Best Of

It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.

There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.

However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.

If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?

The issue with the hijab, niquab and burqua....I agree with you if they choose it. However some dont choose that life and have it forced on them. I give an example my son had been dating a girl for a couple of years and they were getting on for two years when they were getting towards two years, she had been round the house lots eaten with us, she was bright. They were getting serious so had to ask her do your parents know, did talk it over with my son first about what might happen. Yes her parents objected 1 month later she had been to pakistan and was married to a cousin she had never met. Now personally I think that might have been forced and now instead of the bright friendly intelligent girl I remember next time I saw her was traipsing along 2m behind her new husband eyes downcast and ignoring all her old friends from school

Indeed. But it's the same with women not working and having to look after loads of babies: some don't choose that life and have it forced upon them.

In fact, that was probably the norm just a few decades ago.

And that's where @HYUFD wants us to return to. And like the burqa etc, it is because of a particular religious interpretation.

It is not just the very religious, as already stated young men across the western world are increasingly voting for far right and populist right parties in part because they back their support for a return to more traditional gender roles

Lets cull young men then it will sort the issue

Or they could cull the likes of you

I however am not the problem young men are expecting stuff they cant have

Yes having a committed relationship with a woman and the prospect of fatherhood as every generation of men before them has had is something they are no longer entitled to in your view.

Hence they will vote ever more far right and populist right

Nobody is "entitled" to a relationship.

If you want a relationship, work on pleasing the other person more than you try to please yourself.

That also requires women to play ball
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11878629/Why-time-ditch-alpha-male-addiction-bag-beta.html

Sorry why should they play ball, they know what they want if men cant meet that then the fault is on the men

So apparently the 90% of men who are not rich and good looking Alpha males have to be lifelong single and celibate because most women are chasing an unattainable for most 10% of men!

That statistic is clearly bollocks. The vast majority of non-alpha* males have long term successful relationships, including both you** and me.

*I don't accept the entire classification. We are not baboons and are social relationships are much more complicated.

** this is a compliment. I have never encountered anyone who self describes as "alpha male" who wasn't an arrogant arsehole.

This is clearly wrong because I’m a self-confessed alpha male, to the extent I am known in my neighbourhood as “THE FALCON”, and the idea I’m arrogant is obvious nonsense

An alpha male by some accounts previously identifying as LadyG.?

I'm not commenting on Ladyboy G .

More generally on alpha males, I think an important point is that "Alpha Males" are not alpha males. They are sad pricks in constant need of reassurance, including from themselves by affected dominance, and behave badly towards others (bullying, deprecation, abuse, sometimes violence) because they are insecure in their own skins.

They have a need to grow up and look in the mirror at what they really are, then they can relax a little and be amenable human beings.

I'll give you my regular spiel on the matter. It goes like this:

* Free speech does not exist, and never has existed
* There is merely things it is fashionable to say, and things which will get you arrested for saying, and the boundary is ever shifting.
* The only task of the statistician is to track it and note the moving boundary.
* As technology has expanded, the opportunity to note speech and arrest people for it has expanded.
* Consequently, free speech has contracted in the UK, and I don't see this stopping.
* I hate this.

If free speech has never existed, then how can it be contracting ?

It's zero. But it's a smaller zero than before. It's a much smaller amount of nothing than the absolutely ginormous nothing it was before.

"The Lib Dems are not just empty. They are a void within a vacuum surrounded by a vast inanition." - Boris, 2003

And he would know better than most.

Why oh why isn't Rachel Reeves introducing a mansion tax/property tax on homes worth over, say £2m?
Would raise a fortune and be in keeping with Labour values. Also very hard to avoid.

Starmer is opposed and will block it apparently

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/07/04/starmer-poised-block-wealth-taxes/

He may not have much choice. The fiscal rules are going to require tax rises.

