthi Ravi Kishore. Actor Sharwanand is his cousin. His family hails from Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh.


title: Ram Pothineni

text: Pothineni first appeared in Tamil language short film "Adayaalam" (2002) where he played an 18-year old drug addict. He then made his theatrical debut in 2006 with "Devadasu". His second film, "Jagadam" opposite Isha Sahani was directed by Sukumar. He then appeared in "Ready" alongside Genelia D'Souza directed by Srinu Vaitla which was a commercial success. In 2009, he had two releases, "Maska" and "". In 2010, Pothineni had only one release, "Rama Rama Krishna Krishna", produced by Dil Raju and directed by Srivaas.


title: Ram Pothineni

text: Pothineni's next film was "Kandireega" (2011). Later he starred in "Endukante... Premanta!" (2012) alongside Tamannaah, directed by Karunakaran and produced by Sravanthi Ravi Kishore. In 2013, Pothineni appeared in "Ongole Githa" with Kriti Kharbanda directed by Bhaskar and produced by B.V.S.N. Prasad. In the same year, he co-starred alongside Venkatesh in the action comedy "Masala", the remake of the Hindi film "Bol Bachchan," directed by K. Vijaya Bhaskar and jointly produced by Sravanthi Ravi Kishore and D. Suresh Babu.


title: Ram Pothineni

text: In 2015, Pothineni starred in two films, "Pandaga Chesko" and "Shivam" . While "Pandaga Chesko" directed by Gopichand Malineni, was a commercial success, "Shivam" ended up as one of the biggest failures of his career. In 2016, He had two releases, both produced by his own production house Sri Sravanthi Movies, "Nenu Sailaja" which was a commercial success and Santosh Srinivas-directed "Hyper" which was an average at the box office.


title: Ram Pothineni

text: His 2017 coming-of-age film "Vunnadhi Okate Zindagi" received mixed reviews. In 2018, he starred in the romantic comedy "Hello Guru Prema Kosame" directed by Trinadha Rao Nakkina. In 2019, he collaborated with director Puri Jagannadh for the action thriller "iSmart Shankar". Pothineni tasted success with the film after a series of flops. It grossed over , his career's highest grosser.


title: Ram Pothineni

text: His 2021 film is "Red" where he played a dual role, is a remake of Tamil film "Thadam" (2018). In 2022, he starred in the Lingusamy-directed "The Warriorr" where he played a police officer. The film received negative reviews from critics and was huge commercial failure.


title: Ram Pothineni

text: Pothineni has featured on Hyderabad Times Most Desirable Men list various times. He ranked 11th in 2017, 11th in 2018, 3rd in 2019 and 2nd in 2020.


title: Kate Micucci

text: Kate Micucci ( ; born March 31, 1980) is an American actress, comedian and musician who is half of the musical comedy duo Garfunkel and Oates. Some of her roles include Stephanie Gooch in "Scrubs", Ally in 'Til Death, Shelley in "Raising Hope", Lucy in "The Big Bang Theory", Sadie Miller in "Steven Universe", Sara Murphy in "Milo Murphy's Law", Daisy in "Nature Cat", Clayface in "The Lego Batman Movie", Velma Dinkley in "Scooby-Doo" since 2015, Webby Vanderquack in "DuckTales", and Dr. Fox in "Unikitty!"


title: Kate Micucci

text: Micucci was born in Jersey City, New Jersey to a family of Italian descent. She grew up in Nazareth, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania and was raised as a Catholic. She learned to play classical piano from her mother.


title: Kate Micucci

text: Micucci graduated from Nazareth Area High School in 1998. She received an A.A. in fine arts from Keystone College in La Plume, Pennsylvania and a B.A. in studio art from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in 2003.


title: Kate Micucci

text: Micucci's television credits include numerous television commercials and acting roles, including Toni the barista on NBC's "Four Kings", guest roles on "Malcolm in the Middle", "'Til Death", "How I Met Your Mother", "Cory in the House", "The Big Bang Theory", and "Campus Ladies", and recurring roles on "Scrubs" and "Raising Hope". Her film credits include "The Last Hurrah", "Bart Got a Room", and "When in Rome". She played Lily the IT girl on "Elevator", produced by HBO's Runawaybox. In early 2009, she released a five-track EP entitled "Songs".


title: Kate Micucci

text: Micucci appeared in five episodes of "Scrubs" ("My Lawyer's in Love", "My Absence", "My Chief Concern", "Our Histories", and "My Finale") as Stephanie Gooch, a ukulele player with whom Ted Buckland begins a relationship. She performs her song "Mr. Moon" and an adapted version of "Fuck You" (retitled "Screw You" for ABC), a song she typically performs as part of the musical duo Garfunkel and Oates. In 2009, she starred in the short film "Imaginary Larry", co-written and co-directed by Riki Lindhome, her partner in Garfunkel and Oates. In August 2009, Micucci appeared in an advertising campaign for Hillshire Farms and for H & R Block in January 2010.


title: Kate Micucci

text: In 2010, Micucci appeared in the Kristen Bell film "When in Rome" and in an episode in the sixth season of the TV show "Weeds" as a slightly sedated waitress. She appeared in some episodes of the HBO series "Bored to Death" and appeared as the babysitter/dogsitter/eldersitter Shelley on series "Raising Hope". Micucci was originally cast as Jimmy's cousin in the pilot that was filmed December 2009. Her role was recast by Skyler Stone as Mike, changing the character Micucci originated from Jimmy's cousin to Sabrina's cousin, Shelley.


title: Kate Micucci

text: From 2009 to October 2011, she performed "Playin' with Micucci" on the third Monday of the month at The Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, California. In the act, she presented "songs and stories in [a] musical variety show." Micucci said the title was the only dirty aspect of the show. She frequently performed (as "Oates") with Lindhome (as "Garfunkel") in "An Evening with Garfunkel and Oates" at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles. She performed with William H. Macy on the ukulele to promote the DVD release of the film "Bart Got a Room". The video has been circulated around the Internet on sites such as YouTube and "The Huffington Post".


title: Kate Micucci

text: In February 2011, Micucci appeared briefly in a Progressive Insurance ad as a waitress. She has also voiced a character on Pendleton Ward's animated series "Adventure Time", and as the character of Julie Kane on the Disney XD animated series "Motorcity". She also voiced the recurring character Sadie Miller on the Cartoon Network animated series "Steven Universe". In July 2012, Kate appeared in Written by a Kid's production "Scary Smash", a Geek and Sundry creation that was executive produced by Kim Evey, Felicia Day, and Sheri Byrant.