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The SPD Surge – Who will succeed Merkel in Germany? – politicalbetting.com
The 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.
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2nd!3rd!
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.
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.
"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".
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.
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.
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.
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!
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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
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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.
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
'
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
Squirrel-hunting (sensu PB) is possibly next door to flapping ...
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
Five-year average (2015-2019): 9,102
COVID deaths: 571
Non-COVID deaths: 9,801
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?
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!
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.
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
@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
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.
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.
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.
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.
(With liberal amounts of NSFW language, as is usual for Oliver)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dykZyuWci3g
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
They butcher the English language so let's not use their terminologies here.
Edit: https://www.peterghore.co.uk/obituaries/captainscottdjmasson
I note from a previous thread that this book was referenced.
"Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam"
An interesting idea save for one thing. The West has not been interfering in the Middle East to save women. It has done so for geopolitical reasons or to attack terrorists or to protect Western commercial interests. The treatment of women has been something that people have disliked. Improvement in their treatment has been in some cases a happy by-product but it has never been the casus belli nor the motivating force behind Western intervention.
I also have quite a few LGBT friends along the Pacific US coast who definitely define themselves as Libertarian.
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
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/05/13/annalena-baerbock-to-succeed-merkel/
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?
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.
Who wants homosexuality illegal and women fired for getting married?
Much less changes of voting intentions from one party to another. As often, mobilisation will be a, if not the, key factor.
https://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/11/europe/britain-muslims-survey/index.html
-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
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.
Which many of my friends did, but which I managed to avoid, being still a student when it ended.
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.
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.
From the Guardian
'Senior ECB executives to share £2.1m bonus despite Covid job cuts'
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.
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/
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