Options
Betting opportunities in the German election – politicalbetting.com
Betting opportunities in the German election – politicalbetting.com
A quick guide to the parties may be helpful. As the system is modified PR, you get a greater choice of substantial parties than in Britain.
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
‘Theory: the effect of Remain campaigning over Brexit has been disastrous for the EU and for France especially - helping to confer a vastly inflated sense of their own righteousness and power, and of the UK's wrongness and impotence.’
https://twitter.com/bencobley/status/1439506560779227137?s=21
Apparently the underperformance of the French in the Australian submarine contract was shocking and well known in the industry. They had originally agreed 80% of components were to be Aussie made, then they renegotiated to 60% and it was looking like they were going to have to drop it to 40%. On top of that the French attitude to work was going down very badly with the Australians. Not only did they not appreciate the 35 hour working week, which was strictly obeyed, but the French engineers were also taking all of August off and also regularly turning up to meetings 15 minutes late. According to him, the Aussies pulling out of the contract was known to be only a matter of time.
That the US is now willing to share beyond Britain (RR licenses quite a lot of US technology in its naval reactors), is a generally good thing. It is the US sensibly rewarding allies, rather than (as happened in the Trump era) pushing them away.
That being said, I am slightly sceptical of your stories of Thales - because whenever I've had to deal with global French companies, they've been every bit as professional as global US, UK, Swiss or whoever companies. And that's especially been the case when a project was over-budget and late. Thales wants to make sales to everyone who doesn't want to be dependent on America - so they have a reputation to protect.
Separately, there's another element of this that bears attention. The Taiwanese are currently building their own submarines (The Indigenous Submarine Project or IDS). And they did this, because Donald Trump refused authorisation for submarines or submarine technology to exported there. (A consequence of which is that the IDS is "based on technology from European countries".)
Could we see Biden's America be willing to allow the Taiwanese to directly purchase US submarines? If it did, that would be a major demonstration that the US was willing to stand up to defend Taiwan.
The Catholic adoption centres believed that adoption by gay couples was against their religious beliefs. When they were given no choice they closed and kids who were previously adopted were less well supported with a huge cost to them.
The compromise I pushed at the time was the requirement that if a Catholic service wasn’t willing to provide adoption services to gay couples themselves they had to have a partnership with someone who would. The Catholics were grumpy but ok with it. The activists on the gay rights side weren’t.
The kids lost out.
(FWIW my personal belief is that a stable two person parental unit is key to children’s success in life. The sex of each member of the parental unit is irrelevant)
The issue - IIRC - is that the EU wants powers to block an Australian merger that would cause a monopolistic supplier to the EU. It's one of the same issues the US had with the TPP, where the bigger party demands an unreasonable (but not outrageous) condition.
Uplifting.
It'll probably not matter too much for those who get on reasonably well with their peers, but is it another stick with which to beat the fat girl or the asthmatic boy?
I'm not aware of any work on this, and would be interested to learn of any.
What I have been able to read is a few retrospectives of Merkel's long reign but getting an idea of where Germany is likely to go from here is very difficult. Does anyone know what Scholz's position on future UK relations is going to be? Are the French going to be reined in or given their head? I would guess that the FDP being in the government was probably good for us but it is only a guess. Where are the CDU likely to go next after this lamentable campaign?
Now, their choice is social services or the abortion clinic, it’s heartbreaking.
"We don't need gas storage in the UK. We have the North Sea"
[checks paperwork]
"What do you mean we've burned through it?"
If Germany proceed on their current course the formal winding up of NATO seems a high probability.
Sucky for Ukraine - as cutting the gas off was one of the few holds they had over Russia - but would we have done any different in their place? Germany was looking after German interests - in this case avoiding a situation where they could be blackmailed by someone else.
The SPD has been a lot keener than the CDU on LNG. They have been full throated in their support for the Brunsbüttel LNG import terminal, and this would serve to give Germany another route to import gas, and reduce Russia's leverage.
(Germany having their own LNG import facility has been heavily opposed by Russia, even as the Germans have attempted to assuage their fears, implying they'd use it to bring in gas from Russia's Yamal LNG.)
As far as China goes, Germany probably isn't going to be a great ally of the West. Because she has no strategic interests in the Pacific, and she has massive exports there. Against that, Taiwan is also a massive export market for Germany, and Germany is not dependent on China to cover their current account. I would expect much silence.
