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Meeks and Rentoul argue over Davey’s “No deals with CON” – politicalbetting.com

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  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    HYUFD said:



    dixiedean said:

    PJH said:

    If you are a socially liberal, ex-remain moderate former Conservative voter who wants a competent government, who would you vote for? The current Conservative party is arguably none of these, Labour if anything is less liberal (vaccine passports, anyone?) but under Starmer might at least be competent. I agree with Mr Meeks, Labour and Conservative are currently nearer to each other than the LDs to either. No moderate ex-Conservative will lose much sleep worrying about who Davey ends up putting in Number 10 as either without a majority will be better than either governing alone,

    There are only two viable government parties. If you're considering voting LD, you ain't voting for a government.
    You were in 2010, by voting LD then you deprived Brown Labour of its majority but also prevented Cameron's Tories getting a majority making the LDs kingmaker as to who took office
    Yes. But you didn't know that beforehand. Doubtless many voted LD in 2015 expecting the coalition to continue. They were wrong.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620
    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,099
    edited September 2021
    dixiedean said:

    MattW said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Roger said:

    Foxy said:

    Roger said:

    Are the Australians really going to spend $90 million on submarines? Is their navy that big?

    Australian $ 90 Billion, was the price for the cancelled French contract. The price for the propose nuclear sub deal is yet to be determined, but unlikely to be cheaper.
    Sorry I meant 'billion'. I've just checked and that excludes a large cancellation fee to the French. What a waste of money!
    Over a 50 year project, not an unreasonable sum for a capital ship programme. Nuclear subs are probably the most effective countermeasure to any threatening surface fleet. No way could the RAN hope to compete with any surface fleet

    How sustainable is France's presence in the Pacific?

    I don't think there is any serious threat to French Polynesia, nor New Caledonia or Wallis and Futuna.
    Well you'd be wrong, and not for the first time

    There's a serious risk N Caledonia will vote to leave in December 2021 and even if they don't, the direction of travel is clear

    This is for the good reason that New Caledonia makes a ton of money from mining

    "New Caledonia gets first leader in favour of independence from France ahead of referendum"

    https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210708-new-caledonia-gets-first-leader-in-favour-of-independence-from-france-ahead-of-referendum

    If I were a betting man I'd wager they will be independent within a decade. They don't need much French subsidy, if any

    The rest of the French Pacific does need a lot of subsidy, so is unlikely to secede. The threat to then is Chinese expansionism

    They certainly spend money in these places.

    The just built a 2bn Euro bypass for the Island of Reunion.

    Interesting that the GDP of New Caledonia is $38k pp and Reunion is also high at $26k pp.

    France is only a little higher.


    Why does an island have a bypass? Isn't that the sea?
    It's a coast road :smile: . But 2 billion for 12km, with 5km on stilts, is quite a lot.

    The old one kept getting blocked by landslides, and the landscape is not stable.

    And they love Grands Projets.

    Personally, I quite enjoyed some episodes of the GT.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Is there anything to see French-Revolution wise? Memorials, museums, etc. there? They had a rough time of it in the early 1790s so I assume there must be something to mark that.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    Cyclefree said:

    Anyway, into our 6th hour here.

    Will we beat yesterday's record of 7 hours in A&E? It looks like it.

    We've already beaten Wednesday's record.

    At this rate they'll be giving us a Loyalty Card.

    We have reached that time of the night when the police start turning up with some very unappealing drunkards in tow

    I feel sorry for the staff having to deal with them. Though my sympathy is tempered by wondering why the bloody hell they could not have dealt with Husband properly when he first turned up on the advice of NHS 111.

    Sorry to hear that you are still stuck.

    The 4 hour wait target has completely collapsed in a lot of Emergency Departments, including my Trust. While arbitrary in itself as some things take a while to assess, the number of 4 hour breaches is a fairly reliable indicator of system pressure. The 98% target in the NHS Constitution was relaxed to 95% then abandoned completely in 2019. The latest national figure is running at 76% target met.

    https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/

    24 hour trolley waits in ED are nearly a daily event now at my Trust.

  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Well, my Black Cab driver his evening was Albanian. They exist, people.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,289

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,718
    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem






    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departments_of_France#/media/File:France_départementale.svg

    It is no surprise France is the most visited nation in the world. A global city in Paris, beautiful rural countryside and often quite isolated parts, the glamour and sun and beaches of the South of France, historic chateaux, skiing in winter, excellent food and wine, it has something for everyone
  • sarissasarissa Posts: 1,755
    MattW said:

    Leon said:

    Foxy said:

    Roger said:

    Foxy said:

    Roger said:

    Are the Australians really going to spend $90 million on submarines? Is their navy that big?

    Australian $ 90 Billion, was the price for the cancelled French contract. The price for the propose nuclear sub deal is yet to be determined, but unlikely to be cheaper.
    Sorry I meant 'billion'. I've just checked and that excludes a large cancellation fee to the French. What a waste of money!
    Over a 50 year project, not an unreasonable sum for a capital ship programme. Nuclear subs are probably the most effective countermeasure to any threatening surface fleet. No way could the RAN hope to compete with any surface fleet

    How sustainable is France's presence in the Pacific?

    I don't think there is any serious threat to French Polynesia, nor New Caledonia or Wallis and Futuna.
    Well you'd be wrong, and not for the first time

    There's a serious risk N Caledonia will vote to leave in December 2021 and even if they don't, the direction of travel is clear

    This is for the good reason that New Caledonia makes a ton of money from mining

    "New Caledonia gets first leader in favour of independence from France ahead of referendum"

    https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210708-new-caledonia-gets-first-leader-in-favour-of-independence-from-france-ahead-of-referendum

    If I were a betting man I'd wager they will be independent within a decade. They don't need much French subsidy, if any

    The rest of the French Pacific does need a lot of subsidy, so is unlikely to secede. The threat to then is Chinese expansionism

    They certainly spend money in these places.

    The just built a 2bn Euro bypass for the Island of Reunion.

    Interesting that the GDP of New Caledonia is $38k pp and Reunion is also high at $26k pp.

    France is only a little higher.


    I guess it was the only way to deal with constant rockfalls.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,099
    geoffw said:

    NYT Picture Editor on the ball:


    God with us macaron.

    Does France have a self-justifying National Myth like "Manifest Destiny" or "Ever Closer Union"?
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620
    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Is there anything to see French-Revolution wise? Memorials, museums, etc. there? They had a rough time of it in the early 1790s so I assume there must be something to mark that.
    I was 11 when I visited so don’t recall the museums. I do remember beautiful beaches, and amazing cakes.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    I holidayed there once on a road trip in a friend's 2CV. It was rather fun as mostly a domestic French tourist destination, and quite working class where we stayed. Like a French Blackpool...
  • Aslan said:

    Foxy said:

    kle4 said:

    Just watched Dune (1984) - what a pile of nonsense.

    The new version is supposed to be closer to the book.

    https://youtu.be/n9xhJrPXop4
    I can't wait for the new one. Villeneuve is the greatest filmmaker in the world at the moment. And I have never seen an ensemble cast as good as this one.
    Agree 100%
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 2,722
    MattW said:

    geoffw said:

    NYT Picture Editor on the ball:


    God with us macaron.

