Best Of

@Leon

Birthrates are falling in Africa. They're just starting at a much higher level than elsewhere. Tunisia has already dipped below replacement. Morocco and South Africa are only just above. Places like Kenya were at 4.5 not that long ago, and are now at a smidgen over 3.

Which is still well above replacement level

Yes.

But if we'd been having this conversation in 2010, you'd have said* "every country in Africa has birthrates well above replacement". Now, in 2025, it's "most countries in Africa has birth rates well above replacement".

The trend is not your friend here.

* And maybe did say

I think technology is a big reason for falling birthrates. People worldwide have things to do outside of the bedroom.

So if VPNs are banned, that's two ways it might raise the birthrate?

Just realised the England flag - following Musk’s intervention - is now likely to become the international symbol of alt.right populism and western nativism

Making it extremely problematic for left wingers and a shame for Gareth Southgate

I won't be able to fly my flag of St George anymore? That's a real blow.

What we gonna do when alt-right populism fails utterly to deliver on its snake oil promises and falls into utter contempt?

The 600,000 adults scheduled for deportation will become 6,000,000. And when that doesn't stop the rapes and crime (mostly committed by people like us...) it'll be anyone who are, or look, different.

Yes once removing migrants doesn’t do the job of cheering up the public they’ll move onto the next scapegoats . The Trumpification of the UK will go into warp drive with Reform in power .

Course they will. Have a lie down pet. You’re stressing yourself.

I’m not stressing myself thanks . If I want to escape at the time I will .

Good, fuck off.

How lovely . I tend not to tell other posters to fxck off but clearly we’ve touched a nerve and have dared criticise your “ working class hero Farage “ !

Mister @Taz votes Labour, I believe

A lot of people on here are hyperventilating at the prospect of a populist right party gaining power. They should ask themselves why that is now a very real prospect - because of decades of grotesque errors by the Tories AND Labour, especially on immigration, but other things too

Anyway it’s now time for us all to support Big Nigel and pray that he succeeds. Coz after him - if he fails - it might be something much worse (of left OR right)

Coincidentally I’ve just read a guide to Austria and it claims Arnold Schwarzenegger is “probably the most famous Austrian in history”

Er….

They won’t want to publicise the other famous Austrian.

Max Perutz. Ludwig Wittgenstein. Off the top of my head.

Off the top of my head. Just randomly -

1. Adolf Hitler – born in Braunau am Inn, Austria; Führer of Nazi Germany.
2. Arthur Seyss-Inquart – Austrian Chancellor at the Anschluss; Reichskommissar for the Netherlands.
3. Ernst Kaltenbrunner – born in Ried, Upper Austria; head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) after Heydrich.
4. Baldur von Schirach – Gauleiter of Vienna; Reich Youth Leader (Hitlerjugend).
5. Odilo Globocnik – Gauleiter of Vienna, later SS & Police Leader in Lublin; a key organizer of Aktion Reinhard (extermination of Polish Jews).
6. Alois Brunner – Adolf Eichmann’s deputy; responsible for deportations of Jews from France, Slovakia, and Greece.
7. Franz Stangl – Commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps.
8. Franz Novak – Eichmann’s transport officer, organized deportation trains.
9. Karl Silberbauer – SS officer who arrested Anne Frank in Amsterdam.
10. Amon Göth – commandant of the Plaszów concentration camp, depicted in Schindler’s List
11. Adolf Eichmann – born in Solingen, Germany, but raised in Linz; chief architect of the Holocaust transports.
12. August Eigruber – Gauleiter of Upper Danube (Oberdonau); executed for Mauthausen crimes.
13. Franz Josef Huber – SS and Gestapo leader in Vienna; oversaw deportations.
14. Wilhelm Höttl – RSHA officer; testified at Nuremberg about Nazi crimes.
15. Herbert Andorfer – commandant of Sajmište concentration camp (Serbia)
16. Sepp Dietrich – Waffen-SS general
17. Hubert Klausner – Gauleiter of Carinthia after the Anschluss.
18. Tobias Portschy – Gauleiter of Burgenland; antisemitic zealot.
19. Josef Leopold – early Austrian Nazi Party leader before the Anschluss.
20. Anton Reinthaller – SS officer, agricultural minister, and later first leader of Austria’s postwar Freedom Party (FPÖ).
21. That family off of the Sound of Music

Bit heavy on the Nazis.

Jochen Rindt.
And half the Red Bull crew.

Hayek

Klimt

Strauss, Mahler

Porsche

Gödel, Schrödinger, Mach, Boltzmann, Doppler

Freud

No list of Austrians is complete with Godel.

Just realised the England flag - following Musk’s intervention - is now likely to become the international symbol of alt.right populism and western nativism

Making it extremely problematic for left wingers and a shame for Gareth Southgate

I won't be able to fly my flag of St George anymore? That's a real blow.

