My impression is that while this government is unpopular, Lineker’s opinions are even more so. Comparing the current government to the Nazis is asinine by any standard.
Once you choose to comment on politics, you should expect pushback from those who disagree with you.
Again check the exact quote. It was the language he was comparing to Nazi Germany. Something Braverman was also questioned on recently by a Holocaust survivor. Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
I'm not relying on the Nazis for my case. They might have got power quicker under FPTP.
Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
The collapse in the proportion of the world's population that is Chinese is truly astonishing.
Superb article. How can some 10% of China's population be missing???
"While the 2022 WPP puts the Chinese population at 1.43 billion people, I estimate that it is now smaller than 1.28 billion."
The more authoritarian the organisation the more likely its leadership is to lie about the data and the more likely the workers are to lie about the data to the leadership.
Starmer: "[The Government] will blame everybody else apart from themselves. They should stand up and take responsibility, stop whingeing about Gary Lineker and get on with the job."
Which member of the Government had said anything in public about Gary Lineker, please?
Grant Shapps and Suella Braverman.
Two people, one of whom was absurdly compared to Hitler? Hardly a sign of continual whingeing such that they aren't doing their jobs.
Actually they are quite entitled to express their opinion on him and his views. It's calling for him to be fired that's not on.
Indeed so. I can understand Braverman doing so - I can even imagine Shapps doing so, because he's thick - but Mordaunt didn't (or, at least, not in that clip).
Blimey. Five Live off air. I’m not sure what the off ramp is here. The BBC can’t really back down, but without Lineker being back on air will the rest come back? And why would Lineker now compromise if he has this much support?
Presumably the BBC sport producers are working hard to find people who will work, and I guess that for some of the pundits money will eventually talk.
Has the whole station gone off air ? They're really facing a strike situation if so.
Yes. They are playing repeats of podcasts just now. There'll be no Six Nations commentary. It's wider than presenters and football. It's a wildcat strike by the whole sports department. Better hope it doesn't spread to news.
Will even one PB lefty admit that Lineker has fucked this all up?
Not me. The BBC has fucked this up. Par for the course for an organisation run by the Tories. They've fucked every other one up.
If you think the BBC is run by 'the Tories', then you should really look at some official media in other countries to see real political bias. Or even the BBC post-Hutton. Or even the BBC.
The BBC has a difficult job trying to run a knife-edge between competing political parties. It is subjective, but the vast majority of its output manages to do that. Its position isn't helped by stupid, overpaid sports pundits weighing in with whatever verbal diarrhea passes through their mind at any moment.
But they have installed placemen and women all over the management of the organisation. The experience of other countries is precisely what they are working towards. Hence where we are.
I would refer you back twenty years to the Hutton mess - that saw someone sadly commit suicide. Do you condemn what the (Labour) government did then?
It's particularly hilarious seeing the piece of sh*t Alastair Campbell droning on about the Lineker case, given that.
What happened 20 years ago doesn't justify what happens now.
It does, and it doesn't. Both are wrong. But *if* you claim the government are trying to interfere with the BBC now, then what went on then is orders of magnitude more egregious. Lineker's apparently made many comments that are overtly politically biased.
What's the difference between biased and opinion? All political opinions are, by their nature, biased.
I'd argue Lineker's latest tweet goes well beyond opinion, for two reasons:
1) It ridiculously compares the Conservatives to Nazis. 2) It ignores that there's an issue here; one that many people care strongly about (in whichever direction).
for 2); if he's against the government proposal, what's his alternative?
Lineker offers as many alternatives as the Labour Party: precisely none.
Say you'd have no restrictions on entry to the UK by those in Calais - and see how your social media presence copes with that shit storm.
I don't understand why Lineker has to have a solution to any particular problem, same as I don't have a solution to anything of national importance. He expresses a sincerely held opinion on what he thinks the government are doing. Admittedly, he does hate the government but that can be said for around 70% of the population if you believe current polling. It's the government's job to come up with solutions....which it clearly hasn't!
It has come up with a solution - a solution which Lineker doesn't like.
He just sounds like a lefty blowhard when he offers no alternative. As with the Labour Party. They are the Andy Pipkin of modern political discourse: "I don't like it."
Well, what the fuck DO you like? Give us a clue...
In a very real sense this doesn't matter. Short of withdrawal from both the ECHR and the UN Refugee Convention - something which the sitting Government wouldn't dare to do, and the Opposition wouldn't want to do either - nothing truly effective can be done about the small boats. Throwing money at the French might help at the margins, but they can't patrol every inch of their coast from Dunkirk to Cherbourg, they can't stop the migrants from getting hold of dinghies, and their incentive to frustrate Britain's unwanted asylum seekers, to the point that these persons apply for asylum in France instead, is limited to put it mildly.
Nearly everyone who manages to get as far as boarding a boat to England - unless they are very unlucky and end up drowning in a terrible accident - will get to stay forever. The various people getting into the boats, whether they are actual refugees or not (and most of them aren't,) know this to be true, and so do all the politicians. Any rival non-plans that Labour and the Tories come out with to deal with the boats exist to hoodwink gullible voters and score points off each other, and that's it.
What about we extend the EU scheme?
The one where the EU pays the Libyan Coastguard to intercept refugee boats, and locks the refugees up in detention centres in Libya. And sells their involuntary labour.
So we grant the Libyan Coastguard some kind of fishing rights in the Channel. We get 25% of the money the immigrants labour is sold for in Libya, the French get 25%.
After costs deducted, our chunk of the money is used to pay reparations for slavery.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
Because it is representatives that matter, not parties. We should not strengthen them further.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
I’m a lefty who thinks Lineker’s comments were not appropriate.
I agree with Lineker's sentiments but not his choice of words. I think the BBC has some say over how associated personnel behave but don't think they apply their policies at all consistently.