I don't expect the SPD to change Merkel's low key increase in Germany's defence budget. They've gone from 1.2% of GDP in '15/'16 to 1.6% today, and I suspect they'll keep slowly ramping it until they get to 2.0%.
My wife and her Ukranian friends are somewhat more concerned, as to where this might all be going.
If China becomes the focus of international foreign policy, as epitomised by Aukus, it’s going to be too easy to take the world’s eyes off Russia. They also don’t need a massive military, to continue sowing discord and political division among the first world nations.
Scholz at 1.3 is interesting. I'm not sure why he'd be longer than SPD most seats. The scenario where SPD are largest party but SPD+Greens+FDP coalition negotiations fail, SPD+Greens+Left also fails and leads to CDU/CSU+Greens+FDP succeeding seems a bit far-fetched.
There could be a scenario where SPD are biggest party but nothing works and there are new elections, but I would have thought a very long shot.
BTW, Bremen is a former West German state where SPD and Greens have gone into coalition with the Left, rather than the FDP. It's also an example of where the largest party (CDU) is NOT in power. I think it's the only current Bundesland where SPD and Greens had a choice of FDP or Left as coalition partner. However, at the federal level the choice is a bit different, FDP would be first choice and then it would depend on coalition negotiations.
Can you blame them for signing up?
Can you blame German politicians and consumers for wanting lower energy bills?
And - from Germany's perspective - it's not that much of a risk once they have expanded the Norwegian pipeline and built the LNG import terminal.
Indeed, I'd suggest it is Russia who is more constrained. Germany will have other suppliers of gas. Russia will have no other customers.
F1: Bottas at 4.5 each way for the win is worth considering. He's had some good performances in Russia in the past, and is coming off a very strong weekend in Italy. And Verstappen has a 3 place grid penalty, with overtaking being difficult, and sometimes the Dutchman can be tardy at the start (harder to handle when you have cars ahead of you as well as behind).
Besides, while I may be an atheist I do have a decent understanding of the Bible and while I can't remember Christ attacking gay couples, I can recall a concept of how we are all sinners and then when it comes to the law Matthew 12:17 surely applies?
The law is the law and that should apply to all equally and not have carved out religious exemptions whether it be for Anglicans, Catholics or Sharia.
Debatable. The capacity to find new homes for children requiring adoption has been diminished. That's not a good thing.
If the law should apply equally in such matters, I look forward to seeing churches and mosques being compelled to marry gay and lesbian couples.
The energy crisis seems to be comfortably overshadowing triumphant dawn of a new Anglospheric power bloc on the news this morning.
Turkey seems back on the agenda. There or the US might be preferable in terms of passing. The flipside is that taking it in Russia effectively nullifies his 3 place grid penalty rather than having that *and* going to the back elsewhere.
If Verstappen does have a new engine then Bottas to be top 2 looks pretty likely.
It was made with him probably being second in mind. Of course, unlikely chaps can win, as we saw last time out.
Not saying I agree with their stance, rather that I understand it.
However, your middle paragraph, Mr T, of course applies
And I 100% agree with him. I suppose it is also a shame that the Fred & Rose West adoption agency never got off the ground - think of all the children who would have been rehomed with them.
The law is the law and we should have equality before the law.
Don't know about Buddhists, Taoists or Hindus.
https://twitter.com/agencytrainer/status/1439845859177472003?s=21
It does look that after 16 years in power leading the government coaition the CDU/CSU will go into opposition as Merkal leaves the scene with the SPD moving from the junior to the senior party in government under Scholz.
Most likely the SPD will then form an alliance in government with the Greens and FDP, which would also be the first time the FDP have been in government with the SPD and not the CDU/CSU since 1982
The consequences, are more abortions and more children growing up in what is euphemistically called ‘care’, including in places like Rotherham.
In the case of the Catholic adoption agencies, not only are there other alternatives but the agencies offer to help couples find the right agency. If it was that Catholic adoption agencies had a monopoly of the market, it might be difficult but they don’t.
Your example of Muslim women and Sharia is not comparable because those action directly impact on the welfare of another human being and this fundamentally contradict a human’s individual rights.