    Does France have a self-justifying National Myth like "Manifest Destiny" or "Ever Closer Union"?
    Liberté, égalité, fraternité?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,718
    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:



    dixiedean said:

    PJH said:

    If you are a socially liberal, ex-remain moderate former Conservative voter who wants a competent government, who would you vote for? The current Conservative party is arguably none of these, Labour if anything is less liberal (vaccine passports, anyone?) but under Starmer might at least be competent. I agree with Mr Meeks, Labour and Conservative are currently nearer to each other than the LDs to either. No moderate ex-Conservative will lose much sleep worrying about who Davey ends up putting in Number 10 as either without a majority will be better than either governing alone,

    There are only two viable government parties. If you're considering voting LD, you ain't voting for a government.
    You were in 2010, by voting LD then you deprived Brown Labour of its majority but also prevented Cameron's Tories getting a majority making the LDs kingmaker as to who took office
    Yes. But you didn't know that beforehand. Doubtless many voted LD in 2015 expecting the coalition to continue. They were wrong.
    Yes but sometimes if you vote Conservative or Labour you don't get the government you want either.

    What 2010 proved was a LD vote is not necessarily a wasted vote, sometimes they will form part of the government
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Is there anything to see French-Revolution wise? Memorials, museums, etc. there? They had a rough time of it in the early 1790s so I assume there must be something to mark that.
    I was 11 when I visited so don’t recall the museums. I do remember beautiful beaches, and amazing cakes.
    Oh, sorry, I really didn't take in the fact that you were a child when you visited. Never mind, if you go back and you have become interested in history, try to find the stories. It's a bit gruesome what was done there, but an important moment in the course of the revolution and therefore in the history of the world. But I only know it from books, I don't know what's there on the ground.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,289
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem






    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departments_of_France#/media/File:France_départementale.svg

    It is no surprise France is the most visited nation in the world. A global city in Paris, beautiful rural countryside and often quite isolated parts, the glamour and sun and beaches of the South of France, historic chateaux, skiing in winter, excellent food and wine, it has something for everyone
    "Everyone's favourite country, after their own" was the famous description

    I'm not sure it is true, any more, because it was invented by Englishmen who really hadn't been to many places


    If I had to choose a favourite-country-other-than-my own I would say Italy, Japan, perhaps Thailand, and maybe even Australia, before France

    But France would definitely and easily be in my top ten. A marvellous destination and we are so lucky to have it just 20 miles away. We forget what good fortune it is to have Europe as our backyard
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem






    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departments_of_France#/media/File:France_départementale.svg

    It is no surprise France is the most visited nation in the world. A global city in Paris, beautiful rural countryside and often quite isolated parts, the glamour and sun and beaches of the South of France, historic chateaux, skiing in winter, excellent food and wine, it has something for everyone
    Yes, it really does have it all in what is - in global terms* - a fairly small territory.

    (* I realise it’s the biggest country in Western Europe, but that’s like saying the biggest hill in Cambridgeshire…)
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Loads of lovely beaches. Religious turmoil. Strong Protestant area. Then the Huguenots were expelled, and faithful Catholics brought in to re-populate the area.
    Who later revolted against the revolutionary anti-Clericalism.
    I'm surprised you've missed it. It seems like one of the first few a superbly well travelled person would check off.
  • @_JakubJanda
    If France keep pushing for “European strategic autonomy” as tool how to distance Europe from US, Paris will find out that it lost the remaining pieces of trust of Central and Eastern Europe.

    In this region we depend on US military to defend us from Russia, not the French one.


    https://twitter.com/_JakubJanda/status/1438975456846520322
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620
    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem






    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departments_of_France#/media/File:France_départementale.svg

    The Charentes are well worth a visit. Had a brilliant week there 5 years ago. It was 38c all week other than one hour of a thunderstorm and torrential rain. Beautiful scenery. Aubeterre-sur-Dronne is a gorgeous old town with an ancient church built into the rockface. Spent the week cycling, by the pool and swimming in a local river.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    edited September 2021
    Farooq said:

    PJH said:

    If you are a socially liberal, ex-remain moderate former Conservative voter who wants a competent government, who would you vote for? The current Conservative party is arguably none of these, Labour if anything is less liberal (vaccine passports, anyone?) but under Starmer might at least be competent. I agree with Mr Meeks, Labour and Conservative are currently nearer to each other than the LDs to either. No moderate ex-Conservative will lose much sleep worrying about who Davey ends up putting in Number 10 as either without a majority will be better than either governing alone,

    The act of voting is about choosing what's preferable. Reconcile yourself NOW to the fact that whoever you vote for will have something you don't like in their manifesto. That's just how it is.
    For me competent, serious government is a MUST and that's the Conservatives as they currently are are out of the picture. Doesn't mean my vote is a ringing endorsement of whoever ends up winning it, it's just the best I can do with what's available. I think this is the healthiest attitude.
    Yes, but that is a false choice in FPTP. In around 80% of seats there is a substantial majority for one party or another. Very often the strongest rival is not the other major national party.

    If I lived in a marginal seat then I would consider carefully where to put my cross, but in a safe one then am free to place it in whichever party whose policies I prefer. It doesn't affect the outcome, but may pressure the other parties to take the issues seriously. There are plenty of examples of this, most recently UKIP/BXP.

  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    It was, and the both the revolt itself and its suppression were brutal even by the standards of the time.
  • I do like the Tories ability to wait for the right moment to serve a very cold dish of revenge.

    I think Boris's little black book of scores to settle surpasses Gavin Williamson's.

    Now, where were we on the NI Protocol?


    https://twitter.com/DefenceHQPress/status/1438910959788204037?s=20
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem






    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departments_of_France#/media/File:France_départementale.svg

    It is no surprise France is the most visited nation in the world. A global city in Paris, beautiful rural countryside and often quite isolated parts, the glamour and sun and beaches of the South of France, historic chateaux, skiing in winter, excellent food and wine, it has something for everyone
    "Everyone's favourite country, after their own" was the famous description

    I'm not sure it is true, any more, because it was invented by Englishmen who really hadn't been to many places


    If I had to choose a favourite-country-other-than-my own I would say Italy, Japan, perhaps Thailand, and maybe even Australia, before France

    But France would definitely and easily be in my top ten. A marvellous destination and we are so lucky to have it just 20 miles away. We forget what good fortune it is to have Europe as our backyard
    I haven’t visited any of the APAC nations you cite, so cannot comment.

    Italy vs France is a really tough one. I love both and holiday in both frequently.

    I lean towards France probably because I can speak a bit of the lingo. Could I speak Italian it would be very close indeed.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,289
    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Loads of lovely beaches. Religious turmoil. Strong Protestant area. Then the Huguenots were expelled, and faithful Catholics brought in to re-populate the area.
    Who later revolted against the revolutionary anti-Clericalism.
    I'm surprised you've missed it. It seems like one of the first few a superbly well travelled person would check off.
    I've been to so many places yet - weirdly - there are many overlooked places closer to home. Perhaps BECAUSE I was so keen to see the world as a younger man.

    I've never really explored Brittany, or southern Germany (the Black Forest!), or Normandy, or the Vendee. Much of central Italy is a mystery to me. WTF is the Abruzzo?

    Even in the UK I have never been to: the Yorkshire Dales, the Yorkshire moors, the Scottish Borders, most of Ulster (I have visited and enjoyed Belfast, and that was during the Troubles, as well - quite something).
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,620
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Loads of lovely beaches. Religious turmoil. Strong Protestant area. Then the Huguenots were expelled, and faithful Catholics brought in to re-populate the area.
    Who later revolted against the revolutionary anti-Clericalism.
    I'm surprised you've missed it. It seems like one of the first few a superbly well travelled person would check off.
    I've been to so many places yet - weirdly - there are many overlooked places closer to home. Perhaps BECAUSE I was so keen to see the world as a younger man.

