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The SPD Surge – Who will succeed Merkel in Germany? – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,162
edited August 2021 in General
imageThe SPD Surge – Who will succeed Merkel in Germany? – politicalbetting.com

The last decade and a half of German politics have been the story of one person. Angela Merkel, leader of the CDU/CSU Union, has been as dominant as any figure can be in a PR system. A very narrow victory in 2005 has been followed by comfortable wins in 2009, 2013 (where she came just 5 seats short of a majority!), and 2017. But after 16 years in office she is handing over before new elections on 26 September, and the transition is not going smoothly.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    Test
  • swing_voterswing_voter Posts: 1,464
    Second like the Greens
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    edited August 2021
    2nd!
    3rd!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385
    @malcolmg will be delighted to hear the Union is likely to come second due to the poor quality of its leadership. It confirms all he’s been saying for years.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385
    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042
    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
  • But what about the SDP?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    Isn't the motto of the FDP - "whoever you vote for, we'll decide who wins."
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042
    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    Isn't the motto of the FDP - "whoever you vote for, we'll decide who wins."
    Presumably it sounds better in German.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385
    Quincel said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
    It will need to be about a five hundred grand coalition on these figures.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,078
    If the SPD does win, it is an open question as to what kind of coalition they would lead. It may be Red/Green, or it could also be a "traffic light" with the FPD. These would both be quite a departure, but Red/Green would be more redical and less predictable than a traffic light coalition. If the CDU are indeed below 30% then it is hard to see that the Jamaica coalition (Black CDU, Gold FDP and Greens) is viable.

    So in any event the exit of the CDU from the government would be a real shift and open up some real questions for the EU and NATO. After all former SPD leader Schroder, as chairman of Nordstream, has been a major advocate of a deal with Putin. If the SPD follows Schroder´s advice then France under Macron will be utterly horrified and there could be major EU ructions and some serious noise from the Eastern EU members too.

    After the Kabul fiasco this could really mean that NATO is on its last legs... I sense very dangerous times ahead.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited August 2021
    The Union made a big mistake choosing the hapless Laschet over the much more popular CSU leader Markus Soder as their Chancellor candidate, mainly because the CDU Laschet was much closer to Merkel. So if the SPD do beat the Union for the first time since 2002, Merkel and her allies will be as much to blame as Laschet. The Union will then dump Merkelism and Laschet most likely and move right in opposition.

    However I still think the Union will scrape home despite losses and win most seats. We will then likely continue the current grand coalition between the Union and SPD with Laschet as Chancellor and Scholz as Vice-Chancellor. Either the Greens or FDP will then continue as the Union and SPD's coalition partners.

    If the SPD win most seats then an SPD, Green and FDP coalition would be more likely instead with Scholz as Chancellor.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454

    But what about the SDP?

    I expect Betway will try that one with me.

    "I'm afraid, Mr WhiteRabbit, that you backed the SDP. You'll find that the winner in Germany was in fact the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands. In fact it's not even the same "D" as in the UK version".
  • Mike. I get that you have to post a test comment to check things are working - but you could spice things up with a thought for the day, or some comment claiming this thread for yourself and your rightful heirs and successors. “Test” seems a missed opportunity 😀
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    tlg86 said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    Isn't the motto of the FDP - "whoever you vote for, we'll decide who wins."
    As would be the LDs if we had PR like Germany
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042
    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,485
    Quincel said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
    Handwave/handwaving is a phrase I have only ever witnessed on PB. I have never heard a single person use it IRL in all my born days.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    ydoethur said:

    @malcolmg will be delighted to hear the Union is likely to come second due to the poor quality of its leadership. It confirms all he’s been saying for years.

    There are plenty of Thatcherites and neoThatcherites on PB who will get a frisson from that too - for very different reasons.
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042

    Quincel said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
    Handwave/handwaving is a phrase I have only ever witnessed on PB. I have never heard a single person use it IRL in all my born days.
    Interesting. I got it from TVTropes and some Facebook friends who use it.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    Quincel said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
    Handwave/handwaving is a phrase I have only ever witnessed on PB. I have never heard a single person use it IRL in all my born days.
    Heard it in academic discussions. Usually a sign of a very unimpressed listener.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    edited August 2021
    Doesn't a lot depend on whether Die Linke hit the 5% threshold? If they do, then it's hard to see how two of the big three can govern without the FDP. But if they don't, then it's just possible that two of the three could form a working government.

    EDIT: Though the effect of Die Linke missing out won't be as big as the FDP missing out in 2013. Back then, the AfD just missed out too. That's why Merkel almost got a majority.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042
    edited August 2021

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited August 2021
    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    @malcolmg will be delighted to hear the Union is likely to come second due to the poor quality of its leadership. It confirms all he’s been saying for years.

    There are plenty of Thatcherites and neoThatcherites on PB who will get a frisson from that too - for very different reasons.
    Merkel's Union is the last major centre right party not to engage with or have a leader from the populist right at the moment of the big economies of Europe and the Anglosphere.

    That has hit it electorally in Germany, Soder would have been more willing to make populist noises on immigration for instance than Laschet and also been more fiscally conservative than Laschet. Hence the Union has leaked votes to the AfD and FDP but equally Laschet would be more able to do a deal with the SPD and Greens than Soder
    '
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042
    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited August 2021

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    @malcolmg will be delighted to hear the Union is likely to come second due to the poor quality of its leadership. It confirms all he’s been saying for years.

    There are plenty of Thatcherites and neoThatcherites on PB who will get a frisson from that too - for very different reasons.
    Merkel's Union is the last major centre right party not to engage with or have a leader from the populist right at the moment of the big economies of Europe and the Anglosphere.