What we gonna do when alt-right populism fails utterly to deliver on its snake oil promises and falls into utter contempt?

The 600,000 adults scheduled for deportation will become 6,000,000. And when that doesn't stop the rapes and crime (mostly committed by people like us...) it'll be anyone who are, or look, different.

Yes once removing migrants doesn’t do the job of cheering up the public they’ll move onto the next scapegoats . The Trumpification of the UK will go into warp drive with Reform in power .

Course they will. Have a lie down pet. You’re stressing yourself.

I’m not stressing myself thanks . If I want to escape at the time I will .

Good, fuck off.

How lovely . I tend not to tell other posters to fxck off but clearly we’ve touched a nerve and have dared criticise your “ working class hero Farage “ !

Mister @Taz votes Labour, I believe

A lot of people on here are hyperventilating at the prospect of a populist right party gaining power. They should ask themselves why that is now a very real prospect - because of decades of grotesque errors by the Tories AND Labour, especially on immigration, but other things too

Anyway it’s now time for us all to support Big Nigel and pray that he succeeds. Coz after him - if he fails - it might be something much worse (of left OR right)

Coincidentally I’ve just read a guide to Austria and it claims Arnold Schwarzenegger is “probably the most famous Austrian in history”

Er….

They won’t want to publicise the other famous Austrian.

Call me Mr Elitist but I’d also put Mozart just a notch above Arnie. Much as I love Predator, &c

There is an argument that Mozart isn’t Austrian as there wasn’t a country of Austria at the time, Salzburg was a city state allied to Australia-Hungarian Empire and Mozart and his contemporaries thought of themselves as “German” hence the line;

“The greatest trick the Austrians ever pulled was convincing the world that Hitler was German and Mozart was Austrian.”

They really did get away with it, the Austrians. “Oh we’re just this cute alpine country, we never did nuffink, have a pretzel”

Whereas they were a fundamental and eager part of the Third Reich, and loads of leading Nazis - starting with Adolf - were Austrian. They even dodged communism despite the red army seizing half the country

It’s a very shifty country. Vienna is like an entrepôt of espionage and shady business where the Russians were never really restricted during the Cold War onwards. I think the country sold its soul, being neutral and allowing open Soviet behaviour in return for their wealth to be unaffected, the streets beautiful, none of that expensive dirty work of being a good ally.

I know of a good number of Russian businesses and individuals who relied on Austria giving them a cloak of respectability for basing themselves there.

Yes, even now there’s a shadiness to Austria. A bit like the Swiss but worse because of the overt Nazi links

A leering face hiding behind the dirndl skirts

I lived in Vienna. It did have a heavy atmosphere.

This means nothing to me.

Factoid of the day?


David Brindle
@DavidJ_Brindle
·
32m
There are too many charities doing the same things but numbers continue to rise - a record 1,000 applications in July.

Reckon @ChtyCommission needs to raise the bar.

https://x.com/DavidJ_Brindle/status/1960387252082593951

There are something like 150 military charities. I believe there is still a Lancaster Tail Gunner's charity although I CBA to google.

A tail gunners description of the journey back from Hamburg as it was consumed in the fire storm is both compelling and horrifying in equal measure. Apparently the fire could be seen 150 miles away. (Obv at altitude in a Lanc).

As a kid, my dad stood in the New Forest and saw the glow as Southampton burned.

Your father was a child in world war 2?!

He must have had you very late? I’m not claiming you’re lying I’m just startled by the age implications

I'm 52. He was born in 1936. So I was born when he was 37 - as a youngest child. My son was born when I was 41.

The Southampton burnings would have occurred when he was between four and eight. As he was in the area later in the war, he would have missed the main blitz on the city.

As an aside, a friend of ours has a son the same age as our son. His *father* served in WW2 as a medic, and became a priest after the war.

Interesting, thanks. My late father remembered seeing the glow of Plymouth burning, as a child, while standing in a garden in mid Cornwall

I remember, as a schoolboy, standing in the playground and watching a “doodlebug” overhead. Suddenly it’s taillight went out and the teachers rushed us all into the air-raid shelters.

I have come to the conclusion that we hate children as much as we hate immigrants. Was told about a local parish in Kent where the Parish Council leader (over 80) has had the chains of the swings cut (for health and safety issues!). They are also sitting on about £60k of grant which they could spend on replacing the equipment but the leader wants to send the money back to the County instead of improvements.

So high house prices, high rents, expensive school clothing and pay for your own tertiary education while inviting the tertiary educated from other countries. We've lost all reason - by choice - as we could have had family supportive policies.

Yep.
No ball games. No speed restrictions. I'm intimidated by them hanging out in groups.
And why oh why do they never play out?

