Prime Minister UK Politics Sim: iPhone vs Android

What's new in 2.6 Tax and the public finances • The main taxes now raise and cost what HMRC's published estimates say. Budget sliders and tax bills use the same figures, so a tax costs the same whichever route you take. • The deficit is shown before debt interest, with the interest bill and total borrowing beside it, and the average rate on the debt next to the 10-year gilt yield. • Gilt yields top out at 15%. If they sit there for six months, the markets stop buying and you face a debt crisis: call in the IMF, pass an Emergency Budget, restructure the debt or hold your nerve. • Bills whose cost lands through the wider economy, such as Universal Basic Income, now show that cost before you vote, and the Treasury warns you before a bill would break a fiscal limit. • Costs now land the way the decision describes: a one-off is paid once, and a programme over set years runs for those years and then stops. Parliament • Bills now go through every Commons stage before you can call the division, about a month each. Calling votes early to pass several bills in a week is no longer possible. • The Parliament screen explains what moves your MPs, and what brings them back: delivered pledges, Budget surpluses and PMQs wins. • Offering concessions in a leadership ballot is no longer an almost-certain escape, so watch your bench. Your cabinet • Request a meeting with a minister about their department. What you learn depends on their expertise and competence. • Ministers' briefs on bills now read as bullet points, from what the bill does to the vote prediction. • Cabinet candidates show their integrity, MP cards show the region of the seat each MP holds, and tapping an ambitious backbencher in the Chief Whip's report opens their profile. Diplomacy • Allies and rivals react more strongly to state visits, defence pacts, aid packages and visa deals. • Calls from world leaders show whether they come by phone or by video. Fixes and clearer screens, many from player reports • The home screen shows debt and the credit rating together, plus your party's latest poll share. • Bills and laws are grouped by government department, including a new Law & Order group. • Election results now shows the election that brought you to power. • The Budget reaction email responds to each change you make. • The Approval screen shows where you stand with each media outlet. • Green always means good for you and red bad for you, whichever way a number moves. • Country statistics show their units, and some have clearer homes: inequality and the North–South wage gap under Workers, poverty under Wellbeing, life expectancy under Demographics. • The Military Pact is now the Defence & Security Pact. • Cancelling a project now stops its spending and charges a one-off cancellation cost. Cancelling or mothballing HS2 changes the project itself, and a mothballed project can be resumed. • Foreign aid choices show their real cost. • Three crises that could not be resolved now can be. • Crisis scenarios now start with the deficit they describe. • Weather events follow the seasons. • The Budget screen now says what the statutory spending cap really does, and you can repeal the cap from Laws in force. • The High Speed Rail bill now costs what it says: about £3bn a year for 12 years. It was charging the full £38bn every year.

What's new * fix - World Leaders screen text colour Armed forces - New: the Armed Forces screen, under More. The Army, Royal Navy and RAF rise or fall with defence spending. Run recruitment drives, build ships, submarines and jets, and see what sending forces to a war costs and leaves at home. Press conferences - Press conferences now hold you to your promises. A journalist may follow up on a pledge you have not kept, and claiming you delivered one you have not will be caught, at a cost. Parliament - Free votes are explained. On a conscience vote such as assisted dying, the game tells you at the moment you decide that the whips cannot be used, and the whip notification says the same. Every whip-removal briefing now names the bill. - Joining a war through Parliament now counts. Win the Commons deployment vote and your forces are committed to the conflict it authorised. - Election results in More now shows the constituency map for every general election in your career. - Referendum bills read clearly. When a referendum bill clears the Commons, the game tells you it becomes law only if the referendum is won, and a No vote is reported as the bill being rejected. Minister briefs - A brief you ask for always arrives, even if the bill or project is decided first or an election comes in between. Your recent briefs are kept under More, Previous briefs. World affairs - Peace talks (available since 2.4.2): you can broker peace in a war. Convene talks from a leader's panel in World Leaders, draft the terms, put them to both sides and take their counter-offers back into the deal. Every conflict card in World Relationships shows how close peace is. - Trade deals you sign now show what was agreed, what it cost and what it changed. - World leaders now change over a long game. New governments take office abroad, and some bring a change of tone towards Britain. - From your second term, lobby groups bring new asks suited to a government that has been in power for a while. Home affairs - Build prison capacity as a project. Prison overcrowding now depends on how much space you have, and the overcrowding event explains what caused it. - The inflation screen now explains that government spending and debt do not move inflation. - Laws in force now shows which laws you inherited and how long they have been on the statute book. Fixes - Second and later terms now get the full range of wars, story arcs, crises and news. A timing bug had been blocking some of them after your first term. - Strike settlements, and other recurring commitments, no longer stack up when the same event returns. Saves already affected repair themselves when loaded. - Radio campaign promises are no longer marked broken at the start of a new term, and a promise the game gives you no way to deliver is no longer counted against you. - Newspapers in a second or later term no longer repeat stories from your first term. - Recurring events that came round too often late in a long game now wait out their cooldowns. - Questions, headlines and briefings no longer refer to things that did not happen in your game, or get their timing wrong. - Withdrawing a bill you whipped no longer adds to sleaze; sleaze now comes only from losing the vote. - After you survive a no-confidence vote, the one-year wait before another can be called now carries on through a general election. - Pay and crisis settlements now run for five years, and settling a strike now reduces strike days. - Committing publicly to NATO's 2.5% target now sets defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, so the question stops coming back. - Most yearly payments from deals, decisions and agreements with other countries now show up in your budget. - PMQs no longer blames you for laws you inherited, or attacks you over NHS promises you never made. - Plus many smaller fixes.