    That has hit it electorally in Germany, Soder would have been more willing to make populist noises on immigration for instance than Laschet and also been more fiscally conservative than Laschet. Hence the Union has leaked votes to the AfD and FDP but equally Laschet would be more able to do a deal with the SPD and Greens than Soder
    '
    Fair enough: but I was thinking of the labour type of Union.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,149
    Carnyx said:

    Quincel said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
    Handwave/handwaving is a phrase I have only ever witnessed on PB. I have never heard a single person use it IRL in all my born days.
    Heard it in academic discussions. Usually a sign of a very unimpressed listener.
    IRL I tend to say "flapping" rather than handwaving for the activity of what I regard as irrelevant or minor things being put into a conversation as important.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Quincel said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
    Handwave/handwaving is a phrase I have only ever witnessed on PB. I have never heard a single person use it IRL in all my born days.
    Heard it in academic discussions. Usually a sign of a very unimpressed listener.
    IRL I tend to say "flapping" rather than handwaving for the activity of what I regard as irrelevant or minor things being put into a conversation as important.
    Quite right: that is different from simply waving hands instead of making an integral part of the logical sequence of an argument. (Though, to me, it evokes images of greyhounds! - the local unlicensed tracks being called flapping tracks.)

    Squirrel-hunting (sensu PB) is possibly next door to flapping ...

  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    edited August 2021
    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.

    But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).

    Then consider I am limited by PP but not by Betfair Sportsbook, who offer the same odds as part of the same group of companies.

    Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.

  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,149
    Carnyx said:

    MattW said:

    Carnyx said:

    Quincel said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
    Handwave/handwaving is a phrase I have only ever witnessed on PB. I have never heard a single person use it IRL in all my born days.
    Heard it in academic discussions. Usually a sign of a very unimpressed listener.
    IRL I tend to say "flapping" rather than handwaving for the activity of what I regard as irrelevant or minor things being put into a conversation as important.
    Quite right: that is different from simply waving hands instead of making an integral part of the logical sequence of an argument. (Though, to me, it evokes images of greyhounds! - the local unlicensed tracks being called flapping tracks.)

    Squirrel-hunting (sensu PB) is possibly next door to flapping ...

    Of course finding agreement on which are the minor things is the rub...
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.

    But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).

    Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
    Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:

    1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and
    2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    Nigelb said:


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
    I am not a pure social conservative like Peter Hitchens, who certainly does prefer the 1950s.

    I am socially conservative on some things like grammar schools and abortion, more liberal on homosexuality and on capital punishment would only consider it for serial killers.

    However for pure social conservatives the 1950s was certainly the ideal decade
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.

    But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).

    Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
    Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:

    1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and
    2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
    I am not sure a discussion on political betting could every be off topic!

    1. I overwhelmingly use bookmakers when I can catch them napping, which I am not sure is in the spirit of the enterprise either.

    2. If they were forced to pay out money to people like me, they would need to make more money from the whales.

    3. Betfair Ex or Smarkets is available.

    I think the number of bookies is a cancer, which I would address directly. The £2 maximum stake was the best thing to have happened in the market, but all these planned closures didn't happen, did they?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431
    Nigelb said:


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
    One would think I'd have more sense than to argue with him, wouldn't one!
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    Another large number of deaths in the ONS weekly death stats:

    Five-year average (2015-2019): 9,102
    COVID deaths: 571
    Non-COVID deaths: 9,801
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not as indeed if you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then
    You may recall that I was a pharmacist, back in the day; I was supplying other forms of contraception and occasionally advising on Family Planning before the pill became available, and, without wishing to nit-pick, it was in fact available on private prescription, for several years before 1967.

    The laws were what they were, but what I am saying, having been a teenager in the 50's and having teenage (and older) grandchildren now, that, as I said before there's a lot wrong today, but young people are by no means as shafted by the system as they were then. Their life opportunities are much greater.
    So it was still not readily available to non married women in the 1950s
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not as indeed if you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then
    You may recall that I was a pharmacist, back in the day; I was supplying other forms of contraception and occasionally advising on Family Planning before the pill became available, and, without wishing to nit-pick, it was in fact available on private prescription, for several years before 1967.

    The laws were what they were, but what I am saying, having been a teenager in the 50's and having teenage (and older) grandchildren now, that, as I said before there's a lot wrong today, but young people are by no means as shafted by the system as they were then. Their life opportunities are much greater.
    Of course, it was so much easier to commit suicide if you fell foul of the social conservatives: maybe pregnant and unmarried, or gay, or ... ? All those lovely town gas ovens.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,319
    ydoethur said:

    @malcolmg will be delighted to hear the Union is likely to come second due to the poor quality of its leadership. It confirms all he’s been saying for years.

    It would only be 2nd in a two horse race.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    tlg86 said:

    Another large number of deaths in the ONS weekly death stats:

    Five-year average (2015-2019): 9,102
    COVID deaths: 571
    Non-COVID deaths: 9,801

    Interestingly, look what Sky News are focussing on:

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-england-and-wales-record-highest-total-of-weekly-coronavirus-related-deaths-since-march-12389319

    The highest total of weekly coronavirus-related deaths have been recorded in England and Wales since March, latest figures show.

    There were 571 deaths registered in the week ending on 13 August, according to the Office for National Statistics - an increase of 8% on the previous week.


    I wonder if any of the mainstream press will pick up on the increase in non-COVID deaths in recent weeks?
  • HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
    I am not a pure social conservative like Peter Hitchens, who certainly does prefer the 1950s.

    I am socially conservative on some things like grammar schools and abortion, more liberal on homosexuality and on capital punishment would only consider it for serial killers.