    I've never really explored Brittany, or southern Germany (the Black Forest!), or Normandy, or the Vendee. Much of central Italy is a mystery to me. WTF is the Abruzzo?

    Even in the UK I have never been to: the Yorkshire Dales, the Yorkshire moors, the Scottish Borders, most of Ulster (I have visited and enjoyed Belfast, and that was during the Troubles, as well - quite something).
    Brittany and the Dales are HUGE misses. Both are exceptionally beautiful, and lots of fun.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    edited September 2021
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem






    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Departments_of_France#/media/File:France_départementale.svg

    It is no surprise France is the most visited nation in the world. A global city in Paris, beautiful rural countryside and often quite isolated parts, the glamour and sun and beaches of the South of France, historic chateaux, skiing in winter, excellent food and wine, it has something for everyone
    "Everyone's favourite country, after their own" was the famous description

    I'm not sure it is true, any more, because it was invented by Englishmen who really hadn't been to many places


    If I had to choose a favourite-country-other-than-my own I would say Italy, Japan, perhaps Thailand, and maybe even Australia, before France

    But France would definitely and easily be in my top ten. A marvellous destination and we are so lucky to have it just 20 miles away. We forget what good fortune it is to have Europe as our backyard
    I would agree. But @HYUFD is right too. The thing about France is that there is a holiday there for every taste and personality type.
    Outdoorsy adventure, bone idle, historic, nightlife, epicurean, sun worshipping, hedonistic. Five star luxury, rough camping. Places safe enough to let small kids off the leash a bit. Places which can get lairy. Walking, cycling, driving or train.
    You can spend two weeks never walking the same city street, or eating at the same place, or go the same time barely seeing anyone.
    And if you get fed up with one experience, well another isn't too far away.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Foxy said:

    Farooq said:

    PJH said:

    If you are a socially liberal, ex-remain moderate former Conservative voter who wants a competent government, who would you vote for? The current Conservative party is arguably none of these, Labour if anything is less liberal (vaccine passports, anyone?) but under Starmer might at least be competent. I agree with Mr Meeks, Labour and Conservative are currently nearer to each other than the LDs to either. No moderate ex-Conservative will lose much sleep worrying about who Davey ends up putting in Number 10 as either without a majority will be better than either governing alone,

    The act of voting is about choosing what's preferable. Reconcile yourself NOW to the fact that whoever you vote for will have something you don't like in their manifesto. That's just how it is.
    For me competent, serious government is a MUST and that's the Conservatives as they currently are are out of the picture. Doesn't mean my vote is a ringing endorsement of whoever ends up winning it, it's just the best I can do with what's available. I think this is the healthiest attitude.
    Yes, but that is a false choice in FPTP. In around 80% of seats there is a substantial majority for one party or another. Very often the strongest rival is not the other major national party.

    If I lived in a marginal seat then I would consider carefully where to put my cross, but in a safe one then am free to place it in whichever party whose policies I prefer. It doesn't affect the outcome, but may pressure the other parties to take the issues seriously. There are plenty of examples of this, most recently UKIP/BXP.

    I don't really buy the idea that you should vote for a party that you dislike just to stop one you hate, when there's another party you DO like on the ticket. I mean, I understand it but I can't bring myself to do it. I'll back the stone-cold 1% loser if I think they're best. If tweedledum gets in because I failed to vote for tweeledee, that's on the people who voted for tweedledum not me.

    My constituency is Conservative / SNP, but I'll cheerfully vote for one of the also-rans if that's what feels right.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Loads of lovely beaches. Religious turmoil. Strong Protestant area. Then the Huguenots were expelled, and faithful Catholics brought in to re-populate the area.
    Who later revolted against the revolutionary anti-Clericalism.
    I'm surprised you've missed it. It seems like one of the first few a superbly well travelled person would check off.
    I've been to so many places yet - weirdly - there are many overlooked places closer to home. Perhaps BECAUSE I was so keen to see the world as a younger man.

    I've never really explored Brittany, or southern Germany (the Black Forest!), or Normandy, or the Vendee. Much of central Italy is a mystery to me. WTF is the Abruzzo?

    Even in the UK I have never been to: the Yorkshire Dales, the Yorkshire moors, the Scottish Borders, most of Ulster (I have visited and enjoyed Belfast, and that was during the Troubles, as well - quite something).
    As someone who has spent many Summers in Normandy, I would thoroughly recommend it. Lots of history - Normans (Bayeux Tapestry etc.) and D-Day. Quiet country roads through the wheat fields. Stunning old architecture too - I love Bayeux Cathedral and the streets surrounding it. Amazing sea food at the proper restaurants that the locals go to (One brilliant place did fish soup, steak frites, local dessert and coffee for €12). We had a family home there until a few years ago and I miss it every day.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Orne with the occasional foray into Mayenne was the last French department I visited, about a decade ago Paris with my family & brother's family; as a kid frequent holidays to the Dordogne & Loire Valleys in the caravan.
    It is a wonderful country.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,289

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    It's really not the "loveliest language". It is soft and feminine and lyrical and good for singing yearning love songs, or penning vague wistful modernist poetry. It is rubbish at almost anything else

    This is not jingoism. France is superior to the UK in a number of obvious ways: bigger, grander, better climate, better preserved countryside and cities. Exploring obscure rural France is a delight in a way it isn't in the UK, even though I love the UK.

    But the UK is superior in other ways.

    And the English language is one: it is more virile, flexible, muscular, expressive, poetic, compelling, clever, and emphatic than French. Which is one reason why it conquered.

    Interestingly, James Joyce, ne of the greatest multi-linguists in history. entirely agreed. He cordially detested the British Empire and loathed quite a lot of things about England (as you would expect, from a proud Irish nationalist) but he himself said: English is vastly superior, as a tool of human expression, to French
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,289
    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
  • By the time of the G7 summit in Cornwall in June, the plans were well under way. As the French were occupied with the unfolding so-called “sausage war” over the Brexit divorce deal, Johnson, President Biden and Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister — referred to as “ScoMo” in No 10 — thrashed out the details of a top-secret pact that would later be known as the “Aukus” defence and security alliance.

    “There was a lot of noise at G7 about sausages and the EU and there was a lot of excitement around that, and it seemed odd for us that we were doing serious, serious, business in this meeting,” the government source added.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f8481ac4-17c1-11ec-8982-e4706e2eecb0?shareToken=1b335c267f88cba1427010ce70bbe6ba
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Leon said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    It's really not the "loveliest language". It is soft and feminine and lyrical and good for singing yearning love songs, or penning vague wistful modernist poetry. It is rubbish at almost anything else

    This is not jingoism. France is superior to the UK in a number of obvious ways: bigger, grander, better climate, better preserved countryside and cities. Exploring obscure rural France is a delight in a way it isn't in the UK, even though I love the UK.

    But the UK is superior in other ways.

    And the English language is one: it is more virile, flexible, muscular, expressive, poetic, compelling, clever, and emphatic than French. Which is one reason why it conquered.

    Interestingly, James Joyce, ne of the greatest multi-linguists in history. entirely agreed. He cordially detested the British Empire and loathed quite a lot of things about England (as you would expect, from a proud Irish nationalist) but he himself said: English is vastly superior, as a tool of human expression, to French
    I prefer pink to yellow and JK Rowling back me up on that, so I must be right.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021
    I have no idea why.....