I don't think this is remotely the biggest problem of bias facing the BBC. Explicit or implicit self censorship on reporting that might embarrass the government is a much bigger issue
Still waiting for any evidence that MOTD is the “most popular tv show in Europe”
I have grave doubts this evidence will forthcome
It's up there, I'd have thought. Iconic show. Soundtrack to football, to life, muddy pitches in the 70s, Law and Bestie, it was there, Gazza exuberantly breaking his own leg in the 90s, it was there, all the way through to today's superslick game, it's still here, same time same place, Saturday night, on the BBC, da da da der da da da da da da, da der da da da der ... fronted (and well) by Gary Lineker these last 23 years but for all his intelligence and charm he is merely the custodian.
It’s clearly a popular and venerated footie show in England. But the original claim was way bigger than that. “One of the most popular& well known programmes in Europe, if not the world”. Ludicrous
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
The Greens stood almost everywhere. The SNP didn't. Big difference.
Edit: Not least because the number of constituencies in which they stood is proportional to the success of their total percentage of the vote.
The BBC may have to broadcast Match of the Day without commentary tonight because it does not have rights to audio supplied by Premier League Productions.
It will be an interesting experiment.
I know some people were saying that not having the pundits and commentators will make no difference, but that then begs the question why every broadcaster of every sport in the World has them
It's bollocks. Watch any sport with commentary in a language you don't speak - i.e no commentary, and it's hugely less enjoyable. Starting to watch tennis and golf in Chinese in hotels, and I find myself turning over to something else.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1634564398919368704 The gov’t has about 48 hours to fix a-soon-to-be-irreversible mistake. By allowing @SVB_Financial to fail without protecting all depositors, the world has woken up to what an uninsured deposit is — an unsecured illiquid claim on a failed bank. Absent @jpmorgan @citi or @BankofAmerica acquiring SVB before the open on Monday, a prospect I believe to be unlikely, or the gov’t guaranteeing all of SVB’s deposits, the giant sucking sound you will hear will be the withdrawal of substantially all uninsured deposits from all but the ‘systemically important banks’ (SIBs). These funds will be transferred to the SIBs, US Treasury (UST) money market funds and short-term UST. There is already pressure to transfer cash to short-term UST and UST money market accounts due to the substantially higher yields available on risk-free UST vs. bank deposits. These withdrawals will drain liquidity from community, regional and other banks and begin the destruction of these important institutions...
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
The SNP only stood in ~7% of constituencies so your comparison is misleading.
I’m a lefty who thinks Lineker’s comments were not appropriate.
I agree with Lineker's sentiments but not his choice of words. I think the BBC has some say over how associated personnel behave but don't think they apply their policies at all consistently.
I don't think this is remotely the biggest problem of bias facing the BBC. Explicit or implicit self censorship on reporting that might embarrass the government is a much bigger issue
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
The SNP only stood in ~7% of constituencies so your comparison is misleading.
How is it misleading? it is not as if they would have got much more if they stood in England and Wales is it?
I’m a lefty who thinks Lineker’s comments were not appropriate.
I agree with Lineker's sentiments but not his choice of words. I think the BBC has some say over how associated personnel behave but don't think they apply their policies at all consistently.
I don't think this is remotely the biggest problem of bias facing the BBC. Explicit or implicit self censorship on reporting that might embarrass the government is a much bigger issue
And I'm convinced the is the case. The decision was, I'm sure, made by a senior manager (not the DG or Chair) who thought that is what his bosses expected. I doubt the government even hinted eiither way. And once the BBC had got themselves into the mess I'm not sure a government statement - even on Lineker's side - would have helped matters.
Still waiting for any evidence that MOTD is the “most popular tv show in Europe”
I have grave doubts this evidence will forthcome
It's up there, I'd have thought. Iconic show. Soundtrack to football, to life, muddy pitches in the 70s, Law and Bestie, it was there, Gazza exuberantly breaking his own leg in the 90s, it was there, all the way through to today's superslick game, it's still here, same time same place, Saturday night, on the BBC, da da da der da da da da da da, da der da da da der ... fronted (and well) by Gary Lineker these last 23 years but for all his intelligence and charm he is merely the custodian.
It’s clearly a popular and venerated footie show in England. But the original claim was way bigger than that. “One of the most popular& well known programmes in Europe, if not the world”. Ludicrous
I don't think even most soccer fans in the US would have heard of it.
My impression is that while this government is unpopular, Lineker’s opinions are even more so. Comparing the current government to the Nazis is asinine by any standard.
Once you choose to comment on politics, you should expect pushback from those who disagree with you.
Again check the exact quote. It was the language he was comparing to Nazi Germany. Something Braverman was also questioned on recently by a Holocaust survivor. Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
People use comments from Holocaust survivors to compare lockdown or the Israeli government to Nazis. Even Holocaust survivors can say silly things.
So far as I know, the government has not called for him to be sacked.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
The SNP only stood in ~7% of constituencies so your comparison is misleading.
Not at all. They got a lot of seats because their vote was concentrated. The Green Party is evenly spread.
If a party gets say 25% of the vote in every constituency because of its geographically spread popularity, it will likely get zero seats under FPTP. That is manifestly wrong and indefensible.
And I'm convinced the is the case. The decision was, I'm sure, made by a senior manager (not the DG or Chair) who thought that is what his bosses expected. I doubt the government even hinted eiither way. And once the BBC had got themselves into the mess I'm not sure a government statement - even on Lineker's side - would have helped matters.
The problem with that theory is the BBC apparently changed their minds.
On Thursday it was all done and dusted.
On Friday they announced Lineker was stepping back.
I look forward to Lineker giving one of his many houses, or using his BBC salary to buy new houses, for every immigrant who wants to come in. And providing employment for them...
This is such a bizarre comment. Next you’ll be arguing that May should be paying for my public sector wage increase from her second income because of her magic money tree comment.
Not really. There's a problem; most of us freely admit it's a problem, although the scale of the problem is arguable. Lineker goes off on one about a proposed solution. And fair enough: but other potential and arguable solutions may not please him as much.
My impression is that while this government is unpopular, Lineker’s opinions are even more so. Comparing the current government to the Nazis is asinine by any standard.
Once you choose to comment on politics, you should expect pushback from those who disagree with you.
Again check the exact quote. It was the language he was comparing to Nazi Germany. Something Braverman was also questioned on recently by a Holocaust survivor. Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
I rather doubt Lineker has looked up the speeches of Hitler and Goebbels to compare them with what Braverman has been saying.