    However for pure social conservatives the 1950s was certainly the ideal decade
    Did you actually live in the 1950s like @OldKingCole and myself
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,319
    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    ydoethur said:

    On topic, and more seriously, if I read German polls aright the next question is less, how badly is Laschet going to do, than, ‘how the fuck do we get a government from that result?’

    *Handwave Handwave* Grand Coalition of some kind *Handwave Handwave*
    Handwave/handwaving is a phrase I have only ever witnessed on PB. I have never heard a single person use it IRL in all my born days.
    Interesting. I got it from TVTropes and some Facebook friends who use it.
    I would associate it with one showing either one or two fingers to someone or else making up and down jerky movements with it to show one's view on the topic
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
    I am not a pure social conservative like Peter Hitchens, who certainly does prefer the 1950s.

    I am socially conservative on some things like grammar schools and abortion, more liberal on homosexuality and on capital punishment would only consider it for serial killers.

    However for pure social conservatives the 1950s was certainly the ideal decade
    You have a point, but I was thinking more of your ability to be certain about something you haven't experienced, while lecturing those who have.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    edited August 2021
    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    They shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate based on customer data, in the same way they couldn’t when we had to walk in to a shop with cash in hand.

    If they’re willing to lay £20 bets on a certain market, for a given price, then anyone should be able to take the bet.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,034
    edited August 2021

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Absolutely and I well remember ration books

    @HYUFD sets himself up as an expert on near every subject and while he does have merits, the one abiding flaw is that he can never accept he is wrong

    We are all wrong at times in our lives and it is quite cathartic to hold up your hands and say I am sorry, I was wrong
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
    I am not a pure social conservative like Peter Hitchens, who certainly does prefer the 1950s.

    I am socially conservative on some things like grammar schools and abortion, more liberal on homosexuality and on capital punishment would only consider it for serial killers.

    However for pure social conservatives the 1950s was certainly the ideal decade
    I am not a social conservative, very much a socially liberal conservative (note small c now that Johnson's populists have taken over). I think judicial murder is abhorrent and have a distaste for a lot of the "values" held by social conservatives. However I think it is an interesting subject, and HYUFD is right to raise it as a subject of interest.

    I don't know whether any polls have been done on the subject, but I suspect that if people who voted leave were questioned as to whether they thought Britain was better in the 1950s or now, a large proportion, if not a majority would say 1950s. Social conservatism (some might call it prejudice) is still alive and kicking. Particularly in Afghanistan regrettably.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Random fact of the morning ... the Empire Windrush was used to transport the Glosters to the Korean War.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Cicero said:

    If the SPD does win, it is an open question as to what kind of coalition they would lead. It may be Red/Green, or it could also be a "traffic light" with the FPD. These would both be quite a departure, but Red/Green would be more redical and less predictable than a traffic light coalition. If the CDU are indeed below 30% then it is hard to see that the Jamaica coalition (Black CDU, Gold FDP and Greens) is viable.

    So in any event the exit of the CDU from the government would be a real shift and open up some real questions for the EU and NATO. After all former SPD leader Schroder, as chairman of Nordstream, has been a major advocate of a deal with Putin. If the SPD follows Schroder´s advice then France under Macron will be utterly horrified and there could be major EU ructions and some serious noise from the Eastern EU members too.

    After the Kabul fiasco this could really mean that NATO is on its last legs... I sense very dangerous times ahead.

    It is. It is totally dead. The Kabul airlift is probably its last act. It is now a completely hopeless operation, having lost all resolve. Its use is limited to large amounts of military hardware which it can use as a sort of bargaining chip whilst fleeing from adversaries.

    The EU as a whole needs to decide between whether to align itself with the UK, and Putin. And for various reasons, I think it will end up coming to the view that the latter is the better decision. I think this, because the paradigm shift that has emerged with all the woke stuff has never gone very far in the EU: they will ultimately make a bargain with Putin in the same way that it did historically with NATO; it is just a pragmatic question of self interest.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Your issue is you try to distil everything to black and white extremes.

    You can believe in tougher law and order, want grammar schools, prefer the traditional family etc without longing for a day when people are executed for crimes they didn't commit; without longing for a day when women and minorities were treated as second class citizens or worse; without longing for a day when families were essentially forced to have unwanted children because of an absence of birth control.

    Very few of today's social conservatives in modern Britain will be 1950s style social conservatives. Just as very few of today's social conservatives in modern Britain would approve of the Taliban's social conservativism.

    People have moved on and know better now. The battles between conservatives and liberals on social issues today are not the same as they were in the 50s or the 8th century or whatever other zealots like to look back to.
  • matthiasfromhamburgmatthiasfromhamburg Posts: 957
    edited August 2021
    tlg86 said:

    Doesn't a lot depend on whether Die Linke hit the 5% threshold? If they do, then it's hard to see how two of the big three can govern without the FDP. But if they don't, then it's just possible that two of the three could form a working government.

    EDIT: Though the effect of Die Linke missing out won't be as big as the FDP missing out in 2013. Back then, the AfD just missed out too. That's why Merkel almost got a majority.

    The Linke will probably be in the Bundestag anyway. The 5% rule has an exception. When a party can win at least 3 direct mandates (per FPTP on constituency level) they get the proportionate number of seats to their <5% national vote share, anyway.
    An example for that was the GE 1994. They won 4 seats directly and therefor received 40 seats for their 4.4% national vote share. They are still strong enough in the East for that to happen this time.

    Generally, it should be noted that the number of seats is not really fixed. The minimum number of seats is 598.
    If a party wins more direct mandates than their national vote share warrants, they keep their direct mandates as "excess seats", the other parties then receive additional "levelling seats" to rebalance the numbers.
    The numbers of additional seats used to be in the low double digits, but has steadily increased. In 2017 there were already 111. Due to progressing general fragmentation and increasing regional imbalances that number is projected to increase further.