Germany still has US troops based there partly to ward off the Russians whatever deals they have done on the Nord Stream
Adoption agencies that refuse to send children to gay couples do not reduce the number of children going to gay couples because that was not happening before. Their view on homosexuality, which is not one I share, doesn't increase it either. But they do (or did) send children to adoption with straight couples. By closing them down because you refuse to compromise on your scared principles (being rather less tolerant than them who did, at least, reluctantly accept partnering with agencies did engage in adoption by gay couples) all that's happened is that you've reduced the number of children being adopted, and this is not an area overflowing with provision.
What's the practical impact? Whose life is made better?
If your principle leads to the real world becoming objectively worse is it a principle worth holding? It might be. But it should certainly be considered.
I agree entirely it's best of all if everyone would be content to have children adopted by gay people (after all, if a single mother or father can raise a child then having double mothers or double fathers seems obviously better). But that is not reality.
As predicted by yours truly on here, Rhys has come in from best price 7/1 to best price 4/1 and challenging for favourite following the opening show.
My other comments still apply. He def looks the best dancer but almost looks like a semi-pro out of the box. A profile that's good for reaching the final but not to win with the public.
However the problem for the Anglican communion is it is a broad church and while the US Episcopal Church for example has allowed gay marriage, the African Anglican churches certainly would oppose that, indeed gay marriage is not legal in most of Africa.
So at most gay blessings is the limit to what the Church of England will allow in its churches given the Archbishop of Canterbury is spiritual leader of the Anglican communion
Bit more complicated than you think. From Wikipedia Sexuality of Jesus
James I of England may have been relying on a pre-existing tradition when he defended his relationship with the young Duke of Buckingham: "I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had his son John, and I have my George."[9] Frederick the Great wrote to similar effect in his 1748/9 poem Palladium, which includes the lines: "This good Jesus, how do you think/He got John to sleep in his bed?/Can't you see he was his Ganymede?"[10]
Others who have given voice to this interpretation of the relationship between Jesus and John have been the philosophers Denis Diderot and Jeremy Bentham.
Mr. Boy, aye, for a lot of people there's a tension there. It isn't clear cut. But in such a case I'd prefer to do a practical good, even if it's a long way short of perfect.
And there are other religious exemptions in various ways on equality laws (ordination of priests, marriage etc).
On the other hand, the French attitude to keeping work in France has been noted in aerospace. The Germans are (or used to be) the worst offenders in grabbing work share using interesting methods, in Europe, but the French are not far behind.
"The UK has slashed its strategic gas storage to barely 1.7pc of annual demand by closing the Rough facility off the Yorkshire coast, subcontracting the costly task of storage to Germany and the Netherlands."
Telegraph
Sounds like Business Sec could be in real shit here this winter.
Presumably (that part wasn't mentioned) the gas companies that are going bust sold long but bought short in the gas market and hence can't fulfil their obligations.
Why don't they end up at the alternatives that were good enough for gays? Why can't they be good enough for everyone? If Catholic agencies aren't crowding out unbigoted ones then the unbigoted ones should be able to expand to meet the demand.
It has got to do with the fact that the Germans etc are still burning coal like there's no tomorrow while people act like this country has done nothing for 'global warming'.
Incidentally, the Netflix series Sex Education (series 3 just released), while superficially comedy froth with doubtful cultural background (it's around a school in Britain with distinctly American characteristics) is praised by all my young friends as being spot on abput current social attitudes - it subtly introduces all kinds of teenage and adult angst issues, and manages to be funny, touching, unsentimental and verbally explicit without being pornographic.
Sounds like Business Dept over the years has made multiple mistakes and assumptions and the chickens are coming home...
Brexit wont help of course as there will be no solidarity with EU over interconnectors and contracts.
AEP of course, so gloom warning trigger.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/20/the-uk-and-us-are-kindly-letting-us-pay-too-much-to-help-build-fancy-nuclear-submarines?utm_term=dcc7d46faf7c3fbcbe40f1155fcec2c6&utm_campaign=FirstDogOnTheMoon&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=firstdog_email
Actual polling impact for the coming election seems negligible either way, with the Government still set to lose in May::
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_Australian_federal_election
The first boat is now expected to be launched in just two years' time, unusually ahead of schedule. Assuming that's correct, it's hard to see what alternative they could get from the US, who don't even build diesel/electric boats.
*inauspiciously labelled the 'IDS'...