The right ones yes, but we simply cannot go on borrowing and spending and taxing

If we tax more we will borrow less.
A mansion tax or similar will bring us in line with rest of the world, encourage downsizing and splitting of properties to help our housing crisis

Most nations don't have a massive mansion tax

Most nations do have land taxes. Even America does.

So do we, stamp duty

That's not a land tax, its a tax on sales. Completely different.

Stamp duty should be abolished and replaced with an annual land tax, like capitalist America has.

We also have council tax

Yes but stamp duty is a block on people moving and downsizing - it really shouldn't exist on primary properties if you want to move for work or downsize when they retire.

The ideal solution would be to remove stamp duty and increase council tax so that it (as a minimum) collects what was previously collected by stamp duty...

And again increasing council tax would encourage people in larger houses to move as they no longer needed a property of that size.

Absolutely.

There are a record number of empty bedrooms in the UK, at a time there are serious housing shortages. Why? Because the tax system diascourages people from moving to smaller properties.

Complete madness.

For primary residences, let's cut stamp duty to 0% - yes, really - and replace it with a 1% tax on property value. (And make it 3% for homes that are lived in less than 180 days a year.)

It would have exactly the effect you suggest. It would discourage people from havig second home and/or living in houses that are too big for them, and it would make trading down "free".

As an aside, I suspect if you created a scatter chart with propotion of the population who are young men on one axis, and number of rapes on the other, then you would see a remarkable degree of correlation. Young men commit most of the rapes, and therefore the more young men there are, the higher the incidence of rape.

Of course, the people most likely to emigrate are young men, and therefore the more immigration you have, then the more young men, and also an imbalance between the number of young men and young women, which almost certainly increases the number of rapes.

If you wanted to lower the incidence of rape, the simplest way would probably be to import lots of young women. If there are lots more women than men, then even low status men are able to get girlfriends and wives, and therefore are less likely to commit rape.

Sorry disagree. Rape is not usually about sex but power

It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.

There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.

However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.

If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?

The issue with the hijab, niquab and burqua....I agree with you if they choose it. However some dont choose that life and have it forced on them. I give an example my son had been dating a girl for a couple of years and they were getting on for two years when they were getting towards two years, she had been round the house lots eaten with us, she was bright. They were getting serious so had to ask her do your parents know, did talk it over with my son first about what might happen. Yes her parents objected 1 month later she had been to pakistan and was married to a cousin she had never met. Now personally I think that might have been forced and now instead of the bright friendly intelligent girl I remember next time I saw her was traipsing along 2m behind her new husband eyes downcast and ignoring all her old friends from school

Indeed. But it's the same with women not working and having to look after loads of babies: some don't choose that life and have it forced upon them.

In fact, that was probably the norm just a few decades ago.

And that's where @HYUFD wants us to return to. And like the burqa etc, it is because of a particular religious interpretation.

It is not just the very religious, as already stated young men across the western world are increasingly voting for far right and populist right parties in part because they back their support for a return to more traditional gender roles

Lets cull young men then it will sort the issue

Or they could cull the likes of you

I however am not the problem young men are expecting stuff they cant have

Yes having a committed relationship with a woman and the prospect of fatherhood as every generation of men before them has had is something they are no longer entitled to in your view.

Hence they will vote ever more far right and populist right

Nobody is "entitled" to a relationship.

If you want a relationship, work on pleasing the other person more than you try to please yourself.

That also requires women to play ball
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11878629/Why-time-ditch-alpha-male-addiction-bag-beta.html

Sorry why should they play ball, they know what they want if men cant meet that then the fault is on the men

So apparently the 90% of men who are not rich and good looking Alpha males have to be lifelong single and celibate because most women are chasing an unattainable for most 10% of men!

You're mistaking what people say they want for what they ultimately do. If you'd asked me when I was single I would have said I wanted a ripped blond husband with tonnes of money. The man I married is (with no insult intended) none of those things. As soon as I met him none of that mattered because I was completely in love. He's told me that I was a foot shorter than his ideal but we celebrated our tenth anniversary this year.