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/17/no-10-accused-of-sidelining-behaviour-experts-on-latest-covid-measures

    Toys out the pram from the usual suspects. I don't know how they have any time to ever do any research given the amount of time they do moaning to the media.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    Yeah, honestly, bits of the FR are not for the faint-hearted. Robespierre's last hours were remarkable, but I'm not going to share the details here.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021
    China pumps $14bn in cash into market amid Evergrande crisis

    https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/9/17/china-pumps-14bn-in-cash-into-market-amid-evergrande-crisis

    If they go down, its going to be shit hit fan stuff. This potentially China's (and given how interconnected the world is, all of us) 2008.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    Leon said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    It's really not the "loveliest language". It is soft and feminine and lyrical and good for singing yearning love songs, or penning vague wistful modernist poetry. It is rubbish at almost anything else

    This is not jingoism. France is superior to the UK in a number of obvious ways: bigger, grander, better climate, better preserved countryside and cities. Exploring obscure rural France is a delight in a way it isn't in the UK, even though I love the UK.

    But the UK is superior in other ways.

    And the English language is one: it is more virile, flexible, muscular, expressive, poetic, compelling, clever, and emphatic than French. Which is one reason why it conquered.

    Interestingly, James Joyce, ne of the greatest multi-linguists in history. entirely agreed. He cordially detested the British Empire and loathed quite a lot of things about England (as you would expect, from a proud Irish nationalist) but he himself said: English is vastly superior, as a tool of human expression, to French
    Though refused Irish nationality, and lived in France for most of his adult life.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021

    By the time of the G7 summit in Cornwall in June, the plans were well under way. As the French were occupied with the unfolding so-called “sausage war” over the Brexit divorce deal, Johnson, President Biden and Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister — referred to as “ScoMo” in No 10 — thrashed out the details of a top-secret pact that would later be known as the “Aukus” defence and security alliance.

    “There was a lot of noise at G7 about sausages and the EU and there was a lot of excitement around that, and it seemed odd for us that we were doing serious, serious, business in this meeting,” the government source added.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f8481ac4-17c1-11ec-8982-e4706e2eecb0?shareToken=1b335c267f88cba1427010ce70bbe6ba

    I remember the media saying nothing got done....Boris totally wasted it. etc etc etc
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    This is a good example of why America is disliked by so many people around the world.

    "The US has admitted that a drone strike in Kabul days before its military pullout killed 10 innocent people. A US Central Command investigation found that an aid worker and nine members of his family, including seven children, died in the 29 August strike. The youngest child, Sumaya, was just two years old. The deadly strike happened days after a terror attack at Kabul airport, amid a frenzied evacuation effort following the Taliban's sudden return to power. It was one of the US military's final acts in Afghanistan, before ending its 20-year operation in the country."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58604655
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,718
    edited September 2021
    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    The French revolution was in some ways even worse than the Russian revolution.

    A monarchy and aristocracy living in spectacular luxury at Versailles and grand country estates while also being completely out of touch with the life of the average peasant and the working class and a Church who owned most land in France all ripe for exploitation by the radicals.

    Here in Britain the Reformation and our rather dull by comparison monarchy saved us from a similar fate and Cromwell in our own milder form of Revolution against absolutism in the 17th century was nowhere near as bloodthirsty as Robespierre, outside of Ireland anyway
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021
    This sums up the problem with the BBC in a nutshell....

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/16171648/bodyguard-starring-richard-madden-confirmed-second-series-bbc/

    We have a hit...awesome....when we making a second season...erhhh...hmmm...I will get back to you.....3 years pass....I think we will make one now, perhaps another year or so.

    6 episodes in the first season, let say the do the same again for second season. 4 years, 12 episodes. Most people will binge that in a weekend.

    Netflix will have 50 episodes of The Crown released well before a second season of this show. Amazon Prime's Bosch, 68 episodes (it will be more because the spin off comes out next year). HBO Tits and Dragons got through 73 episodes in 8 years.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    Andy_JS said:

    This is a good example of why America is disliked by so many people around the world.

    "The US has admitted that a drone strike in Kabul days before its military pullout killed 10 innocent people. A US Central Command investigation found that an aid worker and nine members of his family, including seven children, died in the 29 August strike. The youngest child, Sumaya, was just two years old. The deadly strike happened days after a terror attack at Kabul airport, amid a frenzied evacuation effort following the Taliban's sudden return to power. It was one of the US military's final acts in Afghanistan, before ending its 20-year operation in the country."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58604655

    Yep.
    Something must be done. This is something.
  • It is unavoidable that some in Paris raise tonight the question of the French participation to the NATO military structure. Personally, I have always been quite neutral on this issue. I don’t think it really matters both ways.

    https://twitter.com/gerardaraud/status/1438999739580788738?s=21
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    Leon said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    It's really not the "loveliest language". It is soft and feminine and lyrical and good for singing yearning love songs, or penning vague wistful modernist poetry. It is rubbish at almost anything else

    This is not jingoism. France is superior to the UK in a number of obvious ways: bigger, grander, better climate, better preserved countryside and cities. Exploring obscure rural France is a delight in a way it isn't in the UK, even though I love the UK.

    But the UK is superior in other ways.

    And the English language is one: it is more virile, flexible, muscular, expressive, poetic, compelling, clever, and emphatic than French. Which is one reason why it conquered.

    Interestingly, James Joyce, ne of the greatest multi-linguists in history. entirely agreed. He cordially detested the British Empire and loathed quite a lot of things about England (as you would expect, from a proud Irish nationalist) but he himself said: English is vastly superior, as a tool of human expression, to French
    But Olivier Giroud reading ‘Le Pages Jaune’ would make more women melt than Harry Kane reading one of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    The French revolution was in some ways even worse than the Russian revolution.

    A monarchy and aristocracy living in spectacular luxury at Versailles while being completely out of touch with the life of the average peasant and the working class and a Church who owned most land in France all ripe for exploitation by the radicals.

    Here in Britain the Reformation and our rather dull by comparison monarchy saved us from a similar fate and Cromwell in our own milder form of Revolution against absolutism in the 17th century was nowhere near as bloodthirsty as Robespierre, outside of Ireland anyway
    You don't think the Civil Wars were bloodthirsty?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    isam said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    Leon said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    It's really not the "loveliest language". It is soft and feminine and lyrical and good for singing yearning love songs, or penning vague wistful modernist poetry. It is rubbish at almost anything else

    This is not jingoism. France is superior to the UK in a number of obvious ways: bigger, grander, better climate, better preserved countryside and cities. Exploring obscure rural France is a delight in a way it isn't in the UK, even though I love the UK.

    But the UK is superior in other ways.

    And the English language is one: it is more virile, flexible, muscular, expressive, poetic, compelling, clever, and emphatic than French. Which is one reason why it conquered.

    Interestingly, James Joyce, ne of the greatest multi-linguists in history. entirely agreed. He cordially detested the British Empire and loathed quite a lot of things about England (as you would expect, from a proud Irish nationalist) but he himself said: English is vastly superior, as a tool of human expression, to French
    But Olivier Giroud reading ‘Le Pages Jaune’ would make more women melt than Harry Kane reading one of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
    Harry Kane can read???
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,718
    Andy_JS said:

    This is a good example of why America is disliked by so many people around the world.

    "The US has admitted that a drone strike in Kabul days before its military pullout killed 10 innocent people. A US Central Command investigation found that an aid worker and nine members of his family, including seven children, died in the 29 August strike. The youngest child, Sumaya, was just two years old. The deadly strike happened days after a terror attack at Kabul airport, amid a frenzied evacuation effort following the Taliban's sudden return to power. It was one of the US military's final acts in Afghanistan, before ending its 20-year operation in the country."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58604655

    More the fact they hit the wrong target, not the terrorists who killed US troops, symbolic of the whole haphazard Biden withdrawal
  • Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    Yeah, honestly, bits of the FR are not for the faint-hearted. Robespierre's last hours were remarkable, but I'm not going to share the details here.
    He blew a large part of his jaw off when arrested didn't he? Did it go downhill after that?
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,082
    HYUFD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    This is a good example of why America is disliked by so many people around the world.