  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    25 minute John Oliver piece on Afghanistan - lots of old quotes from today’s players, and equal-opportunity bashing of four Presidents, all of whom have contributed to the mess-up that’s gone on this past week.

    (With liberal amounts of NSFW language, as is usual for Oliver)
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=dykZyuWci3g
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.

    But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).

    Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
    Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:

    1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and
    2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
    A fair balance is bookies must offer everyone the opportunity to win a "reasonable" amount per market. Perhaps 3 tiers (set by the Gambling Commission) along the lines of:

    Football match odds, UK racing, Top level cricket, golf or tennis = £1,000
    Dogs, Football minor markets, Rugby, Ice Hockey etc, Overseas Racing = £500
    Specials and Other Sports Minor Markets = £100 or £200
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
    The UK is not America. Americans use liberal as a synonym for big state socialists too.

    They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,957
    edited August 2021
    Nigelb said:

    Random fact of the morning ... the Empire Windrush was used to transport the Glosters to the Korean War.

    For no apparent reason (were we discussing the Falklands yesterday) I read Dennis Scott-Masson's obituary. He was captain of the Canberra during that time and his exploits over the period were really interesting.

    Edit: https://www.peterghore.co.uk/obituaries/captainscottdjmasson
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
    Sorry, got to disagree with you here. A social conservative wants restrictions on things they see as immoral - drugs, abortion, sex outside marriage, interracial relationships, geographic racial mixing - not just for themselves, but for everyone. So a social conservative _can't_ be a libertarian. Of course, they might call themselves a libertarian, but they aren't. Even in the US, right-wing Libertarians are separated from the Republicans by their views on liberalising drug laws and non-hetero relationships.
    I also have quite a few LGBT friends along the Pacific US coast who definitely define themselves as Libertarian.
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.

    But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).

    Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
    Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:

    1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and
    2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
    A fair balance is bookies must offer everyone the opportunity to win a "reasonable" amount per market. Perhaps 3 tiers (set by the Gambling Commission) along the lines of:

    Football match odds, UK racing, Top level cricket, golf or tennis = £1,000
    Dogs, Football minor markets, Rugby, Ice Hockey etc, Overseas Racing = £500
    Specials and Other Sports Minor Markets = £100 or £200
    I agree. I fully get that bookies might want some protection, but completely locking out certain punters just seems to me the very antithesis of what the industry claim to, and should, offer. I just don't think bookies should be allowed to offer a 'Heads we win, Tails you lose' prospect.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited August 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
    I don't think that necessarily follows, there is a Libertarian Party in the US which got 3% of the vote in 2016.

    Plenty of its supporters are socially liberal and would even legalise drugs, even if they are also fiscally conservative and they were opposed to Trump's building the wall with Mexico etc
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,715

    Another good one from Quincel. I follow German politics fairly closely and agree with his assessments. The current polling is here:

    https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/

    One area not touched on is post-election coalitions. The background is that the anti-immigrant AfD are not yet seen as "salonfaehig" (literally: the sort of people you'd be happy to have in your living room), i.e. ready for government. For obvious historical reasons, Germany is particularly allergic to far-right governance. The Left Party has had the same problem as the heirs to the GDR Communists, but the allergy there is weakening as the GDR generation retires and the current generation is simply Corbynite (though ironically the ex-GDR people were less radical and more into serious government than some of the far left). The other players are the Greens, who are seriously environmental but otherwise quite centrist, and the FDP, pro-business liberals. A problem is that the Greens are sceptical about big business, making a partnership with the FDP difficult. Also, Germany doesn't do minority governments as a rule.

    The conceivable possibilities are:

    1. CDU+SPD, perhaps + FDP. Polling 45ish%, with FDP on 12. The grand coalition continues. Very much an establishment choice, with dull centrism the order of the day. Dull centrism always has a definite appeal in Germany, but it would completely ignore the Green surge of the last couple of years, as well as rewarding the loser if the CDU slump continues and Laschet was Chancellor. I doubt if the CDU would want to serve under Scholz, not because they dislike him but they're just not used to playing second fiddle.

    2. CDU+Greens. Respects the Green surge while maintaining continuity. Looked a plausible contender till recently, but polling now puts the combination at a weak 40-45%.

    3. SPD+Greens+Left. The centre-left option, polling at 45-49%. Tilts the balance away from the centre and would be seen as quite a radical departure. Only a serious option if they improve over 50%.

    4. CFU+SPD+Greens. All the big parties in bed together. Huge majority, north of 60%, but awkward after a spirited election bashing each other, and good news for the smaller parties to pose as "the only alternative".

    5. SPD+Greens+FDP. A difficult marriage, but the balance of opposites could have a certain appeal if the CDU has really crashed and burned.

    My guess is 1 or 4. The CDU's resilience shouldn't be underestimated and it's too early to count them out. But apart from 4, all the options are very finely balanced.

    Quite a collapse in Green % since I posted this header in May, predicting a possible Baerbock win:

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/05/13/annalena-baerbock-to-succeed-merkel/
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    I don't understand why the UK are asking the US to extend the evacuation?

    It seems entirely up to the Taliban?

    If the US leave, but the Taliban let us continue that works fine.
    Whereas if the US are convinced to stay, but the Taliban block access to the airport there is not much point holding the airport for longer?

    Surely we should be asking the Taliban and the likes of Pakistan for help influencing them rather than the US here?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,788
    Mr. Above, the 70s were best. Vespasian and Titus were great emperors.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,647
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
    I am not a pure social conservative like Peter Hitchens, who certainly does prefer the 1950s.

