Fascinating stuff. The point about the Greens and the AfD is very important in my view. Here in the UK we are obsessed by the rise of the far-right to such Channel.
Down in Spain - as in Portugal - it is actually the left which is in the ascendant. The latest opinion polling has PSOE and Podemos combined on close to 50% of the vote, which is 10 points higher than PP and Cs combined. That is a major change over the course of this year. The Catalan separatists, meanwhile, are falling out among themselves. Interesting times.
I found your post on spanish polls really interesting. I thought earlier this year the PSOE was heading down the same route as the socialists in France, but that summer revival is impressive. It shows there can be life in some of the old dogs.
PSOE has regained a lot of support just by being in government. The party is relevant again and so many who had flirted with Podemos and some who had gone over to Cs are basically coming home. PSOE has also been massively helped by the existential crisis that PP now finds itself in - and Cs track to the right.
I think if we ever did get PR in the UK, Spain is the country we would most resemble in terms of party breakdown: a left, a centre left, a centre right and a right party, with nationalists making up most of the rest.
The difference between En Marche and Citizens is En Marche are seen as liberal centre left and therefore still squeeze the French Socialist Party while Citizens are seen as liberal centre right and therefore are less of a threat to the PSOE
Cs sone (PSOE).
PP are not in a good place but a cursory glance at the last 6 or so polls in Spain does not suggest they are quite out of the picture yet. Always dangerous to draw too many conclusions from a single poll.
Look at the trend since the last general election.
Why? We can all pick start dates to suit our personal view. As I said the PP is not in a great place but current polling suggests Spain remains divided fairly evenly between left and right with the added complications of nationalism in certain areas. The very fact that the polls have lurched back and forth so quickly suggests a lot of fluidity. The PSOE/Podemos alliance is very recent and fraught with potential pitfalls. I am very uncertain about the way the country is heading - as are all of the most recent polls.
Fascinating stuff. The point about the Greens and the AfD is very important in my view. Here in the UK we are obsessed by the rise of the far-right to such Channel.
Down in Spain - as in Portugal - it is actually the left which is in the ascendant. The latest opinion polling has PSOE and Podemos combined on close to 50% of the vote, which is 10 points higher than PP and Cs combined. That is a major change over the course of this year. The Catalan separatists, meanwhile, are falling out among themselves. Interesting times.
I found your post on spanish polls really interesting. I thought earlier this year the PSOE was heading down the same route as the socialists in France, but that summer revival is impressive. It shows there can be life in some of the old dogs.
PSOE hright.
I think rest.
The difference between En Marche and Citizens is En Marche are seen as liberal centre left and therefore still squeeze the French Socialist Party while Citizens are seen as liberal centre right and therefore are less of a threat to the PSOE
Cs sone (PSOE).
PP are not in a good place but a cursory glance at the last 6 or so polls in Spain does not suggest they are quite out of the picture yet. Always dangerous to draw too many conclusions from a single poll.
Look at the trend since the last general election.
Why? We can all pick start dates to suit our personal view. As I said the PP is not in a great place but current polling suggests Spain remains divided fairly evenly between left and right with the added complications of nationalism in certain areas. The very fact that the polls have lurched back and forth so quickly suggests a lot of fluidity. The PSOE/Podemos alliance is very recent and fraught with potential pitfalls. I am very uncertain about the way the country is heading - as are all of the most recent polls.
Your link shows one very clear trend over a sustained period.
Nobody is entitled to a platform. But, if a student society wishes to give a platform to a speaker, they should not be prevented from doing so. There is nothing new in this. When I was a student, Conservative politicians were routinely disrupted by left wing activists.
Sure, and to a degree that sums up to conflicts of freedoms; if one group says "we want so and so" and another group says "but so and so is bad", who does institutional power protect?
Say I wanted Varoufakis to speak at an event; he's a lefty of some note. Now say some classical liberal / conservative types decided to stand outside the hall with signs along the lines of "socialists will turn us into Venezuela" and you get 20 odd students protesting. That's fine, I guess. But say a donor to the university, who is a big investor in "capitalist things", says "hey, I don't want this socialist speaking at a uni I donate to, shift him or lose my money". I would suggest one group who dislike the speaker is more likely to effect change than the other.