    "The US has admitted that a drone strike in Kabul days before its military pullout killed 10 innocent people. A US Central Command investigation found that an aid worker and nine members of his family, including seven children, died in the 29 August strike. The youngest child, Sumaya, was just two years old. The deadly strike happened days after a terror attack at Kabul airport, amid a frenzied evacuation effort following the Taliban's sudden return to power. It was one of the US military's final acts in Afghanistan, before ending its 20-year operation in the country."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58604655

    More the fact they hit the wrong target, not the terrorists who killed US troops, symbolic of the whole haphazard Biden withdrawal
    A general feature of American war-making is the indiscriminate use of excessive force.
  • If The Times story is correct then the French line that “the British were bit-players” is wrong - the UK lifted an Australian request for submarines into a strategic alliance of which submarines are but one part.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    The French revolution was in some ways even worse than the Russian revolution.

    A monarchy and aristocracy living in spectacular luxury at Versailles while being completely out of touch with the life of the average peasant and the working class and a Church who owned most land in France all ripe for exploitation by the radicals.

    Here in Britain the Reformation and our rather dull by comparison monarchy saved us from a similar fate
    All true, but the foment of ideas that created and flowed out of the French Revolution have had an incredible impact on the world, much of it positive. I'm not really sure there's a lot good that came out of the Russian Revolution. The Romanovs were shit, but like the toppling of Saddam, what followed was in some ways worse.
    I still think that the French Revolution was a good inflection point for the world. As long as you weren't actually there because it was really dangerous to be in Paris or the Vendee in those years.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    isam said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    Leon said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    It's really not the "loveliest language". It is soft and feminine and lyrical and good for singing yearning love songs, or penning vague wistful modernist poetry. It is rubbish at almost anything else

    This is not jingoism. France is superior to the UK in a number of obvious ways: bigger, grander, better climate, better preserved countryside and cities. Exploring obscure rural France is a delight in a way it isn't in the UK, even though I love the UK.

    But the UK is superior in other ways.

    And the English language is one: it is more virile, flexible, muscular, expressive, poetic, compelling, clever, and emphatic than French. Which is one reason why it conquered.

    Interestingly, James Joyce, ne of the greatest multi-linguists in history. entirely agreed. He cordially detested the British Empire and loathed quite a lot of things about England (as you would expect, from a proud Irish nationalist) but he himself said: English is vastly superior, as a tool of human expression, to French
    But Olivier Giroud reading ‘Le Pages Jaune’ would make more women melt than Harry Kane reading one of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
    Josephine Karlsson reading a Renault Kangoo owner's manual would do for me.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited September 2021

    This sums up the problem with the BBC in a nutshell....

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/16171648/bodyguard-starring-richard-madden-confirmed-second-series-bbc/

    We have a hit...awesome....when we making a second season...erhhh...hmmm...I will get back to you.....3 years pass....I think we will make one now, perhaps another year or so.

    6 episodes in the first season, let say the do the same again for second season. 4 years, 12 episodes. Most people will binge that in a weekend.

    Netflix will have 50 episodes of The Crown released well before a second season of this show. Amazon Prime's Bosch, 68 episodes (it will be more because the spin off comes out next year). HBO Tits and Dragons got through 73 episodes in 8 years.

    By the time the BBC make 50 episodes of the Bodyguard, Emma Raducanu will have made $1bn, and retired as Britiain's most successful tennis player.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,718
    edited September 2021
    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    The French revolution was in some ways even worse than the Russian revolution.

    A monarchy and aristocracy living in spectacular luxury at Versailles while being completely out of touch with the life of the average peasant and the working class and a Church who owned most land in France all ripe for exploitation by the radicals.

    Here in Britain the Reformation and our rather dull by comparison monarchy saved us from a similar fate and Cromwell in our own milder form of Revolution against absolutism in the 17th century was nowhere near as bloodthirsty as Robespierre, outside of Ireland anyway
    You don't think the Civil Wars were bloodthirsty?
    Only as far as most wars of the period were.

    They did not wipe out the key figures in the royal family, other than Charles 1st and much of the aristocracy as the French revolution did nor did we have mass beheadings on the scale of the guillotines in France for anyone seen as an opponent of the increasingly radical revolutionaries
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    edited September 2021
    People are criticising the French reaction to the deal, but if we'd been excluded by a secret deal between the USA, Australia and France we'd probably be pretty annoyed about it, tbh.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    Yeah, honestly, bits of the FR are not for the faint-hearted. Robespierre's last hours were remarkable, but I'm not going to share the details here.
    He blew a large part of his jaw off when arrested didn't he? Did it go downhill after that?
    Yes, I said I wasn't going to, but he was then thrown in a jail with just a bandage for his shattered face. When he was taken to the guillotine, the bandage was torn off "in case it interfered with the mechanism", meaning his jaw was hanging off when they chopped his head.
    His colleagues fared little better, jumping and falling off things, breaking bones and getting covered in shit hiding in sewers and so on. It was not a fun time.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,289
    edited September 2021
    isam said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    Leon said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    It's really not the "loveliest language". It is soft and feminine and lyrical and good for singing yearning love songs, or penning vague wistful modernist poetry. It is rubbish at almost anything else

    This is not jingoism. France is superior to the UK in a number of obvious ways: bigger, grander, better climate, better preserved countryside and cities. Exploring obscure rural France is a delight in a way it isn't in the UK, even though I love the UK.

    But the UK is superior in other ways.

    And the English language is one: it is more virile, flexible, muscular, expressive, poetic, compelling, clever, and emphatic than French. Which is one reason why it conquered.

    Interestingly, James Joyce, ne of the greatest multi-linguists in history. entirely agreed. He cordially detested the British Empire and loathed quite a lot of things about England (as you would expect, from a proud Irish nationalist) but he himself said: English is vastly superior, as a tool of human expression, to French
    But Olivier Giroud reading ‘Le Pages Jaune’ would make more women melt than Harry Kane reading one of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

    The accents that melt women tend to be different accents of their own language

    American women, flatteringly, love an English accent

    I suspect this is true for most languages - exotic versions of your OWN language are the most seductive

    I love the English spoken in far north Scotland/Orkneys. Sing song and poetic
  • AUKUS without Brexit? Technically, yes, but as an EU member the UK would have been involved in so many overlapping negotiations with France and with so many French ways to screw them back in Brussels, no Prime Minister would have taken a $90bn swipe at their defence industry.

    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1438934732402724866?s=21
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    The French revolution was in some ways even worse than the Russian revolution.

    A monarchy and aristocracy living in spectacular luxury at Versailles while being completely out of touch with the life of the average peasant and the working class and a Church who owned most land in France all ripe for exploitation by the radicals.

    Here in Britain the Reformation and our rather dull by comparison monarchy saved us from a similar fate and Cromwell in our own milder form of Revolution against absolutism in the 17th century was nowhere near as bloodthirsty as Robespierre, outside of Ireland anyway
    You don't think the Civil Wars were bloodthirsty?
    Only as far as most wars of the period were.