    I am socially conservative on some things like grammar schools and abortion, more liberal on homosexuality and on capital punishment would only consider it for serial killers.

    However for pure social conservatives the 1950s was certainly the ideal decade
    Only if you are a social conservative along the lines of a British Taliban!

    Who wants homosexuality illegal and women fired for getting married?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Your issue is you try to distil everything to black and white extremes.

    You can believe in tougher law and order, want grammar schools, prefer the traditional family etc without longing for a day when people are executed for crimes they didn't commit; without longing for a day when women and minorities were treated as second class citizens or worse; without longing for a day when families were essentially forced to have unwanted children because of an absence of birth control.

    Very few of today's social conservatives in modern Britain will be 1950s style social conservatives. Just as very few of today's social conservatives in modern Britain would approve of the Taliban's social conservativism.

    People have moved on and know better now. The battles between conservatives and liberals on social issues today are not the same as they were in the 50s or the 8th century or whatever other zealots like to look back to.
    Social conservatives opposed to abortion or gay marriage however would very much prefer the 1950s when neither were legal
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
    The UK is not America. Americans use liberal as a synonym for big state socialists too.

    They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
    Sadly I don't have the time to debate at the moment, but I politely suggest that you seem a little confused (and it is your prerogative) over whether you are a liberal conservative or a libertarian. Based on the views you just expressed with respect to social conservatism, I would suggest that if you hold these views you are largely liberal-conservative.
  • tlg86 said:

    Doesn't a lot depend on whether Die Linke hit the 5% threshold? If they do, then it's hard to see how two of the big three can govern without the FDP. But if they don't, then it's just possible that two of the three could form a working government.

    EDIT: Though the effect of Die Linke missing out won't be as big as the FDP missing out in 2013. Back then, the AfD just missed out too. That's why Merkel almost got a majority.

    The Linke will probably be in the Bundestag anyway. The 5% rule has an exception. When a party can win at least 3 direct mandates (per FPTP on constituency level) they get the proportionate number of seats to their
    For betting purposes it should also be considered that the changes in polling numbers over the last 3 months are much more a reflection of (potential) mobilisation, i.e. changes from don't know/won't vote to votes for parties.
    Much less changes of voting intentions from one party to another. As often, mobilisation will be a, if not the, key factor.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited August 2021
    Foxy said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
    I am not a pure social conservative like Peter Hitchens, who certainly does prefer the 1950s.

    I am socially conservative on some things like grammar schools and abortion, more liberal on homosexuality and on capital punishment would only consider it for serial killers.

    However for pure social conservatives the 1950s was certainly the ideal decade
    Only if you are a social conservative along the lines of a British Taliban!

    Who wants homosexuality illegal and women fired for getting married?
    52% of British Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal according to 1 ICM poll
    https://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/11/europe/britain-muslims-survey/index.html
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    So,

    -McDonald’s runs out of milk shakes
    -Nando’s runs out of chicken
    -Food, drink exports EU down £2bn first quarter
    -90k lorry driver vacancies
    -Poultry processing 7k vacancies
    -Food rotting in fields

    ‘Britain will prosper mightily after Brexit’ - Boris Johnson


    https://twitter.com/paul__johnson/status/1430117106712993795
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 14,310

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
    The UK is not America. Americans use liberal as a synonym for big state socialists too.

    They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
    Sadly I don't have the time to debate at the moment, but I politely suggest that you seem a little confused (and it is your prerogative) over whether you are a liberal conservative or a libertarian. Based on the views you just expressed with respect to social conservatism, I would suggest that if you hold these views you are largely liberal-conservative.
    ..one last thought Philip, I seem to remember you have very strong views on fox hunting and gun ownership. If you were a libertarian you would say you disagreed, but it was up to the individual to decide, not government.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    darkage said:



    The EU as a whole needs to decide between whether to align itself with the UK, and Putin. And for various reasons, I think it will end up coming to the view that the latter is the better decision. I think this, because the paradigm shift that has emerged with all the woke stuff has never gone very far in the EU: they will ultimately make a bargain with Putin in the same way that it did historically with NATO; it is just a pragmatic question of self interest.

    From a pragmatic perspective a Paris-Berlin-Moscow power axis makes a lot of sense. It would be much more an alliance of equals than NATO and provide a credible counterweight to China.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    Test
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    But just remember how the BAME people were treated in the 1950s by social conservatives of the time.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    @matthiasfromhamburg - thank you for your reply (vanilla won't let me quote you for some reason)

    I did wonder about the FPTP seats, but I only went back to 2002 when I saw that their predecessors won two FPTP seats but then didn't get given their PR seats. Now I know why.

    So I guess the question is, will Die Linke get three FPTP seats? They got five last time out - one by a very small margin in Leipzig - but the other four in Berlin look fairly solid, though only because of a very split opposition. I wonder if the resurgence of the SPD may be a threat to Die Linke in a couple of those?

    And on the overhang seats, I think it's a mad system, but they I guess there aren't concerns about costs.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431
    It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service.
    Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
    The UK is not America. Americans use liberal as a synonym for big state socialists too.

    They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
    Sadly I don't have the time to debate at the moment, but I politely suggest that you seem a little confused (and it is your prerogative) over whether you are a liberal conservative or a libertarian. Based on the views you just expressed with respect to social conservatism, I would suggest that if you hold these views you are largely liberal-conservative.
    No HYUFD is right that I am not a conservative.

    I do not consider myself conservative whatsoever apart from the capital-C variant of supporting the Conservative Party. If as in Australia the right-wing party were called the Liberals, then I would quite happily call myself a liberal or Liberal without equivocation.