So that leaves us with the commonly known actions - starvation in the ghettoes and gas chambers in the concentration camps - as a comparison with the government's proposed measures.
Which is plainly ridiculous.
Now its certainly possible to have rational criticism of the government but a rational criticism leads to the question "so what do you propose instead ?" which is difficult to answer.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority.
A majority of votes, perhaps. But since there's no way to vote for "party X, but only so long as they don't go into coalition with party Y", there's no way of guaranteeing that the coalition as a whole actually has majority support.
My impression is that while this government is unpopular, Lineker’s opinions are even more so. Comparing the current government to the Nazis is asinine by any standard.
Once you choose to comment on politics, you should expect pushback from those who disagree with you.
Again check the exact quote. It was the language he was comparing to Nazi Germany. Something Braverman was also questioned on recently by a Holocaust survivor. Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
People use comments from Holocaust survivors to compare lockdown or the Israeli government to Nazis. Even Holocaust survivors can say silly things.
So far as I know, the government has not called for him to be sacked.
The Tweet was ambiguous about whether the Nazi comparison was language or policy. But even if Lineker's point was about language, it's nonsense. Nazi rhetoric about Jews was that they were bloodthirsty tyrants or vermin that needed to be exterminated. That rhetoric hasn't been used in public discourse here at all.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
The SNP only stood in ~7% of constituencies so your comparison is misleading.
How is it misleading? it is not as if they would have got much more if they stood in England and Wales is it?
Might have done. You haven't forgotten it was Boris v Corbyn, right?
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
The SNP only stood in ~7% of constituencies so your comparison is misleading.
Not at all. They got a lot of seats because their vote was concentrated. The Green Party is evenly spread.
If a party gets say 25% of the vote in every constituency because of its geographically spread popularity, it will likely get zero seats under FPTP. That is manifestly wrong and indefensible.
Your position that losers should be allowed to win is manifestly wrong and indefensible.
The collapse in the proportion of the world's population that is Chinese is truly astonishing.
What did they expect would be the result of the One Child Policy?
I think the article explains that the Chinese Government projected that, when they relaxed the one-child policy (to a two-child policy in 2016, and three-child policy in 2021) behaviour would swifly change - a fertility rate of 1.8 was predicted. But that simply didn't happen. So population is falling far faster than expected and the demographic timebomb they recognised they were setting is much harder to defuse than they thought.
Essentially, it's relatively easy as an authoritarian government to limit births, but quite another challenge to make a generation of only children want to have a large family with the various costs that entails now that it's permitted again.
"Lineker is frontman for what is probably the most popular and best-known TV show in Europe, and perhaps one of the most popular TV shows in the the world."
Surely a joke. Indeed I think this is a joke
You think MOTD is some little-known obscurity?
You know it has a huge reach. Which is why you are squealing so hard that it's not fair.
I doubt its reach is due to Lineker. More about the long tradition, the timing and the intro music. Lineker mainly brings a female friendly face, although his reputation is diabolical amongst my female friends that have met him.
Given his contract ensures he gets a substantial amounts of the weeks off, it wouldn't be hard to check to see if there is a difference in viewership between when he is hosting and when he isn't.
Well it matters not a jot to the BBC domesticaly. I can't imagine MOTD is sold at any great profit overseas either.
The BBC don't have oversea rights (beyond being allowed to show it in Ireland, which costs, and overspill into the Netherlands). The Premier League sell (for huge income) their own rights throughout the world, and where required produce their own highlights shows.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1634564398919368704 The gov’t has about 48 hours to fix a-soon-to-be-irreversible mistake. By allowing @SVB_Financial to fail without protecting all depositors, the world has woken up to what an uninsured deposit is — an unsecured illiquid claim on a failed bank. Absent @jpmorgan @citi or @BankofAmerica acquiring SVB before the open on Monday, a prospect I believe to be unlikely, or the gov’t guaranteeing all of SVB’s deposits, the giant sucking sound you will hear will be the withdrawal of substantially all uninsured deposits from all but the ‘systemically important banks’ (SIBs). These funds will be transferred to the SIBs, US Treasury (UST) money market funds and short-term UST. There is already pressure to transfer cash to short-term UST and UST money market accounts due to the substantially higher yields available on risk-free UST vs. bank deposits. These withdrawals will drain liquidity from community, regional and other banks and begin the destruction of these important institutions...
It's a rant touching on topics like local community banking, jobs for talented younger generation, the long, 40-year (!) tradition and heritage of SVB. Not a lot about the actual proposal. At the core is a request for an up-to-$170bn bailout for large corporate depositors who took a risk on SVB. From a professional investor exposed to the sectors whose businesses took that risk. It's strange to say both "we didn't know it was risky" and "obviously JPMorgan is safer"!
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
The SNP only stood in ~7% of constituencies so your comparison is misleading.
Not at all. They got a lot of seats because their vote was concentrated. The Green Party is evenly spread.
If a party gets say 25% of the vote in every constituency because of its geographically spread popularity, it will likely get zero seats under FPTP. That is manifestly wrong and indefensible.
Your position that losers should be allowed to win is manifestly wrong and indefensible.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1634564398919368704 The gov’t has about 48 hours to fix a-soon-to-be-irreversible mistake. By allowing @SVB_Financial to fail without protecting all depositors, the world has woken up to what an uninsured deposit is — an unsecured illiquid claim on a failed bank. Absent @jpmorgan @citi or @BankofAmerica acquiring SVB before the open on Monday, a prospect I believe to be unlikely, or the gov’t guaranteeing all of SVB’s deposits, the giant sucking sound you will hear will be the withdrawal of substantially all uninsured deposits from all but the ‘systemically important banks’ (SIBs). These funds will be transferred to the SIBs, US Treasury (UST) money market funds and short-term UST. There is already pressure to transfer cash to short-term UST and UST money market accounts due to the substantially higher yields available on risk-free UST vs. bank deposits. These withdrawals will drain liquidity from community, regional and other banks and begin the destruction of these important institutions...
Interesting indeed. Like those short but memorable periods between NRock being about to go bust, going bust, and the government announcing that depositors would be covered. Only bigger.