    They did not wipe out the key figures in the royal family, other than Charles 1st and much of the aristocracy as the French revolution did nor did we have mass beheadings on the scale of the guillotines in France for anyone seen as an opponent of the increasingly radical revolutionaries
    A slight correction, it wasn't just radical violence in the FR, there was a lot of reactionary violence too. Conservative hoodlums, death squads, the works. Read about the Thermidorian Reaction for more.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286

    Andy_JS said:

    stodge said:

    Germany votes in just nine days.

    The latest IPSOS poll - changes from 2017:

    Social Democrats: 27% (+6)
    Union CDU/CSU: 21% (-12)
    Greens: 18% (+9)
    Alternative for Germany: 11% (-2)
    Free Democrats: 10% (-1)
    Linke: 7% (-2)

    Another very good poll for the SPD - a solid 9% swing from 2017 with the Greens holding up well suggesting the Union could be caught between a Social Democratic rock and a Green hard place.

    There are regional elections being held alongside the federal election. In Mecklenburg, the SPD are polling at 40% with the Union and AfD on 15%. It looks as though the SPD will gain five of the six constituencies from the Union who will be left with their Greifswald stronghold.

    In Berlin, the SPD-Green-Linke regional Government looks set for re-election. The 12 constituencies in the city split Union 4 Linke 4 SPD 3 Green 1 in 2017. Entirely possible the SPD will pick up another two or three seats.

    Does that mean the seat currently held by Angela Merkel will go to the SPD, or is that the Greifswald one.
    Yes, it's the Greifswald one. Stodge is right about the likely Berlin outcome, but curiously, the CDU-SPD swing in Berlin is tiny - just 2%. The FDP have eaten the Pirates (though no doubt it's more complicated than that) but otherwise very little change

    https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/berlin.htm

    The national poll is the first for a while showing SPD/Green/Linke with a solid majority. But the FDP partnership still looks both even more solid and more likely. That said, if I was in the Linke leadership I'd prefer that - being the only party to the left of a government with business-driven FDP Ministers sounds pretty good for the medium term. Being a very junior partner to the SPD would be an existential gamble - might make or break them.



    Is there any possibility of a SPD/Green coalition, unofficially supported by the FDP, without them being a formal part of the government?
  • Just what we need after covid....

    BBC News - Infection known as mad cow disease found on Somerset farm
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-58602051
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    Leon said:

    isam said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    Leon said:

    AlistairM said:

    Leon said:

    The Francophobia on this forum is fucking tiresome. Even in ‘jest’ it’s pathetic. FFS grow up. France, and the French, are lovely.

    Give over

    I love France: magnificent landscapes, generally friendly people, wonderfully rich culture, quite nice food, even their pop music is better than it was

    But mocking the French is a national pastime, and has been for centuries. And I don't just mean on PB - it is everywhere. It's a fierce rivalry between friends (mostly). And it is mutual. The French love it when we trip over and fall in a heap of dung. They've never forgiven us for imposing English over French as the lingua franca

    At the end of it, we would probably fight to defend each other. But the jokes would continue
    I think what riles them is that we didn't impose English. It just happened. And all their desperate attempts to get French to cling on have not just failed but accelerated the switch.
    Which is a bit of a shame, as French is the world’s loveliest language (and I write that as a very proud lover of English).
    It's really not the "loveliest language". It is soft and feminine and lyrical and good for singing yearning love songs, or penning vague wistful modernist poetry. It is rubbish at almost anything else

    This is not jingoism. France is superior to the UK in a number of obvious ways: bigger, grander, better climate, better preserved countryside and cities. Exploring obscure rural France is a delight in a way it isn't in the UK, even though I love the UK.

    But the UK is superior in other ways.

    And the English language is one: it is more virile, flexible, muscular, expressive, poetic, compelling, clever, and emphatic than French. Which is one reason why it conquered.

    Interestingly, James Joyce, ne of the greatest multi-linguists in history. entirely agreed. He cordially detested the British Empire and loathed quite a lot of things about England (as you would expect, from a proud Irish nationalist) but he himself said: English is vastly superior, as a tool of human expression, to French
    But Olivier Giroud reading ‘Le Pages Jaune’ would make more women melt than Harry Kane reading one of Shakespeare’s Sonnets

    The accents that melt women tend to be different accents of their own language

    American women, flatteringly, love an English accent

    I suspect this is true for most languages - exotic versions of your OWN language are the most seductive

    I love the English spoken in far north Scotland/Orkneys. Sing song and poetic
    I just remember Giroud giving a post match interview basically saying no more than he was glad to win the match and progress to the next round, but making it sound like the most beautiful thing by going round the houses in that kind of French version of English
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    The French revolution was in some ways even worse than the Russian revolution.

    A monarchy and aristocracy living in spectacular luxury at Versailles while being completely out of touch with the life of the average peasant and the working class and a Church who owned most land in France all ripe for exploitation by the radicals.

    Here in Britain the Reformation and our rather dull by comparison monarchy saved us from a similar fate and Cromwell in our own milder form of Revolution against absolutism in the 17th century was nowhere near as bloodthirsty as Robespierre, outside of Ireland anyway
    You don't think the Civil Wars were bloodthirsty?
    Only as far as most wars of the period were.

    They did not wipe out the key figures in the royal family, other than Charles 1st and much of the aristocracy as the French revolution did nor did we have mass beheadings on the scale of the guillotines in France for anyone seen as an opponent of the increasingly radical revolutionaries
    Maybe. I often think we underplay (deliberately) the significance of those years though. 4 % of the population of England died. The entire period was so complex, and so lacking in fundamentally good and bad "sides", that we sort of have a national pact not to discuss it. It was a festival of cross-cutting cleavages. And left us a tolerant nation, but with irreconcilable differences, because we never openly speak about it.
    Which side would the current PM have been on?
    And the previous one?
    And wasn't that just a transfer of power between the two "sides"? See also Blair/Brown/Cameron.
    We replace a Roundhead with a Cavalier as an unspoken collective agreement. Thatcher to Major didn't fit. Which led to catastrophic defeat.
  • France has said it is recalling its ambassadors in the US and Australia for consultations, in protest at a security deal which also includes the UK.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58604677
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,265
    Foxy said:

    Farooq said:

    PJH said:

    If you are a socially liberal, ex-remain moderate former Conservative voter who wants a competent government, who would you vote for? The current Conservative party is arguably none of these, Labour if anything is less liberal (vaccine passports, anyone?) but under Starmer might at least be competent. I agree with Mr Meeks, Labour and Conservative are currently nearer to each other than the LDs to either. No moderate ex-Conservative will lose much sleep worrying about who Davey ends up putting in Number 10 as either without a majority will be better than either governing alone,

    The act of voting is about choosing what's preferable. Reconcile yourself NOW to the fact that whoever you vote for will have something you don't like in their manifesto. That's just how it is.
    For me competent, serious government is a MUST and that's the Conservatives as they currently are are out of the picture. Doesn't mean my vote is a ringing endorsement of whoever ends up winning it, it's just the best I can do with what's available. I think this is the healthiest attitude.
    Yes, but that is a false choice in FPTP. In around 80% of seats there is a substantial majority for one party or another. Very often the strongest rival is not the other major national party.

    If I lived in a marginal seat then I would consider carefully where to put my cross, but in a safe one then am free to place it in whichever party whose policies I prefer. It doesn't affect the outcome, but may pressure the other parties to take the issues seriously. There are plenty of examples of this, most recently UKIP/BXP.