    Right liberal, liberal Conservative (as opposed to liberal-conservative) or libertarian all work as terms for someone who is socially liberal and economically right wing.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 54,585
    tlg86 said:

    Test

    England v India, Headingly, starts tomorrow.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,149

    Another good one from Quincel. I follow German politics fairly closely and agree with his assessments. The current polling is here:

    https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/

    One area not touched on is post-election coalitions. The background is that the anti-immigrant AfD are not yet seen as "salonfaehig" (literally: the sort of people you'd be happy to have in your living room), i.e. ready for government. For obvious historical reasons, Germany is particularly allergic to far-right governance. The Left Party has had the same problem as the heirs to the GDR Communists, but the allergy there is weakening as the GDR generation retires and the current generation is simply Corbynite (though ironically the ex-GDR people were less radical and more into serious government than some of the far left). The other players are the Greens, who are seriously environmental but otherwise quite centrist, and the FDP, pro-business liberals. A problem is that the Greens are sceptical about big business, making a partnership with the FDP difficult. Also, Germany doesn't do minority governments as a rule.

    The conceivable possibilities are:

    1. CDU+SPD, perhaps + FDP. Polling 45ish%, with FDP on 12. The grand coalition continues. Very much an establishment choice, with dull centrism the order of the day. Dull centrism always has a definite appeal in Germany, but it would completely ignore the Green surge of the last couple of years, as well as rewarding the loser if the CDU slump continues and Laschet was Chancellor. I doubt if the CDU would want to serve under Scholz, not because they dislike him but they're just not used to playing second fiddle.

    2. CDU+Greens. Respects the Green surge while maintaining continuity. Looked a plausible contender till recently, but polling now puts the combination at a weak 40-45%.

    3. SPD+Greens+Left. The centre-left option, polling at 45-49%. Tilts the balance away from the centre and would be seen as quite a radical departure. Only a serious option if they improve over 50%.

    4. CFU+SPD+Greens. All the big parties in bed together. Huge majority, north of 60%, but awkward after a spirited election bashing each other, and good news for the smaller parties to pose as "the only alternative".

    5. SPD+Greens+FDP. A difficult marriage, but the balance of opposites could have a certain appeal if the CDU has really crashed and burned.

    My guess is 1 or 4. The CDU's resilience shouldn't be underestimated and it's too early to count them out. But apart from 4, all the options are very finely balanced.

    But will "dull centrism" meet the need of the time?
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,793

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not as indeed if you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then
    You may recall that I was a pharmacist, back in the day; I was supplying other forms of contraception and occasionally advising on Family Planning before the pill became available, and, without wishing to nit-pick, it was in fact available on private prescription, for several years before 1967.

    The laws were what they were, but what I am saying, having been a teenager in the 50's and having teenage (and older) grandchildren now, that, as I said before there's a lot wrong today, but young people are by no means as shafted by the system as they were then. Their life opportunities are much greater.
    It's not unusual to pine for a more certain past. In reunited Germany, it's called Ostalgie. In 1980s Spain, rightists claimed "life was better under Franco" and some liberals said "life was better against Franco". The same dynamic crops up in the Mail, Express and Telegraph here and now.

    And some of that is sincere- it can be nicer to live in a stable community where everyone knows your name. It's just that comes with costs, which are often unacknowledged and which people often don't want to pay if they're made explicit. Take Higher Education- it might be better if people can get decent non-graduate jobs that let them stay in Hometwown and not have to move away... but very few parents and grandparents would be happy if it was their child who was denied a place at university. Same with grammar schools- very popular right up to the second that it's your child who gets sent to a secondary modern.

    But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.

    And some of what we're seeing is pining for 1950's / early 1960's society as a fetish for something else. Most of us look back fondly on the decade where we were young adults- irrespective of what wider society was like, for us it was a time of excitement and new possibilities. And a gentle (or not-so-gentle) push against the crusties in the generation above. Not only do we want that time back, anything that deviates from that time is potentially perverted and wrong.

    Basically, Douglas Adam's Law of Technology applies to social norms as well;

    1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
    2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
    3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
    And we look back fondly on the past with the certainty - denied to us of the present - of knowing that it all turned out pretty much ok in the end.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not and the 1950s were your ideal decade. Of course we had more grammar schools then too.

    If you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then and the 1960s or 1970s were more your preferred decade
    Thank goodness that 1950s style "social conservativism" is dead and buried.

    Treating women as second class citizens, imprisoning people because of their sexuality, people freely abused because of the colour of their skin, people compelled to have unwanted babies because of an absence of birth control or abortion, and people executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    Think of that nowadays and you'd think of an impoverished third world nation. Not quite the Taliban but not good by any means.

    Good riddance to that and may it never be seen again!
    Yes but you are a libertarian not a social conservative, so that just proves my point.

    Your preferred era was most likely the 1980s or New Labour era.

    There are also plenty of BME social conservatives too (not just the Taliban) who are anti abortion, prefer the traditional family and think there is too much divorce now and want tougher law and order and would prefer more grammar schools as we used to have
    Right wing libertarians are generally also social conservatives. They think government should be very very light touch, giving them the right to have as much prejudice as possible without being held to account by the law. I don't think you would find many LGBT or black people in America calling themselves libertarian. Plenty of people who like dressing up in tall white hats and burning crosses (what is that about ffs?) would describe themselves as such.
    The UK is not America. Americans use liberal as a synonym for big state socialists too.

    They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
    Sadly I don't have the time to debate at the moment, but I politely suggest that you seem a little confused (and it is your prerogative) over whether you are a liberal conservative or a libertarian. Based on the views you just expressed with respect to social conservatism, I would suggest that if you hold these views you are largely liberal-conservative.
    ..one last thought Philip, I seem to remember you have very strong views on fox hunting and gun ownership. If you were a libertarian you would say you disagreed, but it was up to the individual to decide, not government.
    I will refer to what I said to HYUFD earlier: Your issue is you try to distil everything to black and white extremes.