Similarly, say a group of students want to invite a prominent white nationalist to speak, like the "The Golden One" (white nationalist youtuber). Is it censorship to prevent that? And if it is, is that bad? Because even if by allowing him to speak you're not saying you endorse him, you're allowing him a platform he has no innate right to. Even if a student society is the one to organise the speaker, the university and community as a whole have a responsibility.
Depending on people's sensibilities I cannot recommend enough the videos of Contrapoints, a lefty youtuber has a video on "Does the Left Hate Free Speech". I dunno how people here feel about youtubers (I know it's a medium mostly aimed at younger people), but the discourse can sometimes be interesting, if also frustrating....
I did originally post a link, but it was auto imbedded, and I felt that was a bit over the top....
I see no problem with allowing a white nationalist to address a meeting that wants to hear that speaker. Or allowing a communist to address a meeting that wants to hear that speaker. I don't think it's up to you to determine whether any particular speaker has an "innate right" to a platform.
We're at the start of the May cycle again, she'll look in real danger come mid December once more I think.
The day we finally don't have to see her big stupid grey face on TV any longer is going to be tremendous.
I think the brown stuff will contact the air conditioning when people start to believe that we are definitely heading for no deal. Hard to say when this might happen but mid December is a good guess.
Nobody is entitled to a platform. But, if a student society wishes to give a platform to a speaker, they should not be prevented from doing so. There is nothing new in this. When I was a student, Conservative politicians were routinely disrupted by left wing activists.
Sure, and to a degree that sums up to conflicts of freedoms; if one group says "we want so and so" and another group says "but so and so is bad", who does institutional power protect?
Say I wanted Varoufakis to speak at an event; he's a lefty of some note. Now say some classical liberal / conservative types decided to stand outside the hall with signs along the lines of "socialists will turn us into Venezuela" and you get 20 odd students protesting. That's fine, I guess. But say a donor to the university, who is a big investor in "capitalist things", says "hey, I don't want this socialist speaking at a uni I donate to, shift him or lose my money". I would suggest one group who dislike the speaker is more likely to effect change than the other.
Similarly, say a group of students want to invite a prominent white nationalist to speak, like the "The Golden One" (white nationalist youtuber). Is it censorship to prevent that? And if it is, is that bad? Because even if by allowing him to speak you're not saying you endorse him, you're allowing him a platform he has no innate right to. Even if a student society is the one to organise the speaker, the university and community as a whole have a responsibility.
Depending on people's sensibilities I cannot recommend enough the videos of Contrapoints, a lefty youtuber has a video on "Does the Left Hate Free Speech". I dunno how people here feel about youtubers (I know it's a medium mostly aimed at younger people), but the discourse can sometimes be interesting, if also frustrating....
I did originally post a link, but it was auto imbedded, and I felt that was a bit over the top....
I see no problem with allowing a white nationalist to address a meeting that wants to hear that speaker. Or allowing a communist to address a meeting that wants to hear that speaker. I don't think it's up to you to determine whether any particular speaker has an "innate right" to a platform.
I did the BMG political clan test from the Independent - I'm a Notting Hill Conservative - spot on.
'Global Green' here.
I don't see how this classification system has anything to do with replacing social class as a predictor. If you want to do that then you need to develop a system that can run using only inputs from the data available on the census.
Given the number of questions asked it's not surprising that they could predict my vote more accurately than with social class alone. But you won't get the whole country to answer that quiz.
Also. Re P Green. Not much has been made of the rights of a couple of well-known bearded businessmen not to be falsely accused Online on no basis whatsoever. What about their rights?
The "well-known bearded businessmen" can sue, just as Lord McAlpine did.
It's a long time since I was a student - we were supposed to boycott Barclays because of their links with South Africa (yes, that far back !!).
On a more general, it's less about who is invited but how the meeting is conducted and how those attending choose to comport themselves. I'm up for an argument - a robust exchange of contrasting views is the very definition of political debate - and while there may be little common ground superficially, understanding is often the seed from which the flowers of compromise slowly grow (I'm sounding very poetic for a Friday afternoon).