I saw this today. It made me sad. It turns out to be a story which is 18 years old but I think it still has currency.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-462091/How-children-lost-right-roam-generations.html

It reflects my own experience - at 8, I had the whole of our estate* and the fields behind in which to roam, but we don't let our own kids roam that far or operate that independently. I'd like to have given them more independence, but the culture is just that it isn't done, and if you let your 8 year old get to and from school on their own you'd soon get some questions from the authorities.

That said, I'm happy to report that our kids still achieve independence, just slightly later: my 15 year old frequently goes into Manchester or other locations reachable by public transport, and has had a day out to York over the holidays with friends and without adult supervision, and is looking for other opportunities; and my 13 year old isn't far behind her.


*it was a housing estate. I'm not some duke.

When I had just turned 10, to go to school I would walk to my local train station (Strawberry Hill in South West London), and catch a train towards Waterloo. I would get off at Vauxhall, walk to a bus stop, and catch the 2b bus over Vauxhall Bridge. I would leave for school at 740am, catch the 750am train, and make it to school at about 840am.

I had no cell phone, and if I needed to reach my parents to tell them about problems with the travel, I had a 10 pence coin for a pay phone.

I would very much have like to have given my children the same responsibility and freedom, but my wife was very much opposed.

We tend to think the streets much more dangerous than they actually are.

Railway station.

OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
Detain until deportation
Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

I see three major barriers and all are operational:
1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.

Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?

According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness

As always I am interested in the detail.

We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.

OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

He is following the Trump playbook

The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.

It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:

• Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.
  
  
  
• The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.
  

While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.

This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south

There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.

No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

All it requires is political will

All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.

A nation can have absolute sovereignty, if it really wants. But it's the sovereignty of a teenager who has stormed off to their room and slammed the door. The absolute sovereignty of North Korea, say.

Once you interact with the rest of the world, that sovereignty is always diluted. And that dilution is generally worth it.

OK, so the Reform "Operation Restoring Justice" headlines:

Detain & Deport "absolutely everyone arriving legally" with no admissible asylum claim and a lifetime ban from the UK
Leave the ECHR and all international treaties (UN Torture etc)
Create a UK Migration Command to coordinate all agencies data to find people who have gone to ground
Detain until deportation
Return agreements with all countries - we leverage our power by withholding visas and applying sanctions
Find a 3rd country to send undocumented / unreturnable. Discuss with Albania, Rwanda and others

Putting it simply, Parliament is sovereign. We can pass any law we like in our own borders. It becomes a problem when we try and bring those laws into practice.

I see three major barriers and all are operational:
1. Detain until Deportation. The "patriots" will not allow anywhere to be used for this purpose. Nor will staff be easy to find - unless the job is to employ the "patriots"
2. The flights. Yusuf said there would be an RAF Voyager on hot standby to fill in for an unavailable commercial plane. But if the UK has abrogated all international treaties, the flights would both be illegal and uninsurable. So unless the UK government is going to operate all flights they won't happen - and then they are military flights which countries do not have to just accept. If we are sovereign, so are they.
3. Yusuf describes how hard it is to "count the uncountable". We don't know how many and therefore who they are and where they are. Farage states we would have Border Force squads lifting people - which will cause chaos. The operational issue is that so many of the "illegals" that FukU supporters want to deport aren't illegal...

Uninsured doesn't matter as the MoD carries the risk on military registered aircraft. Civil/military makes no difference if they aren't cleared for traffic or landing.

AirTanker still have 2 x Voyager leased to Jet2 that they can recall so they would have substantial capacity. The deportation racket should have been 100% RAF run anyway. Much simpler.

Quibbling over the details misses the point anyway. Your average racist chav, ie Fukker voter, just sees a plan and a commitment to action. The British state certainly has the means to do mass deportations if it has the will which it currently does not.

Not quibbling - genuinely curious. It's been an interesting watch - Farage credited the Blair government repeatedly for deporting people at speed.

I have little doubt that this would have to be an RAF operation because they won't find aircraft otherwise. Why not just say so? Does it create issues with the counterparty government we're sending people to?

According to big Dom the Royal Navy was quite prepared to tow back the small boats to France - the plan was up and running - they were happy to do it. Defending our seas is, after all, their one and only job

It was the politicians who got nervous and then the human rights lawyers exploited their nerves

All this “uninsurable” stuff is total gibberish. Also: What the F do you know you’re a north Scottish part time Tesla reviewer who believes in ghosts

If we want to deport, we can deport. Enough of this spinelessness

As always I am interested in the detail.

We can pass any law we like. We can't compel an airline to carry deportees. Insurance was a live issue when Sunak tried to organise a Rwanda flight, so we know it is an issue.