The collapse in the proportion of the world's population that is Chinese is truly astonishing.
The only caveat I would add is that China has used the belt and road initiative to draw countries in Africa and Asia with higher fertility rates into its orbit. They will hope to increase their power as these countries, particularly in Africa, become more important.
Western influence looks pretty weak in comparison.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
The SNP only stood in ~7% of constituencies so your comparison is misleading.
Not at all. They got a lot of seats because their vote was concentrated. The Green Party is evenly spread.
If a party gets say 25% of the vote in every constituency because of its geographically spread popularity, it will likely get zero seats under FPTP. That is manifestly wrong and indefensible.
Your position that losers should be allowed to win is manifestly wrong and indefensible.
In my example, 25% of voters are denied any representation whatsoever. That's what is wrong. They are only "losers" under FPTP.
I can sense that you are not persuadable so I'll end it there.
My impression is that while this government is unpopular, Lineker’s opinions are even more so. Comparing the current government to the Nazis is asinine by any standard.
Once you choose to comment on politics, you should expect pushback from those who disagree with you.
Again check the exact quote. It was the language he was comparing to Nazi Germany. Something Braverman was also questioned on recently by a Holocaust survivor. Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
People use comments from Holocaust survivors to compare lockdown or the Israeli government to Nazis. Even Holocaust survivors can say silly things.
So far as I know, the government has not called for him to be sacked.
The Tweet was ambiguous about whether the Nazi comparison was language or policy. But even if Lineker's point was about language, it's nonsense. Nazi rhetoric about Jews was that they were bloodthirsty tyrants or vermin that needed to be exterminated. That rhetoric hasn't been used in public discourse here at all.
Remember the Heil saying judges were enemies of the people, including one who was "openly-gay"?
The collapse in the proportion of the world's population that is Chinese is truly astonishing.
Superb article. How can some 10% of China's population be missing???
"While the 2022 WPP puts the Chinese population at 1.43 billion people, I estimate that it is now smaller than 1.28 billion."
The more authoritarian the organisation the more likely its leadership is to lie about the data and the more likely the workers are to lie about the data to the leadership.
I wonder if this is the leadership of the country or local authorities? Presumably, similarly to here, funding is partly dependent on population. So local authorities have got an interest in exaggerating the population if they can, and it is conceivable this is easier to hide in practice in an enormous country where some regions are very modern and highly developed, but others very much aren't.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
An example of that negotiation being the LibDems, having promised up and down England that they would never support an increase in university tuition fees, agreeing to immediately increase university fees when in government.
We've all seen politicians lie and governments break promises but the LibDems did more damage to the case for PR with their betrayal of students than any learned advocate of FPTP could do.
The collapse in the proportion of the world's population that is Chinese is truly astonishing.
What did they expect would be the result of the One Child Policy?
I think the article explains that the Chinese Government projected that, when they relaxed the one-child policy (to a two-child policy in 2016, and three-child policy in 2021) behaviour would swifly change - a fertility rate of 1.8 was predicted. But that simply didn't happen. So population is falling far faster than expected and the demographic timebomb they recognised they were setting is much harder to defuse than they thought.
Essentially, it's relatively easy as an authoritarian government to limit births, but quite another challenge to make a generation of only children want to have a large family with the various costs that entails now that it's permitted again.
The main issue with raising fertility rates is that the joy of large families with good cultures is not appreciated by those who have never had it, while the costs are very tangible and obvious. I was raised with a strong family dynamic and times getting together with all my cousins were the highlights of my childhood. That meant I was willing to deal with the hardships of going through those tough early years repeatedly.
If, however, you have been raised as an only child, and so have your parents, you don't have any positive memories of sibling or cousin relationships. Meanwhile the immediate prospect of extra costs and sleepless nights is still there. That is the problem the Chinese have created for themselves. And it is the problem we will be facing in the West very soon. We are sleepwalking our way to cultural extinction.
It was always going to come to this. Somewhat touched that the last post is a rant about a speculation I made. Looking forward to the arrival of TwentysomethingCorbyniteGirlfriend or whatever.
My impression is that while this government is unpopular, Lineker’s opinions are even more so. Comparing the current government to the Nazis is asinine by any standard.
Once you choose to comment on politics, you should expect pushback from those who disagree with you.
Again check the exact quote. It was the language he was comparing to Nazi Germany. Something Braverman was also questioned on recently by a Holocaust survivor. Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
People use comments from Holocaust survivors to compare lockdown or the Israeli government to Nazis. Even Holocaust survivors can say silly things.
So far as I know, the government has not called for him to be sacked.
The Tweet was ambiguous about whether the Nazi comparison was language or policy. But even if Lineker's point was about language, it's nonsense. Nazi rhetoric about Jews was that they were bloodthirsty tyrants or vermin that needed to be exterminated. That rhetoric hasn't been used in public discourse here at all.
Remember the Heil saying judges were enemies of the people, including one who was "openly-gay"?
Yes, I do. Something that is neither on a par with Nazi rhetoric, or about asylum policy, so completely irrelevant.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
An example of that negotiation being the LibDems, having promised up and down England that they would never support an increase in university tuition fees, agreeing to immediately increase university fees when in government.
We've all seen politicians lie and governments break promises but the LibDems did more damage to the case for PR with their betrayal of students than any learned advocate of FPTP could do.
As a LibDem I have great sympathy with your point. I was bitterly disappointed with Clegg and resigned from the party over it. Thank god Clegg has gone. I've now rejoined.
I don't think the LIbDems will join a coalition again for at least a generation. It will provide Confidence and Supply - as the DUP did successfully with the Tories - and hold the major party to account.
Ukraine reported another 1,010 Russians killed yesterday. c.5,000 deaths this week.
Can Russia really keep up with that level of loss?
Yes, sadly. Because the leadership is remote from, and does not answer to/for, the losses.
If I may expand on this point for a moment:
Many people point to WW1 or WW2 for the ability to turn entire generations into cannon fodder - as Russia and others did. My suspicion is that it's much harder to do in a modern economy, where there are many more highly-trained specialisations required to keep an economy going.