The problem is those who support the speaker unconditionally aren't interested in hearing the views of those opposed and the reverse is all too often true so there is no debate as such but an adversarial shouting match which entrenches views and all too often descends into rancour and anarchy.
That's the problem with the bear pit - if you can't play with the bears you shouldn't go in - but it's always been like that and public meetings now and those two hundred years ago aren't really that different. The ability to tolerate and respect opposing views waxes and wanes with the zeitgeist - at the moment, we are highly polarised and entrenched and often not that disrespectful but downright offensive to anyone who challenges our views, lifestyles or how we voted in a referendum.
Fascinating stuff. The point about the Greens and the AfD is very important in my view. Here in the UK we are obsessed by the rise of the far-right to such Channel.
Down in Spain - as in Portugal - it is actually the left which is in the ascendant. The latest opinion polling has PSOE and Podemos combined on close to 50% of the vote, which is 10 points higher than PP and Cs combined. That is a major change over the course of this year. The Catalan separatists, meanwhile, are falling out among themselves. Interesting times.
I found your post on spanish polls really interesting. I thought earlier this year the PSOE was heading down the same route as the socialists in France, but that summer revival is impressive. It shows there can be life in some of the old dogs.
PSOE hright.
I think rest.
The difference between En Marche and Citizens is En Marche are seen as liberal centre left and therefore still squeeze the French Socialist Party while Citizens are seen as liberal centre right and therefore are less of a threat to the PSOE
Cs sone (PSOE).
PP are not in a good place but a cursory glance at the last 6 or so polls in Spain does not suggest they are quite out of the picture yet. Always dangerous to draw too many conclusions from a single poll.
Look at the trend since the last general election.
Why? We can all pick start dates to suit our personal view. As I said the PP is not in a great place but current polling suggests Spain remains divided fairly evenly between left and right with the added complications of nationalism in certain areas. The very fact that the polls have lurched back and forth so quickly suggests a lot of fluidity. The PSOE/Podemos alliance is very recent and fraught with potential pitfalls. I am very uncertain about the way the country is heading - as are all of the most recent polls.
Your link shows one very clear trend over a sustained period.
As an aside, I do think Richard N's interpretation and analysis of Angela Merkel's view on opening German borders to admit refugees was erroneous.
It was not done as a compassionate response to an awful human tragedy though it suited Merkel's allies to spin it that way.
The policy was and is wholly about maintaining sustaining and improving the German economy. It suits Germany to be "the safe haven" for refugees and migrants coming to western Europe to work as it provides the fuel of cheap labour for the German economy which it needs to keep growing.
There are political and cultural consequences of such actions (the rise of Alternativ being one) and whether Merkel fully understands or appreciates those remains to be seen but the German economic culture is different from the UK or France and it may be the refugee population is more diffuse and spread across the German cities rather than becoming concentrated in particular town and city areas as we've seen in Britain.
Sure, and to a degree that sums up to conflicts of freedoms; if one group says "we want so and so" and another group says "but so and so is bad", who does institutional power protect?
Say I wanted Varoufakis to speak at an event; he's a lefty of some note. Now say some classical liberal / conservative types decided to stand outside the hall with signs along the lines of "socialists will turn us into Venezuela" and you get 20 odd students protesting. That's fine, I guess. But say a donor to the university, who is a big investor in "capitalist things", says "hey, I don't want this socialist speaking at a uni I donate to, shift him or lose my money". I would suggest one group who dislike the speaker is more likely to effect change than the other.
Similarly, say a group of students want to invite a prominent white nationalist to speak, like the "The Golden One" (white nationalist youtuber). Is it censorship to prevent that? And if it is, is that bad? Because even if by allowing him to speak you're not saying you endorse him, you're allowing him a platform he has no innate right to. Even if a student society is the one to organise the speaker, the university and community as a whole have a responsibility...
I see no problem with allowing a white nationalist to address a meeting that wants to hear that speaker. Or allowing a communist to address a meeting that wants to hear that speaker. I don't think it's up to you to determine whether any particular speaker has an "innate right" to a platform.