    I broadly agree. But it does irritate me when a seat is really safe for party X and distant runner-up Y asks supporters of even more distant Z to back them "because only we can beat X". I live in a seat which is Tory unless there's a cataclysm. In a normal year, people should therefore simply vote for their preferred party to show their preference, but quite a lot of Labour people (including some party members) vote LibDem because they buy into the idea that only the LibDems can win. I'm sure the opposite example exists too.
  • It is hard to overstate the importance of the so-called Aukus alliance between the US, the UK and Australia — and the implicit geopolitical disaster for the EU. The alliance is the culmination of multiple European failures: naivety at the highest level of the EU about US foreign policy; Brussels’s political misjudgements of Joe Biden and his China strategy; compulsive obsession with Donald Trump; and the attempt to corner Theresa May during the Brexit talks. If you treat the UK as a strategic adversary, don’t be surprised when the UK exploits the areas where it enjoys a competitive advantage.

    https://twitter.com/spectator/status/1438811798203940869?s=21
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    The French revolution was in some ways even worse than the Russian revolution.

    A monarchy and aristocracy living in spectacular luxury at Versailles while being completely out of touch with the life of the average peasant and the working class and a Church who owned most land in France all ripe for exploitation by the radicals.

    Here in Britain the Reformation and our rather dull by comparison monarchy saved us from a similar fate and Cromwell in our own milder form of Revolution against absolutism in the 17th century was nowhere near as bloodthirsty as Robespierre, outside of Ireland anyway
    You don't think the Civil Wars were bloodthirsty?
    Only as far as most wars of the period were.

    They did not wipe out the key figures in the royal family, other than Charles 1st and much of the aristocracy as the French revolution did nor did we have mass beheadings on the scale of the guillotines in France for anyone seen as an opponent of the increasingly radical revolutionaries
    Maybe. I often think we underplay (deliberately) the significance of those years though. 4 % of the population of England died. The entire period was so complex, and so lacking in fundamentally good and bad "sides", that we sort of have a national pact not to discuss it. It was a festival of cross-cutting cleavages. And left us a tolerant nation, but with irreconcilable differences, because we never openly speak about it.
    Which side would the current PM have been on?
    And the previous one?
    And wasn't that just a transfer of power between the two "sides"? See also Blair/Brown/Cameron.
    We replace a Roundhead with a Cavalier as an unspoken collective agreement. Thatcher to Major didn't fit. Which led to catastrophic defeat.
    Boris = Prince Rupert of the Rhine
  • France is pointedly ignoring London's role in this and in communiqués not to give credence to any Global Britain narratives. However, given US law, it's actually likely the UK will be the one doing most of the technology transfer. Reminds me of Condi Rice's 2003 "ignore Germany."

    In 2019, Merkel warned UK could be an "economic competitor" on EU's doorstep. In 2020, the EU lent into by denying City of London equivalence and politics of Protocol. However, easy to imagine a different route on both where London decided not to deal France a blow in gratitude.


    https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1438957310240509955?s=21
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,099
    France24's (France's mini-BBC World Service Television) take is interesting:

    "France has ignited an unprecedented diplomatic crisis by recalling its Ambassador.."
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840

    Foxy said:

    Farooq said:

    PJH said:

    If you are a socially liberal, ex-remain moderate former Conservative voter who wants a competent government, who would you vote for? The current Conservative party is arguably none of these, Labour if anything is less liberal (vaccine passports, anyone?) but under Starmer might at least be competent. I agree with Mr Meeks, Labour and Conservative are currently nearer to each other than the LDs to either. No moderate ex-Conservative will lose much sleep worrying about who Davey ends up putting in Number 10 as either without a majority will be better than either governing alone,

    The act of voting is about choosing what's preferable. Reconcile yourself NOW to the fact that whoever you vote for will have something you don't like in their manifesto. That's just how it is.
    For me competent, serious government is a MUST and that's the Conservatives as they currently are are out of the picture. Doesn't mean my vote is a ringing endorsement of whoever ends up winning it, it's just the best I can do with what's available. I think this is the healthiest attitude.
    Yes, but that is a false choice in FPTP. In around 80% of seats there is a substantial majority for one party or another. Very often the strongest rival is not the other major national party.

    If I lived in a marginal seat then I would consider carefully where to put my cross, but in a safe one then am free to place it in whichever party whose policies I prefer. It doesn't affect the outcome, but may pressure the other parties to take the issues seriously. There are plenty of examples of this, most recently UKIP/BXP.

    I broadly agree. But it does irritate me when a seat is really safe for party X and distant runner-up Y asks supporters of even more distant Z to back them "because only we can beat X". I live in a seat which is Tory unless there's a cataclysm. In a normal year, people should therefore simply vote for their preferred party to show their preference, but quite a lot of Labour people (including some party members) vote LibDem because they buy into the idea that only the LibDems can win. I'm sure the opposite example exists too.
    It does here. We have a negligible LD vote. Way below what the demographics would imply. A rural very safe Tory seat, which historically had scattered mining villages voting strongly Labour.We've been Tory since 1885. Apart from one year (1922) when we flirted with Bolshevism by electing a Liberal.
  • MattW said:

    France24's (France's mini-BBC World Service Television) take is interesting:

    "France has ignited an unprecedented diplomatic crisis by recalling its Ambassador.."

    "The toddler has ignited an unprecedented power struggle by throwing itself on the floor of the supermarket and screaming the place down"
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    edited September 2021
    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    A splendid map of all the French departements


    How many have YOU been to? I think I've done the majority.

    But I'd love to go some of the obscure ones I've missed: Manche, Haute Saone, he two Charentes, Vendee, the north Corsican one


    My favourite (that I have visited) is the emptiest of all: Lozere. No one lives there, no one goes there. Indeed many people leave: depopulation is a real problem. It is the ultimate in La France Profonde, and the little "capital" Mende, is a gem




    The Vendee is lovely. One of my earliest holiday memories, a sun-soaked September in the days when parents still busted their children out of school to get cheaper holidays. Blissful.
    Isn't the Vendee the one with all the canals and waterways? It does sound gorgeous

    Also a weirdly royalist area that got absolutely crushed in the Revolution, if my French history is reliable?
    Yes, during the Terror they couldn't work the guillotines fast enough to kill off all the "enemies" of the revolution in that area, and so they loaded people up onto barges and sunk them in the river. The victims were usually hog-tied, sometimes in demeaning poses. For example, stripping a priest and a nun and tying them up in a coital position, and then drowning them.
    Christ. Interesting, but: Christ. Horrible
    The French revolution was in some ways even worse than the Russian revolution.

    A monarchy and aristocracy living in spectacular luxury at Versailles while being completely out of touch with the life of the average peasant and the working class and a Church who owned most land in France all ripe for exploitation by the radicals.

    Here in Britain the Reformation and our rather dull by comparison monarchy saved us from a similar fate and Cromwell in our own milder form of Revolution against absolutism in the 17th century was nowhere near as bloodthirsty as Robespierre, outside of Ireland anyway
    You don't think the Civil Wars were bloodthirsty?
    Only as far as most wars of the period were.