For all of the bluster the UK has been increasingly and heavily reliant on exports for decades. Too much focus on prices and competition and profiteering, not enough on where the energy is coming from and what drives the prices.
So here we are. Reliant on imported gas with fuck all storage, reliant on imported electricity with no membership of the regulated European energy market (and nothing to replace it). A unique to Britain massive price spike in electricity threatening business ruin food shortages and blackouts.
We may avoid it. But why the fuck has Johnson let us slide out here to the edge? Global Britain who can't keep the lights on? Watch him spin our power crisis as some kind of environmental statement for COP26.
The vast majority of other private adoption agencies operating in the UK, are sourcing children from abroad.
Often the worst damage when family breakup occurs is to the kid who loses a role model of their own gender from regular family life.
When you think in global terms you then start thinking that you don't need to produce anything yourself and that everything can be imported.
And its a mentality that set in decades ago - its why the UK has run a trade deficit since 1998.
Plus in the energy sector the added obsession of reducing carbon emissions.
This morning it was put as though "the world turned the lights back on" after the virus.
But would like to see further info.
At the 2019 Australian general election every final poll had Shorten's Labor ahead of Morrison's Coalition on 2PP and they were expected to win, however Morrison led Shorten as preferred PM and it was indeed Morrison who was re elected. On the primary vote the latest Morgan poll also has the LNP coalition on 39.5% to just 35% for Labor even if Labour lead on 2PP
Hopefully the people who care and have passion will take up jobs in agencies that do want to look after young women while paying full respect to everyone equally before the law.
If I was Johnson I would be blaming the 22 years of Labour/Coalition/Remainer governments (none of whom, let's face it had an energy policy). This fiasco has been brewing for years. He'll get away with that, lights or no lights.
"Sturgeon told ‘find new customer’ for independent Scotland's energy as UK would cut ties"
https://tinyurl.com/4k4byk8h
Another granddaughter (15) talks about a 'trans' boy in her class. Not sure what the situation vis a vis toilets and sport is concerned, but he is apparently happily accepted as 'one of the girls'. It's a majority girls school, though; how he'd manage in a more equal (numbers-wise) school I'm not sure. Maybe, of course, his parents sent him there because it was mostly girls.
- @DavidL I don't think relations with Britain have come up at all - most Germans don't spontaneously think about political relations with Britain one way or the other. I'd guess that Scholz will be businesslike a la Merkel with us, and will try to get on with France. He's above all a pragmatist. I agree that the FDP in government would be good news for British trade - the oft-cited but sometimes elusive influence of German car manufacturers really does exist in their case.
- @Sandpit The Greens are very pro-Ukraine for some reason, and hence Russiasceptic, perhaps to distinguish themselves from the Left or because they disapprove of Russian gas imports, or just because they think it's right, not sure. The Left (both the party and some of the SPD) deride them as latter-day cold warriors, which is a snag for an SPD-Green-Left pact, though I expect if it was the only snag they'd get over themselves. Again, I expect Scholz to be coollly pragmatic with both Russia and China.
- @OnlyLivingBoy I might be wrong but I think the CDU will want a spell in opposition if they fall behind the SPD, just to sort themselves out. And the arithmetic doesn't really work. On current polling CDU+FDP=33%. If they allied with the AfD, which they really won't, they'd reach 44%, still not enough. With the Greens they'd hit 48%, just enough, but the Green Party would be in total uproar.
- @Theuniondivvie Yes, I think the AfD are genuinely far right, though not neo-Nazi apart from the odd hothead - more like those post-fascist parties in Italy which are doing well by being polite about the past without explicitly endorsing it, and going big on national identity and anti-immigrant sentiment. There is a market for it in every country but it's quite limited in Germany.
I was trying not to get my own preference into a lead article - I'd love to see an SPD-Green-Left coalition, which would exactly cover my range of personal preferences: pragmatism, environment and a bit of leftie spice to keep them honest. Scholz is as inspiringly left-wing as Starmer, i.e. not very, but I expect he'd be good in troubled times (as would Starmer).
The most the C of E will ever offer is gay blessings but not full marriage
Anecdote alert: in a small town locally there were, some 60 years ago a couple of CofE Home for Unmarried Mothers.
An acquaintance of mine tells of how, as a horrible little 10 or so year old, he and his friends would sit on a wall near the Church and jeer at the poor girls as they were marched into Morning Service each Sunday.