As well as messing up the blockquotes, I think you misrepresent 148’s argument a little. The point as I understood it was that no one has an innate right to the particular platform, and it is up to the institution to decide what, if any, limits it might put on who gets the use of it.
Which, with caveats, seems reasonable.
Of course a university putting too many limits on who gets to speak is not a good thing in of itself, but that is a slightly different debate.
Comments
Say I wanted Varoufakis to speak at an event; he's a lefty of some note. Now say some classical liberal / conservative types decided to stand outside the hall with signs along the lines of "socialists will turn us into Venezuela" and you get 20 odd students protesting. That's fine, I guess. But say a donor to the university, who is a big investor in "capitalist things", says "hey, I don't want this socialist speaking at a uni I donate to, shift him or lose my money". I would suggest one group who dislike the speaker is more likely to effect change than the other.
Similarly, say a group of students want to invite a prominent white nationalist to speak, like the "The Golden One" (white nationalist youtuber). Is it censorship to prevent that? And if it is, is that bad? Because even if by allowing him to speak you're not saying you endorse him, you're allowing him a platform he has no innate right to. Even if a student society is the one to organise the speaker, the university and community as a whole have a responsibility.
Depending on people's sensibilities I cannot recommend enough the videos of Contrapoints, a lefty youtuber has a video on "Does the Left Hate Free Speech". I dunno how people here feel about youtubers (I know it's a medium mostly aimed at younger people), but the discourse can sometimes be interesting, if also frustrating....
I did originally post a link, but it was auto imbedded, and I felt that was a bit over the top....
I see no problem with allowing a white nationalist to address a meeting that wants to hear that speaker. Or allowing a communist to address a meeting that wants to hear that speaker. I don't think it's up to you to determine whether any particular speaker has an "innate right" to a platform.
Meanwhile, and interesting 538 piece:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-romney-clinton-districts-are-overrated-obama-trump-districts-are-underrated/
Given the number of questions asked it's not surprising that they could predict my vote more accurately than with social class alone. But you won't get the whole country to answer that quiz.
It's a long time since I was a student - we were supposed to boycott Barclays because of their links with South Africa (yes, that far back !!).
On a more general, it's less about who is invited but how the meeting is conducted and how those attending choose to comport themselves. I'm up for an argument - a robust exchange of contrasting views is the very definition of political debate - and while there may be little common ground superficially, understanding is often the seed from which the flowers of compromise slowly grow (I'm sounding very poetic for a Friday afternoon).
The problem is those who support the speaker unconditionally aren't interested in hearing the views of those opposed and the reverse is all too often true so there is no debate as such but an adversarial shouting match which entrenches views and all too often descends into rancour and anarchy.
That's the problem with the bear pit - if you can't play with the bears you shouldn't go in - but it's always been like that and public meetings now and those two hundred years ago aren't really that different. The ability to tolerate and respect opposing views waxes and wanes with the zeitgeist - at the moment, we are highly polarised and entrenched and often not that disrespectful but downright offensive to anyone who challenges our views, lifestyles or how we voted in a referendum.
NEW THREAD
As an aside, I do think Richard N's interpretation and analysis of Angela Merkel's view on opening German borders to admit refugees was erroneous.
It was not done as a compassionate response to an awful human tragedy though it suited Merkel's allies to spin it that way.
The policy was and is wholly about maintaining sustaining and improving the German economy. It suits Germany to be "the safe haven" for refugees and migrants coming to western Europe to work as it provides the fuel of cheap labour for the German economy which it needs to keep growing.
There are political and cultural consequences of such actions (the rise of Alternativ being one) and whether Merkel fully understands or appreciates those remains to be seen but the German economic culture is different from the UK or France and it may be the refugee population is more diffuse and spread across the German cities rather than becoming concentrated in particular town and city areas as we've seen in Britain.
The point as I understood it was that no one has an innate right to the particular platform, and it is up to the institution to decide what, if any, limits it might put on who gets the use of it.
Which, with caveats, seems reasonable.
Of course a university putting too many limits on who gets to speak is not a good thing in of itself, but that is a slightly different debate.