Public records

Source directory

These are the public sources used by features you can open on Plain Politics today. The directory lists reviewed public features, not internal source research.

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Used now

State of the parties

UK Parliament Members API

Access: Open official API endpoint. Already called server-side.
Used for: Home live panel, Parliament page, Parties page

Records

Party name, abbreviation and official API colour
Current Commons seat count by party
Source URL and app-cache check time

Good first source family because it is official, structured and stable enough for typed contracts.

Current Commons members

UK Parliament Members API

Access: Open official API endpoint. Already called server-side.
Used for: My area lookup, Data-status checks

Records

Member ID and display name
Current party
Current constituency
Membership start date
Member profile and thumbnail links where returned

Useful for the first MP and constituency views, but full coverage needs paging and ingestion jobs.

Recent Commons divisions

UK Parliament Commons Votes API

Access: Open official API endpoint. Already called server-side.
Used for: Home live panel, Parliament page, My area recent activity

Records

Division ID and division number
Division title and date
Aye and No totals
Publication updated timestamp
Member vote lists for deeper detail pages

Vote meaning still needs plain-English context from bill, motion or Hansard sources.

Upcoming parliamentary business

UK Parliament What's On API

Access: Open official JSON endpoint. Already called server-side.
Used for: Home live panel, Parliament page

Records

Event ID
Start and end dates
Start and end times where returned
House, chamber or committee type
Category
Description
Member names where returned
Bill ID, bill name and bill page link where returned
Cancellation date where returned

Good for scheduled parliamentary business, but election dates and government announcements need separate sources.

Postcode to constituency and MP

postcodes.io and UK Parliament Members API

Access: Open public API plus official Parliament location search. Called client-side from /my-area so the raw postcode is not sent to the app server.
Used for: My area page

Records

Normalized postcode
Westminster parliamentary constituency
Constituency code
Local authority and ward where available
Current MP, party and Commons membership start date
Source URLs checked

Postcodes are sensitive location data in practice. The v1 lookup is transient and does not yet create server-side snapshots or excerpts.

MP public record starter

UK Parliament Members API and Commons Votes API

Access: Open official API endpoints. Called client-side from /my-area after an MP is found.
Used for: My area page

Records

Recent member votes
Division title, date and vote totals
Written questions where exposed by member endpoints
Member activity caveat
Source URLs checked

This shows public parliamentary activity, not automatic proof of local impact. It does not yet create server-side snapshots or excerpts.

Political glossary and traditions

UK Parliament and Electoral Commission

Access: Official public webpages. Initial glossary page is statically curated from them.
Used for: Glossary pages, Beginner explainers

Records

Term and category
Plain-English definition
Why the term matters
Official source URL
Related product pages for inline help

Definitions should be simplified carefully and reviewed when official source wording changes.

How Plain Politics uses sources

Factual records link to the public source used to produce them. Primary official sources are preferred.

Missing, stale or suspicious data is labelled rather than filled in with an unsupported answer.

Source problems can be reported to info@plainpolitics.co.uk.