    My views on fox hunting and gun ownership go against my general philosophy that the government shouldn't decide. I am not a perfect or pure libertarian but in general I am, very few people are perfect or pure zealot and uncompromising extremists of whatever they generally believe in.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,431
    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:

    Test

    England v India, Headingly, starts tomorrow.
    In see the inventors of The Hundred have had a massive bonus.
    From the Guardian
    'Senior ECB executives to share £2.1m bonus despite Covid job cuts'
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Dura_Ace said:

    darkage said:



    The EU as a whole needs to decide between whether to align itself with the UK, and Putin. And for various reasons, I think it will end up coming to the view that the latter is the better decision. I think this, because the paradigm shift that has emerged with all the woke stuff has never gone very far in the EU: they will ultimately make a bargain with Putin in the same way that it did historically with NATO; it is just a pragmatic question of self interest.

    From a pragmatic perspective a Paris-Berlin-Moscow power axis makes a lot of sense. It would be much more an alliance of equals than NATO and provide a credible counterweight to China.
    I can't say that I particularly like this idea; but such an axis would ultimately benefit from the UK's involvement too. However, like the beginnings of the EU, it will take many years and anguish before the UK signs up to it.

  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    Cookie said:

    HYUFD said:

    FPT
    HYUFD
    10:03AM edited 10:07AM
    OldKingCole said:
    » show previous quotes
    Well, I was there, and there was a widespread feeling that we'll all be dead soon in a nuclear war.
    Girls who got pregnant were thrown out of school and often their families.
    Homosexuals were imprisoned...... and the police used to hang about places where they were believed to congregate to make some easy arrests.
    People were executed for crimes they didn't commit.

    We were working to make the world better. But then youth often does!
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    For social conservatives who take a traditional line on the family there were fewer unmarried mothers in the 1950s, fewer divorces, homosexuality was only practised behind closed doors and abortion was not legal and contraception was not openly available so sex was largely solely within marriage. Immigration was also more tightly controlled.
    Many support capital punishment today too.

    In Truman and Ike and Attlee and Churchill there were also leaders prepared to stand up for the West.

    For socialists most of the main industries were nationalised, most industries were heavily unionised and there was a higher top rate of tax, so they also preferred the 1950s too.

    The only people who really would have hated the 1950s are liberals and libertarians

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------

    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    The pill was not available on the NHS until 1967.

    The UK had a more socialist economy in the 1950s and more socially conservative laws, that is just fact.

    If you are a liberal you may welcome the changes since then, if you are a social conservative you will not as indeed if you are a socialist you would prefer a pre Thatcher society economically even if you welcome the social liberalism since then
    You may recall that I was a pharmacist, back in the day; I was supplying other forms of contraception and occasionally advising on Family Planning before the pill became available, and, without wishing to nit-pick, it was in fact available on private prescription, for several years before 1967.

    The laws were what they were, but what I am saying, having been a teenager in the 50's and having teenage (and older) grandchildren now, that, as I said before there's a lot wrong today, but young people are by no means as shafted by the system as they were then. Their life opportunities are much greater.
    It's not unusual to pine for a more certain past. In reunited Germany, it's called Ostalgie. In 1980s Spain, rightists claimed "life was better under Franco" and some liberals said "life was better against Franco". The same dynamic crops up in the Mail, Express and Telegraph here and now.

    And some of that is sincere- it can be nicer to live in a stable community where everyone knows your name. It's just that comes with costs, which are often unacknowledged and which people often don't want to pay if they're made explicit. Take Higher Education- it might be better if people can get decent non-graduate jobs that let them stay in Hometwown and not have to move away... but very few parents and grandparents would be happy if it was their child who was denied a place at university. Same with grammar schools- very popular right up to the second that it's your child who gets sent to a secondary modern.

    But some of the nostalgia is the howling of people kicked off their perch. The 1950s were much more interesting if you were white, male and straight. Less so if you were a woman, or your boat was floated in unconventional ways, or you weren't from round these parts.

    And some of what we're seeing is pining for 1950's / early 1960's society as a fetish for something else. Most of us look back fondly on the decade where we were young adults- irrespective of what wider society was like, for us it was a time of excitement and new possibilities. And a gentle (or not-so-gentle) push against the crusties in the generation above. Not only do we want that time back, anything that deviates from that time is potentially perverted and wrong.

    Basically, Douglas Adam's Law of Technology applies to social norms as well;

    1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
    2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
    3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.
    And we look back fondly on the past with the certainty - denied to us of the present - of knowing that it all turned out pretty much ok in the end.
    Surely that is "cheating"? The 1950s could easily have ended up in communist victory or nuclear war?
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,793

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.

    But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).

    Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
    Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:

    1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and
    2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
    A fair balance is bookies must offer everyone the opportunity to win a "reasonable" amount per market. Perhaps 3 tiers (set by the Gambling Commission) along the lines of:

    Football match odds, UK racing, Top level cricket, golf or tennis = £1,000
    Dogs, Football minor markets, Rugby, Ice Hockey etc, Overseas Racing = £500
    Specials and Other Sports Minor Markets = £100 or £200
    In defence of bookies, they are private sector organisations - they don't HAVE to take bets or even accept custom of any sort. Frustrating for individuals punters who are accustomed to winning, but I can't get too aggrieved at it.
    My main gripe is when they decide after accepting a bet that actually they didn't mean to offer those odds and cancel the bet.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,677
    darkage said:



    I can't say that I particularly like this idea; but such an axis would ultimately benefit from the UK's involvement too.