And what the F do you know, if that's your line? About insurance for airlines and aircraft leasing, specifically.

OK this is interesting. Farage admitting that the ECHR is embedded into the Good Friday Agreement and that the required renegotiation of that won't be "quick". Does that mean that we can't do any of this without it? Because unless we quit ECHR and the UN treaties none of this is legal.

I expect Farage will just withdraw from the ECHR no matter the consequences

He is following the Trump playbook

The backlash against mass third world migration is becoming as loud in Ireland as it is here. If the John Lennon no-borders types think a second version of the Northern Ireland Protocol will maintain their cosy status quo, I fear they will be disappointed.

It's not the Protocol the ECHR is in but the Good Friday Agreement, which is an international treaty. If Farage wants to dump that, well, its a view I suppose. I just remember the status quo ante and am not that thrilled with the idea of round 2. Specifically:

• Section 2 of Strand One: This section commits the British and Irish governments to incorporating the ECHR into the law of Northern Ireland and ensuring that relevant rights are protected.
  
  
  
• The Agreement explicitly states that “the European Convention on Human Rights…shall apply in Northern Ireland”, and both governments commit to “take the necessary steps to ensure that the relevant rights are protected in law.” For the ECRH to apply in NI it has to be part of a country that is a signatory to the ECHR. You can't sign it for only part of your territory.
  

While there are some protests about migration in Ireland they are nowhere near as loud as here and any protests against renegotiating or dumping the GFA, or restricting the open border, will, I can assure you, be exponentially bigger.

This is nonsense. The protests about migration in Ireland are, relatively, even fiercer than here

The Irish regularly burn down asylum seeker housing. They had huge riots in Dublin on this issue. And it’s only getting worse

It is highly likely the Irish would be keen to tighten human rights laws on this subject. Because it threatens the peace in the south

There is huge public support for the GFA in Ireland and you need them to be willing to re-negotiate that. You’d have to do that before the UK could leave the ECHR otherwise you’d breach the GFA and the EU UK trade agreement.

No one has ever said fixing this would be easy and done in a day. But the bleating from the left says “this is legally and humanly impossible” - which is ridiculous

All it requires is political will

All things are possible! The point with all of it is there is almost always a counterparty to negotiate with.

Farage - like Starmer and Sunak and especially Boris! before him - is offering crayon solutions. "its all very simple", "we just do it" etc etc. The only chink in that argument was when he was asked about the GFA and he said it won't be easy and it won't be quick.

Here is the problem. The UK exiting the ECHR junks the GFA. We *could* choose to do that - with consequences. After all we would be junking so many other treaties would it matter some will ask? But yes, it matters because Norniron is part of the UK.

Same with the other "oh we'll just do x" points. Great! How? Specifics matter because they are the things that stop you from just doing x.

In the end who cares. It’s four years from the election

All Farage has to do is sound passionately committed to this. And no one doubts that he is. He knows he has to get this done - above all else - if he is elected

That is the part that concerns me. I have for a long time on here warned not of Farage, but of what comes after Farage fails.

The UK's political economy is broken at a fundamental level. Reform are asking the right questions but so far offer no substantive answers - or in many cases have proposals to make things worse.

The pressure cooker isn't migration or flags. It's poverty and hopelessness. Our politics has gone crazy over the last decade as people chase one "solution" then another, all the while finding that things get worse not better with every step taken.

From what we have seen so far, Reform UK in council have at best been ineffective (because there is little that any elected councillor can do to change the maths with regards to their budget crisis), and at worst have looked like utter idiots. If they win 400 seats at the election then 395 will be newly elected and all bar a minority will be new MPs, bound by Faragism.

That doesn't give me huge confidence that they will have the drive and the nous to actually go after the significant reforms needed. Which means although migrants would go down, the poverty and hopelessness will not. So who do they vote for next? We are sliding towards autocracy not because of a left / right divide, but because leftright are the same...

No there really isn’t. There is no valid comparison at all. It’s unintelligent bollocks from ignorant, silly people demented by Trump

Is America changing fast? Yes. Does it have major problems? Yes, but it is also incredibly rich and powerful. Is it like the USSR in 1985?

HAHAHAHAHAHA no

A much more interesting comparison is this: America is like Rome as it shifted from Republic to imperial monarchy

Is it incredibly rich and powerful? Right now? Maybe, but what about in the future?

Boeing is in big trouble. Essentially everyone is seeking alternatives to US weapons. China is ordering it's own industry to avoid US tech. The US government is having to step in to prop up Intel. Trump is doing his damndest to kill off renewable energy and electric vehicles. International trade in general is being undermined by Trump tariffs. US military alliances and treaties are now seen as worthless.

Does any of that bode well? Does anyone think Trump is Making America Great Again?

I would be astonished if in a decade's time all of this drama had made America better off.