What's new Armed forces - New: the Armed Forces screen, under More. The Army, Royal Navy and RAF rise or fall with defence spending. Run recruitment drives, build ships, submarines and jets, and see what sending forces to a war costs and leaves at home. Press conferences - Press conferences now hold you to your promises. A journalist may follow up on a pledge you have not kept, and claiming you delivered one you have not will be caught, at a cost. Parliament - Free votes are explained. On a conscience vote such as assisted dying, the game tells you at the moment you decide that the whips cannot be used, and the whip notification says the same. Every whip-removal briefing now names the bill. - Joining a war through Parliament now counts. Win the Commons deployment vote and your forces are committed to the conflict it authorised. - Election results in More now shows the constituency map for every general election in your career. - Referendum bills read clearly. When a referendum bill clears the Commons, the game tells you it becomes law only if the referendum is won, and a No vote is reported as the bill being rejected. Minister briefs - A brief you ask for always arrives, even if the bill or project is decided first or an election comes in between. Your recent briefs are kept under More, Previous briefs. World affairs - Peace talks (available since 2.4.2): you can broker peace in a war. Convene talks from a leader's panel in World Leaders, draft the terms, put them to both sides and take their counter-offers back into the deal. Every conflict card in World Relationships shows how close peace is. - Trade deals you sign now show what was agreed, what it cost and what it changed. - World leaders now change over a long game. New governments take office abroad, and some bring a change of tone towards Britain. - From your second term, lobby groups bring new asks suited to a government that has been in power for a while. Home affairs - Build prison capacity as a project. Prison overcrowding now depends on how much space you have, and the overcrowding event explains what caused it. - The inflation screen now explains that government spending and debt do not move inflation. - Laws in force now shows which laws you inherited and how long they have been on the statute book. Fixes - Second and later terms now get the full range of wars, story arcs, crises and news. A timing bug had been blocking some of them after your first term. - Strike settlements, and other recurring commitments, no longer stack up when the same event returns. Saves already affected repair themselves when loaded. - Radio campaign promises are no longer marked broken at the start of a new term, and a promise the game gives you no way to deliver is no longer counted against you. - Newspapers in a second or later term no longer repeat stories from your first term. - Recurring events that came round too often late in a long game now wait out their cooldowns. - Questions, headlines and briefings no longer refer to things that did not happen in your game, or get their timing wrong. - Withdrawing a bill you whipped no longer adds to sleaze; sleaze now comes only from losing the vote. - After you survive a no-confidence vote, the one-year wait before another can be called now carries on through a general election. - Pay and crisis settlements now run for five years, and settling a strike now reduces strike days. - Committing publicly to NATO's 2.5% target now sets defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, so the question stops coming back. - Most yearly payments from deals, decisions and agreements with other countries now show up in your budget. - PMQs no longer blames you for laws you inherited, or attacks you over NHS promises you never made. - Plus many smaller fixes.