I do wonder that if Russia continues to throw meat into the grinder for a long period, whether their economy will be hurt by the lack of skilled people?
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
I thought they lost seats in the election before they took over but they were able yo govern with the support of some of the Conservatives.
In 1930 the Nazis got 107 seats with just 18% of the vote and then used that to win most seats in July 1932 when they won 230 seats with 37% of the vote. From that they initially supported Papen as Chancellor but were able to use it as a springboard to get Hitler in as Chancellor by January 1933
The collapse in the proportion of the world's population that is Chinese is truly astonishing.
Superb article. How can some 10% of China's population be missing???
"While the 2022 WPP puts the Chinese population at 1.43 billion people, I estimate that it is now smaller than 1.28 billion."
The more authoritarian the organisation the more likely its leadership is to lie about the data and the more likely the workers are to lie about the data to the leadership.
I wonder if this is the leadership of the country or local authorities? Presumably, similarly to here, funding is partly dependent on population. So local authorities have got an interest in exaggerating the population if they can, and it is conceivable this is easier to hide in practice in an enormous country where some regions are very modern and highly developed, but others very much aren't.
Certainly possible.
Lies are most common when the people telling the lie have a vested interest in so doing and when the people hearing the lie want to believe that the lie is the truth.
Mao decreed that efforts to multiply grain yields and bring industry to the countryside should be increased. Local officials were fearful of Anti-Rightist Campaigns and they competed to fulfill or over-fulfill quotas which were based on Mao's exaggerated claims, collecting non-existent "surpluses" and leaving farmers to starve to death. Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies, and national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action. Millions of people died in China during the Great Leap, with estimates ranging from 15 to 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history.
Hello! Most of the overseas posters on here seem to come from Russia so that makes a nice change! We’ve just lost one who regularly posted from Thailand so it’s good to see you!
My impression is that while this government is unpopular, Lineker’s opinions are even more so. Comparing the current government to the Nazis is asinine by any standard.
Once you choose to comment on politics, you should expect pushback from those who disagree with you.
Again check the exact quote. It was the language he was comparing to Nazi Germany. Something Braverman was also questioned on recently by a Holocaust survivor. Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
People use comments from Holocaust survivors to compare lockdown or the Israeli government to Nazis. Even Holocaust survivors can say silly things.
So far as I know, the government has not called for him to be sacked.
The Tweet was ambiguous about whether the Nazi comparison was language or policy. But even if Lineker's point was about language, it's nonsense. Nazi rhetoric about Jews was that they were bloodthirsty tyrants or vermin that needed to be exterminated. That rhetoric hasn't been used in public discourse here at all.
Remember the Heil saying judges were enemies of the people, including one who was "openly-gay"?
Yes, I do. Something that is neither on a par with Nazi rhetoric, or about asylum policy, so completely irrelevant.
ISTR that the NSDAP didn't like gays. And you are perhaps unaware that they really liked to use the expression"Volksfeind".
Hello! Most of the overseas posters on here seem to come from Russia so that makes a nice change! We’ve just lost one who regularly posted from Thailand so it’s good to see you!
Gracias. You’d be surprised how popular this site is in provincial Argentina
Lineker should do a Father Jack “I’m so, so sorry” apology that involves explaining, apologetically of course, why he became so upset by the fash-adjacent language of the government over small boats. Then he can get back to MOTD.
He would be in a happier place - as would the Beeb - if he had stuck to the line of
Hello! Most of the overseas posters on here seem to come from Russia so that makes a nice change! We’ve just lost one who regularly posted from Thailand so it’s good to see you!
My impression is that while this government is unpopular, Lineker’s opinions are even more so. Comparing the current government to the Nazis is asinine by any standard.
Once you choose to comment on politics, you should expect pushback from those who disagree with you.
Again check the exact quote. It was the language he was comparing to Nazi Germany. Something Braverman was also questioned on recently by a Holocaust survivor. Nothing wrong with the pushback on his comments but calling for him to be sacked? It smacks of the cancellation culture that people on the right have been complaining about in recent years.
People use comments from Holocaust survivors to compare lockdown or the Israeli government to Nazis. Even Holocaust survivors can say silly things.
So far as I know, the government has not called for him to be sacked.
The Tweet was ambiguous about whether the Nazi comparison was language or policy. But even if Lineker's point was about language, it's nonsense. Nazi rhetoric about Jews was that they were bloodthirsty tyrants or vermin that needed to be exterminated. That rhetoric hasn't been used in public discourse here at all.
Hello! Most of the overseas posters on here seem to come from Russia so that makes a nice change! We’ve just lost one who regularly posted from Thailand so it’s good to see you!
Gracias. You’d be surprised how popular this site is in provincial Argentina
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
I'm not relying on the Nazis for my case. They might have got power quicker under FPTP.
Under FPTP the Nazis would have got zero seats, certainly in 1928 when they won 12 seats with PR, they would have thus had no momentum. If we ever were to have PR a 5% voteshare threshold minimum would be reasonable to keep out extremists, that would not have helped the Greens in 2019 but would have helped the LDs significantly in 2005 and 2010 and UKIP in 2015 to win more seats
I am hoping that someone with a German name posting from Buenos Aires would give the site some useful first hand insight into the language used by the Nazis in the 1930s.
Hello! Most of the overseas posters on here seem to come from Russia so that makes a nice change! We’ve just lost one who regularly posted from Thailand so it’s good to see you!
Gracias. You’d be surprised how popular this site is in provincial Argentina
Is it more or less popular than Jeremy Clarkson?
Have you ever heard of Gary Lineker?
I have not heard of this “Gary loneker”. I am coming here to be enjoying discussions of butterflies
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
An example of that negotiation being the LibDems, having promised up and down England that they would never support an increase in university tuition fees, agreeing to immediately increase university fees when in government.
We've all seen politicians lie and governments break promises but the LibDems did more damage to the case for PR with their betrayal of students than any learned advocate of FPTP could do.
As a LibDem I have great sympathy with your point. I was bitterly disappointed with Clegg and resigned from the party over it. Thank god Clegg has gone. I've now rejoined.
I don't think the LIbDems will join a coalition again for at least a generation. It will provide Confidence and Supply - as the DUP did successfully with the Tories - and hold the major party to account.