It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.

There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.

However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.

If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?

The issue with the hijab, niquab and burqua....I agree with you if they choose it. However some dont choose that life and have it forced on them. I give an example my son had been dating a girl for a couple of years and they were getting on for two years when they were getting towards two years, she had been round the house lots eaten with us, she was bright. They were getting serious so had to ask her do your parents know, did talk it over with my son first about what might happen. Yes her parents objected 1 month later she had been to pakistan and was married to a cousin she had never met. Now personally I think that might have been forced and now instead of the bright friendly intelligent girl I remember next time I saw her was traipsing along 2m behind her new husband eyes downcast and ignoring all her old friends from school

Indeed. But it's the same with women not working and having to look after loads of babies: some don't choose that life and have it forced upon them.

In fact, that was probably the norm just a few decades ago.

And that's where @HYUFD wants us to return to. And like the burqa etc, it is because of a particular religious interpretation.

It is not just the very religious, as already stated young men across the western world are increasingly voting for far right and populist right parties in part because they back their support for a return to more traditional gender roles

Lets cull young men then it will sort the issue

Young women seem to be doing a good job on their own at not hooking up with such troglodytes.

Indeed it takes two to tango.

There's pretty good survey evidence that most women want more children than the TFR, so clearly there is a lack of suitable men at the right age. In large part that's because it is common for men to be either unable or unwilling to sustain a long term relationship. Commitment-phobes in the dating parlance.

One thing that we should embrace as a culture is the joys of fatherhood, particularly in long term relationships. I have done many interesting things in my life, travel, successful career and other material pleasures, but none compare with the pleasures of family life. I've recently got back from a holiday with both boys and their partners to mark Mrs Foxys 60th. It was a real delight to be all together, and an experience that we will all treasure until the end of our days.

It is not to defend HYUFD's stance, which I disagree with, but two 20ish girls I spoke to recently were furious with 'Emily Pankhurst' for forcing women into the workplace 'How dare she make that decision for everyone else?'.

There's no conflict between feminism and women choosing not to work and look after their kids: the point is that it has to be a choice and not forced. But being beholden to a partner for money can also make them subservient to the partner if the partner is so inclined. Which again is fine if it is a free choice; but also somewhat goes against some feminist thinking.

However, it is interesting to see people say that women should be able to choose not to work, and those who want to ban the hijab, niqab or burqa as they are 'forced' on women.

If a woman can choose to be subservient to a partner in a relationship, why can another woman not choose to wear such headgear?

The issue with the hijab, niquab and burqua....I agree with you if they choose it. However some dont choose that life and have it forced on them. I give an example my son had been dating a girl for a couple of years and they were getting on for two years when they were getting towards two years, she had been round the house lots eaten with us, she was bright. They were getting serious so had to ask her do your parents know, did talk it over with my son first about what might happen. Yes her parents objected 1 month later she had been to pakistan and was married to a cousin she had never met. Now personally I think that might have been forced and now instead of the bright friendly intelligent girl I remember next time I saw her was traipsing along 2m behind her new husband eyes downcast and ignoring all her old friends from school

Indeed. But it's the same with women not working and having to look after loads of babies: some don't choose that life and have it forced upon them.

In fact, that was probably the norm just a few decades ago.

And that's where @HYUFD wants us to return to. And like the burqa etc, it is because of a particular religious interpretation.

It is not just the very religious, as already stated young men across the western world are increasingly voting for far right and populist right parties in part because they back their support for a return to more traditional gender roles

Lets cull young men then it will sort the issue

Or they could cull the likes of you

I however am not the problem young men are expecting stuff they cant have

Yes having a committed relationship with a woman and the prospect of fatherhood as every generation of men before them has had is something they are no longer entitled to in your view.

Hence they will vote ever more far right and populist right

Nobody is "entitled" to a relationship.