    They did not wipe out the key figures in the royal family, other than Charles 1st and much of the aristocracy as the French revolution did nor did we have mass beheadings on the scale of the guillotines in France for anyone seen as an opponent of the increasingly radical revolutionaries
    Maybe. I often think we underplay (deliberately) the significance of those years though. 4 % of the population of England died. The entire period was so complex, and so lacking in fundamentally good and bad "sides", that we sort of have a national pact not to discuss it. It was a festival of cross-cutting cleavages. And left us a tolerant nation, but with irreconcilable differences, because we never openly speak about it.
    Which side would the current PM have been on?
    And the previous one?
    And wasn't that just a transfer of power between the two "sides"? See also Blair/Brown/Cameron.
    We replace a Roundhead with a Cavalier as an unspoken collective agreement. Thatcher to Major didn't fit. Which led to catastrophic defeat.
    To continue my ramble. 18 years of Roundhead rule, led to Merrie England. Cool Brittania, Britpop, swearing on TV, general air of loucheness. All the more cos it had been so long.
    We have been Cavalier heavy since 1997.
    Betting on next PM?
    Bet on a Roundhead.
  • @John_Hudson
    France didn’t pull its ambassador to London despite the UK’s role in the sub deal, but they're not off the hook: “[Britain] is hiding in the American bosom,” said France’s minister for European affairs. “This is a return to the American fold and a form of accepted vassalization.”


    https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1438966850910629893
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,099
    edited September 2021

    It is unavoidable that some in Paris raise tonight the question of the French participation to the NATO military structure. Personally, I have always been quite neutral on this issue. I don’t think it really matters both ways.

    https://twitter.com/gerardaraud/status/1438999739580788738?s=21

    THAT is why they are not in on this alliance, at least until the DNA is defined.

    Not untrustworthy as such, but capricious and unpredictable.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,099

    MattW said:

    France24's (France's mini-BBC World Service Television) take is interesting:

    "France has ignited an unprecedented diplomatic crisis by recalling its Ambassador.."

    "The toddler has ignited an unprecedented power struggle by throwing itself on the floor of the supermarket and screaming the place down"
    Who said that?
  • MattW said:

    MattW said:

    France24's (France's mini-BBC World Service Television) take is interesting:

    "France has ignited an unprecedented diplomatic crisis by recalling its Ambassador.."

    "The toddler has ignited an unprecedented power struggle by throwing itself on the floor of the supermarket and screaming the place down"
    Who said that?
    I did.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    edited September 2021
    Aslan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    algarkirk said:

    geoffw said:

    On topic. Rentoul's point, that Davey's ruling out formal or informal coalition with the Tories undermines his future negotiating position, should be strengthened by observing that voters will be less likely to switch Con -> LD. It is a foolish move imho.

    Davey's is a trading position in betting terms. He has plenty of time to change his mind and will decide his real position before election time. At the moment all he is saying is 'If you don't want Boris and you live in about 100 posh Tory seats mostly in the south where we will build a million houses everywhere except your constituency vote LD.'

    Worked in C & A. It'll do for now. It will change.
    He has bigger problems than that - https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1438980544860143617?s=21.

    I have voted Lib Dem. Never again if his party's policy is to abolish sex-based rights, which it now seems to be following his interview this morning.
    Just so I understand, would you ever allow transgender people into spaces of their identified gender?
    It is self-ID I have a problem with. Not transition or gender dysphoria - after medical diagnosis. So the answer to your question is yes. I would have no issue with a Jan Morris using a woman's loo. A convicted male rapist and murderer who decides after conviction - without any diagnosis - that he is a "woman": absolutely not.

    But Davey is going further: he is effectively saying that sex-based rights and exemptions, which are lawful under the Equality Act, should no longer exist. That and self-ID are absolute red lines for me.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    @John_Hudson
    France didn’t pull its ambassador to London despite the UK’s role in the sub deal, but they're not off the hook: “[Britain] is hiding in the American bosom,” said France’s minister for European affairs. “This is a return to the American fold and a form of accepted vassalization.”


    https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1438966850910629893

    They are acting like a petulant child.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    Cyclefree said:

    Aslan said:

    Cyclefree said:

    algarkirk said:

    geoffw said:

    On topic. Rentoul's point, that Davey's ruling out formal or informal coalition with the Tories undermines his future negotiating position, should be strengthened by observing that voters will be less likely to switch Con -> LD. It is a foolish move imho.

    Davey's is a trading position in betting terms. He has plenty of time to change his mind and will decide his real position before election time. At the moment all he is saying is 'If you don't want Boris and you live in about 100 posh Tory seats mostly in the south where we will build a million houses everywhere except your constituency vote LD.'

    Worked in C & A. It'll do for now. It will change.
    He has bigger problems than that - https://twitter.com/cyclefree2/status/1438980544860143617?s=21.

    I have voted Lib Dem. Never again if his party's policy is to abolish sex-based rights, which it now seems to be following his interview this morning.
    Just so I understand, would you ever allow transgender people into spaces of their identified gender?
    It is self-ID I have a problem with. Not transition or gender dysphoria - after medical diagnosis. So the answer to your question is yes. I would have no issue with a Jan Morris using a woman's loo. A convicted male rapist and murderer who decides after conviction - without any diagnosis - that he is a "woman": absolutely not.

    But Davey is going further: he is effectively saying that sex-based rights and exemptions, which are lawful under the Equality Act, should no longer exist. That and self-ID are absolute red lines for me.
    That seems reasonable.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,286
    geoffw said:

    On topic. Rentoul's point, that Davey's ruling out formal or informal coalition with the Tories undermines his future negotiating position, should be strengthened by observing that voters will be less likely to switch Con -> LD. It is a foolish move imho.

    Indeed, it makes a LD hold in Chesham and Amersham less likely, for instance.
  • One very clear lesson from this AUKUS business: if a nation seeks help in confronting China, like Australia does, it can go to the US and the UK. Not to France, Germany or the EU. It's as simple as that. Brexit has eroded trade, but not strategic sovereignty

    https://twitter.com/bopanc/status/1438968321530114052?s=21
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    Andy_JS said:

    Andy_JS said:

    stodge said:

    Germany votes in just nine days.

    The latest IPSOS poll - changes from 2017:

    Social Democrats: 27% (+6)
    Union CDU/CSU: 21% (-12)
    Greens: 18% (+9)
    Alternative for Germany: 11% (-2)
    Free Democrats: 10% (-1)
    Linke: 7% (-2)

    Another very good poll for the SPD - a solid 9% swing from 2017 with the Greens holding up well suggesting the Union could be caught between a Social Democratic rock and a Green hard place.

    There are regional elections being held alongside the federal election. In Mecklenburg, the SPD are polling at 40% with the Union and AfD on 15%. It looks as though the SPD will gain five of the six constituencies from the Union who will be left with their Greifswald stronghold.

    In Berlin, the SPD-Green-Linke regional Government looks set for re-election. The 12 constituencies in the city split Union 4 Linke 4 SPD 3 Green 1 in 2017. Entirely possible the SPD will pick up another two or three seats.

    Does that mean the seat currently held by Angela Merkel will go to the SPD, or is that the Greifswald one.
    Yes, it's the Greifswald one. Stodge is right about the likely Berlin outcome, but curiously, the CDU-SPD swing in Berlin is tiny - just 2%. The FDP have eaten the Pirates (though no doubt it's more complicated than that) but otherwise very little change

    https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/berlin.htm

    The national poll is the first for a while showing SPD/Green/Linke with a solid majority. But the FDP partnership still looks both even more solid and more likely. That said, if I was in the Linke leadership I'd prefer that - being the only party to the left of a government with business-driven FDP Ministers sounds pretty good for the medium term. Being a very junior partner to the SPD would be an existential gamble - might make or break them.



    Is there any possibility of a SPD/Green coalition, unofficially supported by the FDP, without them being a formal part of the government?
    No. The FDP are very far from the Greens especially, in policy terms, so will want to extract as much as possible in coalition negotiations. Plus they want the finance ministry.

    And just to correct a couple of points above:
    Nearly all recent polls have shown a majority for SPD+Greens+Left.

    And nobody (at least in Germany) shortens Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to Mecklenburg. It's strictly Meck-Pomm.
This discussion has been closed.