What was mystifying was that there was no need to agree to an increase in tuition fees - it was no deal breaker to Cameron and many Conservatives were unhappy about it.
Clegg could easily have blocked it and proclaimed himself a hero who had kept his promise and protected students.
I can only imagine that Clegg secretly supported the tuition fee increase and his campaign against them was fake all along.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
Remind me how many who voted lib dem in 2010 thought they had got what they voted for....oh thats right we can judge it was about 1/3 judging by the number that wouldn't vote for them again in 2015
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
The Nazis got in with PR in Germany, FPTP doesn't deny minorities a voice, they can stand candidates but only get elected if they win a majority in the constituencies they stand in. PR however means they can get elected with just 5% of the vote in regions they stand in.
Under FPTP, in the 2019 General Election, the Greens got 3% share of votes and got one seat - Brighton Pavillion. The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
I'm not relying on the Nazis for my case. They might have got power quicker under FPTP.
Under FPTP the Nazis would have got zero seats, certainly in 1928 when they won 12 seats with PR, they would have thus had no momentum. If we ever were to have PR a 5% voteshare threshold minimum would be reasonable to keep out extremists, that would not have helped the Greens in 2019 but would have helped the LDs significantly in 2005 and 2010 and UKIP in 2015 to win more seats
STV in say 4-6 member seats provides the equivalent of a threshold, as well as keeping the local link. It's my preferred method even though it is not strictly proportional.
The collapse in the proportion of the world's population that is Chinese is truly astonishing.
What did they expect would be the result of the One Child Policy?
I think the article explains that the Chinese Government projected that, when they relaxed the one-child policy (to a two-child policy in 2016, and three-child policy in 2021) behaviour would swifly change - a fertility rate of 1.8 was predicted. But that simply didn't happen. So population is falling far faster than expected and the demographic timebomb they recognised they were setting is much harder to defuse than they thought.
Essentially, it's relatively easy as an authoritarian government to limit births, but quite another challenge to make a generation of only children want to have a large family with the various costs that entails now that it's permitted again.
The main issue with raising fertility rates is that the joy of large families with good cultures is not appreciated by those who have never had it, while the costs are very tangible and obvious. I was raised with a strong family dynamic and times getting together with all my cousins were the highlights of my childhood. That meant I was willing to deal with the hardships of going through those tough early years repeatedly.
If, however, you have been raised as an only child, and so have your parents, you don't have any positive memories of sibling or cousin relationships. Meanwhile the immediate prospect of extra costs and sleepless nights is still there. That is the problem the Chinese have created for themselves. And it is the problem we will be facing in the West very soon. We are sleepwalking our way to cultural extinction.
Your last line here doesn't really follow from the rest.
There's clearly an economic challenge associated with low fertility rates as you ultimately have a problem with a low working population and high retired population.
I think your insinuation (and this may be unfair) is that the "cultural extinction" arises from the fact that the obvious answer to that is immigration. But that unstated assumption is that immigration inevitably destroys rather than enrichs the culture. I just don't think that's true - cultures change over time whether or not there is immigration, and I tend to think reasonably well managed immigration helps that happen in a healthier way than by letting the culture turn in on itself.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
An example of that negotiation being the LibDems, having promised up and down England that they would never support an increase in university tuition fees, agreeing to immediately increase university fees when in government.
We've all seen politicians lie and governments break promises but the LibDems did more damage to the case for PR with their betrayal of students than any learned advocate of FPTP could do.
As a LibDem I have great sympathy with your point. I was bitterly disappointed with Clegg and resigned from the party over it. Thank god Clegg has gone. I've now rejoined.
I don't think the LIbDems will join a coalition again for at least a generation. It will provide Confidence and Supply - as the DUP did successfully with the Tories - and hold the major party to account.
What was mystifying was that there was no need to agree to an increase in tuition fees - it was no deal breaker to Cameron and many Conservatives were unhappy about it.
Clegg could easily have blocked it and proclaimed himself a hero who had kept his promise and protected students.
I can only imagine that Clegg secretly supported the tuition fee increase and his campaign against them was fake all along.
Wasn't it the imposition of tuition fees, rather than just an increase?
Starmer: "[The Government] will blame everybody else apart from themselves. They should stand up and take responsibility, stop whingeing about Gary Lineker and get on with the job."
Which member of the Government had said anything in public about Gary Lineker, please?
Grant Shapps and Suella Braverman.
Two people, one of whom was absurdly compared to Hitler? Hardly a sign of continual whingeing such that they aren't doing their jobs.
You will be so disillusioned with the next Labour government.
Judging by the talent available, we're going to be disillusioned by the next few governments.
I suspect that Labour will be every bit as useless as the Tories, though at least we'll be able to judge this from the next Labour manifesto - so we can avoid the hope phase of a change of Government, and move directly to total disappointment from day one, if:
1. They keep stuffing codgers' mouths with gold at everyone else's expense (i.e. the pension triple lock stays) 2. They fail to drive a metaphorical bulldozer straight over the Nimbies and commit to building an absolute fuckton of houses
There are some other helpful things that Labour could do to begin to shore up our tottering economy and society, notably on childcare, but these are the major indicators. We need to stop forever prioritising the welfare of the elderly over that of the young, and that means making pensioner handouts less generous and forcing stroppy, mostly elderly, Nimbies and Bananas to put up with more houses, even if it means the price of their own pile of bricks doesn't keep shooting up faster than earnings for the rest of time.
Personally I'm steeling myself for a complete load of diversionary wankery about state owned wind turbines, devolution, and empty rhetoric about slightly higher taxes for multi-millionaires, that leaves all the major problems wholly untouched.
I've no faith in any of the politicians. They're all fucking useless.
Hello! Most of the overseas posters on here seem to come from Russia so that makes a nice change! We’ve just lost one who regularly posted from Thailand so it’s good to see you!
Gracias. You’d be surprised how popular this site is in provincial Argentina
Is it more or less popular than Jeremy Clarkson?
Have you ever heard of Gary Lineker?