If you want a relationship, work on pleasing the other person more than you try to please yourself.

You could also ban contraception and abortion. Romania managed to grow its population this way, albeit with orphanages.

You probably have to row back a fair way on women's rights and heavily reward it socially and in the tax system to boost population.

Women themselves, on average, want to have more children. You don't have to fight them to force them to do so. You just need to make it easier for them.

One option is to make it socially acceptable for women to have children without a long-term partner. Waiting for Mr Right to come along (who themself is ready to be a parent) seems to be one of the bigger impediments. And then, of course, you need to have the support to ensure that those children grown up to be well-adjusted without a Dad.

Or women, especially graduate career women, could be less fussy in the men they are willing to date and marry

Why should they? Surely that is entirely up to them?

…

You could also ban contraception and abortion. Romania managed to grow its population this way, albeit with orphanages.

You probably have to row back a fair way on women's rights and heavily reward it socially and in the tax system to boost population.

Women themselves, on average, want to have more children. You don't have to fight them to force them to do so. You just need to make it easier for them.

One option is to make it socially acceptable for women to have children without a long-term partner. Waiting for Mr Right to come along (who themself is ready to be a parent) seems to be one of the bigger impediments. And then, of course, you need to have the support to ensure that those children grown up to be well-adjusted without a Dad.

Or women, especially graduate career women, could be less fussy in the men they are willing to date and marry

Just the women should? Did you just marry any old girl or did you wait to find someone you fancied and felt you could make a life partnership with? I think a lot of men should be very glad that a lot of women are less fussy about who they are willing to date and marry.

Men need to up their game for starters - have you noticed how terribly British men dress, especially in the summer? Like overgrown children.

Maybe the guys need to stop fetishising the Love Island look and go for brains and then they might talk to the graduate career women who don’t look the part and both find a match.

Graduate career women know that having children will, in most cases, kibosh their career. Sure there are laws and regulations to stop it but frankly they have a choice of banging out a family earlier then going back to their career and building from there or stopping when they have career momentum and having the children.

I know some who have become board level at banks and law firms but they are the exceptions.

Many will understandably choose their career - would you give up your career to raise your children instead of your wife?

Being a good father has sod all to do with how well you dress.

Throughout history most women never had a career at all, their primary role was being home makers and raising children.

They can work part time in the early years when their children are young and then shift back to full time as they start school.

If they are rich enough to be at board level at banks and law firms they are rich enough to get nannies too

This ignorance is why these women have rejected you. They can work when and how the fuck they like without your approval and funnily enough, a lot of women, far more successful than you, would like not to hand over the upbringing of their children to a nanny, and have to make that decision not out of pure choice but because biology means they are the only party in the relationship who can gestate children.

I am married as I said, not to a liberal self absorbed career above all else woman however.

I don't give a shit how successful women are career wise at the end of the day if they want children they should find a man and stick to them and yes that may well mean giving up working full time when their children are young and if they don't want a nanny.

Why do you think many young men are surging to the far right and populist right across the western world in elections while young women vote still mainly for 'progressive' parties?

It is because in part many young men are fed up of traditional gender roles being discarded and some women putting their careers first so much they refuse to even consider a role for most men in their lives and as husbands and fathers

Your last paragraph is weird

Why should women be subservient to men ?

Well the Bible says it so if you are a traditional Christian

'Ephesians 5:22-24:
"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior."

Or for Muslims Surah An-Nisa (4:34) "Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more [strength] than the other, and because they support them from their means."

So that is Paul's opinion not God/Jesus. Also the Islamic quote doesn't say anything about women being subservient to men. You can protect and support your wife without suborning her

My wife promised to love, honour, and obey when we said our vows in the Church of Scotland in May 1964

She tells me she had a quiet word with the Lord after the ceremony and he exempted her from the obey bit

61 years later we have a wonderful marriage as equals