    This theoretical alliance would already have all of the WW2 obsessed hyper-nationalists it could ever need with the Russians.
  • tlg86 said:

    @matthiasfromhamburg - thank you for your reply (vanilla won't let me quote you for some reason)

    I did wonder about the FPTP seats, but I only went back to 2002 when I saw that their predecessors won two FPTP seats but then didn't get given their PR seats. Now I know why.

    So I guess the question is, will Die Linke get three FPTP seats? They got five last time out - one by a very small margin in Leipzig - but the other four in Berlin look fairly solid, though only because of a very split opposition. I wonder if the resurgence of the SPD may be a threat to Die Linke in a couple of those?

    And on the overhang seats, I think it's a mad system, but they I guess there aren't concerns about costs.

    The answer to your question is: probably yes. The polling gains of the SPD are more (temporary) upticks and almost exclusively in the West. The Linke still have their strongholds in the East. It's quite conceivable that they win even more direct seats than last time.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service.
    Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.

    I was actually on the point of doing so - but didn't want to trigger an even worse argument. Too many people ended up whitewashing coal in the depot, or serving in Korea, to satisfy their elders' wishes for a nice socially conservative polity. And it didnt' do the forces much good even then.
  • It's 'interesting' that in the debate over social conservatism or whatever in the 1950's no-one has mentioned that bane of many young men's lives, National Service.
    Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.

    Exactly and I only avoided it by a couple of years
  • QuincelQuincel Posts: 4,042
    Cookie said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.

    But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).

    Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
    Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:

    1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and
    2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
    A fair balance is bookies must offer everyone the opportunity to win a "reasonable" amount per market. Perhaps 3 tiers (set by the Gambling Commission) along the lines of:

    Football match odds, UK racing, Top level cricket, golf or tennis = £1,000
    Dogs, Football minor markets, Rugby, Ice Hockey etc, Overseas Racing = £500
    Specials and Other Sports Minor Markets = £100 or £200
    In defence of bookies, they are private sector organisations - they don't HAVE to take bets or even accept custom of any sort. Frustrating for individuals punters who are accustomed to winning, but I can't get too aggrieved at it.
    My main gripe is when they decide after accepting a bet that actually they didn't mean to offer those odds and cancel the bet.
    Sure, but given they have decided to take bets and accept custom - and advertise to people suggesting you have a chance of winning - it seems rather unfair to ban people with a history of placing good bets.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958
    Nigelb said:


    As I said, I was there. And I was a socialist then. And I, personally, sold contraceptives.
    As I recall, immigration wasn't 'controlled'; people could, and did, come if they wished, and could afford to travel.
    In any debate on capital punishment the question 'how do you make sure you're right every time' usually reduces proponents to a sort of mumbling.

    I repeat I was there; there's a lot wrong today but young people are by no means as sifted as they were then.

    Says much about HYUFD that he's arguing with you on this.
    I’ve heard that in the wee small hours when there’s nobody about, HYUFD argues deductively and repetitively with himself, just for the practice.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,557
    "The Washington elite have turned on Biden. Watch out for the Harris presidency
    The media outlets which sold the wars, and sold Biden’s candidacy too, are now whispering that he’s past it
    DOMINIC GREEN"

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/23/washington-elite-have-turned-biden-watch-harris-presidency/
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,822
    edited August 2021
    Cookie said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Quincel said:

    Brief note: The Unibet odds were correct when this was posted and have shifted to 4/1 in the last few minutes. Just want to stress that the article was correct!

    Was an excellent bet at 8/1, I'm surprised you didn't clear them out.

    I also caught Hills and Betway napping, it seems no bookie is following this properly. Betway hasn't even limited me to £1.22 yet.

    BF Ex was a bit slow a couple of weeks ago but now seems to be on it.
    I was limited to £4 with Unibet, so figured I'd leave it to someone else who could actually take advantage. Totally agree though, this is a very simple case of the bookies being caught napping by fast-changing events.
    PS: I dream of a day when a minimum staking law is passed in the UK. Not holding my breath.
    It's supposed to be some smart way to stem their losses.

    But let's start with the fact that, say PP, limit me to the same stakes on politics (mainly winners) and football or cricket (mainly losers).

    Then consider that when I put £100 with Betway @ 17/1 - probably matching their total stake received to date - their system took the bet down. Makes sense. Then they put it back up at ... 15/1. No human review clearly.
    Wandering off-topic, but I just feel that banning (or essentially banning) winning punters is:

    1. Against the spirit of the enterprise; and
    2. Encourages a business model of farming addicts and blocking sharps rather than trying to develop a healthy ecosystem of punters where sharps are used to improve the odds for the wider market, like Pinnacle does it.
    A fair balance is bookies must offer everyone the opportunity to win a "reasonable" amount per market. Perhaps 3 tiers (set by the Gambling Commission) along the lines of:

    Football match odds, UK racing, Top level cricket, golf or tennis = £1,000
    Dogs, Football minor markets, Rugby, Ice Hockey etc, Overseas Racing = £500
    Specials and Other Sports Minor Markets = £100 or £200
    In defence of bookies, they are private sector organisations - they don't HAVE to take bets or even accept custom of any sort. Frustrating for individuals punters who are accustomed to winning, but I can't get too aggrieved at it.
    My main gripe is when they decide after accepting a bet that actually they didn't mean to offer those odds and cancel the bet.
    They are regulated private companies. Other countries have similar criteria allowing a level guaranteed stakes to all punters including winners as part of gaining a license, the UK could and should do similar.

    There is an interesting court case around this in Spain at the moment:

    https://www.yogonet.com/international/noticias/2021/07/30/58610-spain-courts-rule-against-betfair-and-bet365-for-suspending-accounts-of-customers-on-a-streak
This discussion has been closed.