I have not heard of this “Gary loneker”. I am coming here to be enjoying discussions of butterflies
Wir streiten immer aufgeregt und heftig über die Schmetterlingsartenklassifikation.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
An example of that negotiation being the LibDems, having promised up and down England that they would never support an increase in university tuition fees, agreeing to immediately increase university fees when in government.
We've all seen politicians lie and governments break promises but the LibDems did more damage to the case for PR with their betrayal of students than any learned advocate of FPTP could do.
As a LibDem I have great sympathy with your point. I was bitterly disappointed with Clegg and resigned from the party over it. Thank god Clegg has gone. I've now rejoined.
I don't think the LIbDems will join a coalition again for at least a generation. It will provide Confidence and Supply - as the DUP did successfully with the Tories - and hold the major party to account.
What was mystifying was that there was no need to agree to an increase in tuition fees - it was no deal breaker to Cameron and many Conservatives were unhappy about it.
Clegg could easily have blocked it and proclaimed himself a hero who had kept his promise and protected students.
I can only imagine that Clegg secretly supported the tuition fee increase and his campaign against them was fake all along.
I agree. The same with the austerity policy. We LibDems were shafted by Clegg. He got his comeuppance when he was shafted first by Cameron and then delightfully by Jared O'Mara.
I always seem to miss the fun. That's the problem with exiling oneself to ConHome.
And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Leon's ban day.
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
A very similar negotiation goes on within parties under FPTP, of course. Who knew in 2019 they were voting for PMs Truss and Sunak ?
I always seem to miss the fun. That's the problem with exiling oneself to ConHome.
And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Leon's ban day.
To quote the British Army at reveille: "hands off **** and on with socks!"
Ukraine reported another 1,010 Russians killed yesterday. c.5,000 deaths this week.
Can Russia really keep up with that level of loss?
Yes, sadly. Because the leadership is remote from, and does not answer to/for, the losses.
5000 deaths a week is 250k annualised. Even taking into account the staggering sounded to killed ratio which Russia seems to be hitting, there is a question of how much man power he periphery can provide.
There was a BBC article on this the other day - using openly available evidence of where casualties were from, it was clear that the war is being fuelled, in Russia, by the outlying regions. Not the heartlands or Moscow.
Nominally there are several million Russian men of military age. But if the draft is being selective, like this, only a fraction are available.
If the sampling was accurate, some areas have already lost a big chunk of their men of military age.
Hello! Most of the overseas posters on here seem to come from Russia so that makes a nice change! We’ve just lost one who regularly posted from Thailand so it’s good to see you!
Gracias. You’d be surprised how popular this site is in provincial Argentina
You're all just leon around, hanging on our every post ?
The next Labour government needs to abolish the prospect of another Tory government by introducing PR. Solved.
A look at some of the governments which PR has produced, Israel most recently, shows that you might get very much worse than what you hoped to stop.
Israel is the exception for unique reasons of its own. Look at the governments elected using FPTP. US, UK, India. Hardly beacons of democracy.
Minorities need protection (except the Tory Party natch ) PR does that by requiring a broad church to form a government.
Given that PR Germany has both communists and fascists in its parliament and also had GazProm Schroeder and GDR Merkel in charge for 24 years would that be a 'beacon of democracy' ?
Our politicians might be crap but at least we can get rid of them on occasions.
Communists and Fascists (and Greens) should have a voice in parliament if there is sufficient electoral support for them. The point of democracy is to avoid violent political change. Denying minorities their voice risks violence.
Its the old debate about whether broad church political parties are better than a splintered party system.
Whether you want the coalitions to be within parties or between them.
Yes. The benefit of the coalitions being between parties is that the coalition will represent a majority. The coalition within parties result in minority rule under FPTP.
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
An example of that negotiation being the LibDems, having promised up and down England that they would never support an increase in university tuition fees, agreeing to immediately increase university fees when in government.
We've all seen politicians lie and governments break promises but the LibDems did more damage to the case for PR with their betrayal of students than any learned advocate of FPTP could do.
Didn’t do a lot for previously committed and enthusiastic voters, either! At least for some of us!
Speaking as a very long time reader who has never felt compelled to post: substantially contributed to the decline in quality of the discussion on this forum. By no means the only one, but the sheer volume of depressing holiday snaps, self-soothing bragging and labouriously performative outrage (Starmer frustrating democracy/Lineker tax avoidance etc.) means he has largely succeeded in embodying the political maxim of the age in "flooding the zone with sh*t".
I implore thoughtful contributors of all stripes here to discuss politics and/or betting to simply ignore from now on.
Speaking as a very long time reader who has never felt compelled to post: substantially contributed to the decline in quality of the discussion on this forum. By no means the only one, but the sheer volume of depressing holiday snaps, self-soothing bragging and labouriously performative outrage (Starmer frustrating democracy/Lineker tax avoidance etc.) means he has largely succeeded in embodying the political maxim of the age in "flooding the zone with sh*t".
I implore thoughtful contributors of all stripes here to discuss politics and/or betting to simply ignore from now on.
Speaking as a very long time reader who has never felt compelled to post: substantially contributed to the decline in quality of the discussion on this forum. By no means the only one, but the sheer volume of depressing holiday snaps, self-soothing bragging and labouriously performative outrage (Starmer frustrating democracy/Lineker tax avoidance etc.) means he has largely succeeded in embodying the political maxim of the age in "flooding the zone with sh*t".
I implore thoughtful contributors of all stripes here to discuss politics and/or betting to simply ignore from now on.
Comments
The SNP got just 4% share of the vote and yet got 48 seats.
Can you justify that? Referencing how FPTP works (majority in a constituency) doesn't justify it. It undermines it. Look at the outcome.
I'm not relying on the Nazis for my case. They might have got power quicker under FPTP.
The one where the EU pays the Libyan Coastguard to intercept refugee boats, and locks the refugees up in detention centres in Libya. And sells their involuntary labour.
So we grant the Libyan Coastguard some kind of fishing rights in the Channel. We get 25% of the money the immigrants labour is sold for in Libya, the French get 25%.
After costs deducted, our chunk of the money is used to pay reparations for slavery.
What’s not to like?
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/taxpayers-given-more-time-for-voluntary-national-insurance-contributions
I don't think this is remotely the biggest problem of bias facing the BBC. Explicit or implicit self censorship on reporting that might embarrass the government is a much bigger issue
Edit: Not least because the number of constituencies in which they stood is proportional to the success of their total percentage of the vote.
Mildly alarming ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/BillAckman/status/1634564398919368704
The gov’t has about 48 hours to fix a-soon-to-be-irreversible mistake. By allowing
@SVB_Financial to fail without protecting all depositors, the world has woken up to what an uninsured deposit is — an unsecured illiquid claim on a failed bank. Absent @jpmorgan
@citi or @BankofAmerica acquiring SVB before the open on Monday, a prospect I believe to be unlikely, or the gov’t guaranteeing all of SVB’s deposits, the giant sucking sound you will hear will be the withdrawal of substantially all uninsured deposits from all but the ‘systemically important banks’ (SIBs). These funds will be transferred to the SIBs, US Treasury (UST) money market funds and short-term UST. There is already pressure to transfer cash to short-term UST and UST money market accounts due to the substantially higher yields available on risk-free UST vs. bank deposits. These withdrawals will drain liquidity from community, regional and other banks and begin the destruction of these important institutions...
Some people argue that under a coalition you don't know what you're voting for. You do. Your own party, who then negotiates to share power.
So far as I know, the government has not called for him to be sacked.
The Green Party is evenly spread.
If a party gets say 25% of the vote in every constituency because of its geographically spread popularity, it will likely get zero seats under FPTP. That is manifestly wrong and indefensible.
On Thursday it was all done and dusted.
On Friday they announced Lineker was stepping back.
Who spoke to whom inbetween?
Holocaust survivors pen open letter to Suella Braverman over 'dangerous' migrant remarks
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/holocaust-survivors-pen-open-letter-28404047
So that leaves us with the commonly known actions - starvation in the ghettoes and gas chambers in the concentration camps - as a comparison with the government's proposed measures.
Which is plainly ridiculous.
Now its certainly possible to have rational criticism of the government but a rational criticism leads to the question "so what do you propose instead ?" which is difficult to answer.
Far easier to spout Hitler comparisons.
Brex IT!!
Essentially, it's relatively easy as an authoritarian government to limit births, but quite another challenge to make a generation of only children want to have a large family with the various costs that entails now that it's permitted again.
Can Russia really keep up with that level of loss?
Western influence looks pretty weak in comparison.
I can sense that you are not persuadable so I'll end it there.
We've all seen politicians lie and governments break promises but the LibDems did more damage to the case for PR with their betrayal of students than any learned advocate of FPTP could do.
If, however, you have been raised as an only child, and so have your parents, you don't have any positive memories of sibling or cousin relationships. Meanwhile the immediate prospect of extra costs and sleepless nights is still there. That is the problem the Chinese have created for themselves. And it is the problem we will be facing in the West very soon. We are sleepwalking our way to cultural extinction.
I don't think the LIbDems will join a coalition again for at least a generation. It will provide Confidence and Supply - as the DUP did successfully with the Tories - and hold the major party to account.
Many people point to WW1 or WW2 for the ability to turn entire generations into cannon fodder - as Russia and others did. My suspicion is that it's much harder to do in a modern economy, where there are many more highly-trained specialisations required to keep an economy going.
I do wonder that if Russia continues to throw meat into the grinder for a long period, whether their economy will be hurt by the lack of skilled people?
Lies are most common when the people telling the lie have a vested interest in so doing and when the people hearing the lie want to believe that the lie is the truth.
Mao decreed that efforts to multiply grain yields and bring industry to the countryside should be increased. Local officials were fearful of Anti-Rightist Campaigns and they competed to fulfill or over-fulfill quotas which were based on Mao's exaggerated claims, collecting non-existent "surpluses" and leaving farmers to starve to death. Higher officials did not dare to report the economic disaster which was being caused by these policies, and national officials, blaming bad weather for the decline in food output, took little or no action. Millions of people died in China during the Great Leap, with estimates ranging from 15 to 55 million, making the Great Chinese Famine the largest or second-largest famine in human history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
"that would be an ecumenical matter..."
Have you ever heard of Gary Lineker?
Clegg could easily have blocked it and proclaimed himself a hero who had kept his promise and protected students.
I can only imagine that Clegg secretly supported the tuition fee increase and his campaign against them was fake all along.
There's clearly an economic challenge associated with low fertility rates as you ultimately have a problem with a low working population and high retired population.
I think your insinuation (and this may be unfair) is that the "cultural extinction" arises from the fact that the obvious answer to that is immigration. But that unstated assumption is that immigration inevitably destroys rather than enrichs the culture. I just don't think that's true - cultures change over time whether or not there is immigration, and I tend to think reasonably well managed immigration helps that happen in a healthier way than by letting the culture turn in on itself.
1. They keep stuffing codgers' mouths with gold at everyone else's expense (i.e. the pension triple lock stays)
2. They fail to drive a metaphorical bulldozer straight over the Nimbies and commit to building an absolute fuckton of houses
There are some other helpful things that Labour could do to begin to shore up our tottering economy and society, notably on childcare, but these are the major indicators. We need to stop forever prioritising the welfare of the elderly over that of the young, and that means making pensioner handouts less generous and forcing stroppy, mostly elderly, Nimbies and Bananas to put up with more houses, even if it means the price of their own pile of bricks doesn't keep shooting up faster than earnings for the rest of time.
Personally I'm steeling myself for a complete load of diversionary wankery about state owned wind turbines, devolution, and empty rhetoric about slightly higher taxes for multi-millionaires, that leaves all the major problems wholly untouched.
I've no faith in any of the politicians. They're all fucking useless.
Problem was - we were all shafted by Cameron.
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Leon's ban day.
NEW THREAD
There was a BBC article on this the other day - using openly available evidence of where casualties were from, it was clear that the war is being fuelled, in Russia, by the outlying regions. Not the heartlands or Moscow.
Nominally there are several million Russian men of military age. But if the draft is being selective, like this, only a fraction are available.
If the sampling was accurate, some areas have already lost a big chunk of their men of military age.