Not The Politics Thread.

[leicsmac]

39 minutes ago, Dunge said:

I think it’s interesting, but not necessarily important - certainly not in the same way Biden/Trump was, or the next presidential election over there. I assume there will be more coverage once the German election has happened, and there’s no doubt Germany is about to step into a new era following its stabilising force of Merkel. Whether it really has that big an effect on us I think is debatable. The EU will go on being the EU, it doesn’t look like either extreme wing has a shot at power, and they’re not so demonstrative as the French generally. It’d be particularly interesting if the Greens got the highest vote percentage, and what that might mean for environmental policy, although even that isn’t nearly as big for environmental policy as Democrats vs Trump, which is a potential disaster waiting to happen.

 

I think it’s a Newsnight-esque talking point rather than something to command a prime spot on the main news right now. Maybe when the result comes in.

 

For now, I’m far more interested in whether or not Keir Starmer gets his proposed leader election changes through, because I think that potentially has much greater bearing on this country’s future.

And that, if anything, is an understatement.

 

That being said, I would also like to see more international coverage on UK news, as Alf says.

[thursday_next]

2 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

It was good to see some decent coverage of the German election on C4 News last night - with more due tonight.

 

The lack of coverage by the BBC has been shocking.

I know that a lot of news/analysis will always rightly focus on domestic events, but despite leaving the EU we're still part of the continent of Europe - and impacted by events and politics there.

 

Germany is the most economically and politically powerful nation in our neighbourhood - and it's about to change its leader and probably its govt, so the lack of news coverage seems shockingly insular.

Merkel has led Germany for 15 years but finishes the day after tomorrow. That matters to us, doesn'it it?

 

It's as yet unclear what govt will emerge from the election - a coalition led by Scholz's SPD (centre-left) with the Greens and Free Democrats (liberal right) seems most likely. Far Right and Far Left both likely to have parliamentary representation.

But at different times, polls have shown Merkel's centre-right Christian Democrats in the lead and the Greens in the lead - and the Greens still lead among younger voters.

 

There was wall-to-wall news coverage of the Biden-Trump election, though coverage of US politics, particularly Congress, still seems shallow. Yet barely a word about a generational shift in German politics? 

Just a few issues where the nature of the German Govt surely affects us: economic policy (as Europe's economic leader); EU-UK relations post-Brexit; climate change (with its recent pro-coal, anti-nuke energy policy & the Greens likely to be in Govt); military alliances around the world, at a time when NATO & other alliances seem in flux....

To be fair to the BBC they had an in-depth look at the election in Germany last night on 'Outside Source'. I think they would have given it more prominence on the main news if the gas price hike hadn't happened  

[CosbehFox]

Another notch on the list here for the government with petrol stations today. 
 

Outcome will be a further two point lead on the polls 

[bovril]

German elections impact us more than US elections, I'd say. Would AUKUS and the (non) trade deal have gone much differently with Trump in charge - I doubt it personally.

[Lionator]

It would be fascinating to see the German Green’s with some sort of power.  And in general to see Germany go back to their version of the left (I’d argue their centre-right is more left wing than ours). Would this be the first time that an environmentally led party would be part of a government of a major country? 

[Alf Bentley]

3 minutes ago, Lionator said:

It would be fascinating to see the German Green’s with some sort of power.  And in general to see Germany go back to their version of the left (I’d argue their centre-right is more left wing than ours). Would this be the first time that an environmentally led party would be part of a government of a major country? 

 

The German Greens were in Govt as the junior partner in Schroeder's SPD coalition for a long while about 15-20 years ago.

But they had less electoral support then than now - although their support in the polls has declined over recent months. They were topping the German polls a couple of months ago.

 

The Green Party is in the governing coalition in Ireland now. I'm sure there are other countries where Greens have been in coalition. DK if they've ever won outright anywhere, but might well happen in the next 10 years, I imagine.

[leicsmac]

10 minutes ago, bovril said:

German elections impact us more than US elections, I'd say. Would AUKUS and the (non) trade deal have gone much differently with Trump in charge - I doubt it personally.

Pardon me for banging the same drum consistently, but the most important issue of all in terms of consequences would have gone very, very differently with Trump in charge, so I think that issue alone makes the US elections more important to the UK (and everywhere else).

[Bellend Sebastian]

Thanks to the petrol crisis I'm getting back on my bike and then probably getting run over by a Tesla.

 

There's a Half Man Half Biscuit song in the making there

[Guest Kopfkino]

3 hours ago, Alf Bentley said:

It was good to see some decent coverage of the German election on C4 News last night - with more due tonight.

 

The lack of coverage by the BBC has been shocking.

I know that a lot of news/analysis will always rightly focus on domestic events, but despite leaving the EU we're still part of the continent of Europe - and impacted by events and politics there.

 

Germany is the most economically and politically powerful nation in our neighbourhood - and it's about to change its leader and probably its govt, so the lack of news coverage seems shockingly insular.

Merkel has led Germany for 15 years but finishes the day after tomorrow. That matters to us, doesn'it it?

 

It's as yet unclear what govt will emerge from the election - a coalition led by Scholz's SPD (centre-left) with the Greens and Free Democrats (liberal right) seems most likely. Far Right and Far Left both likely to have parliamentary representation.

But at different times, polls have shown Merkel's centre-right Christian Democrats in the lead and the Greens in the lead - and the Greens still lead among younger voters.

 

There was wall-to-wall news coverage of the Biden-Trump election, though coverage of US politics, particularly Congress, still seems shallow. Yet barely a word about a generational shift in German politics? 

Just a few issues where the nature of the German Govt surely affects us: economic policy (as Europe's economic leader); EU-UK relations post-Brexit; climate change (with its recent pro-coal, anti-nuke energy policy & the Greens likely to be in Govt); military alliances around the world, at a time when NATO & other alliances seem in flux....

It has always been thus, I can’t remember a time in my life of being interested in politics where it was ‘easy’ to find stories about European politics in the most prominent news sources apart from in the immediate days before and after an election - the more significant the country the more days it gets. Obviously is the US is significant and it helps massively that it’s English speaking (also the reason we fetishise and import whatever social events are going on there) but it’s probably also that European politics isn’t quite the soap opera that the US and to a lesser extent the Uk is. T

 

Having said that, the German election campaign has been pretty uninspiring and lacking that it’s not much of a surprise that it doesn’t generate much coverage, particularly as  The debates have been woeful and the leadership candidates are poor, it’s almost like us being given a choice between IDS, Gordon Brown and Theresa May - you’d rather stab yourself in the eye for 24 hours.

But it will be interesting in that looks likely to create a three-way coalition for the first time but that’s probably not going to be in the best interests of Germany actually doing anything, that’s if it can be formed. In fact, it might serve as a useful reminder that all electoral systems have significant weaknesses

[UpTheLeagueFox]

2 hours ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Another notch on the list here for the government with petrol stations today. 

Outcome will be a further two point lead on the polls 

Most recent polls, Tory leads over Labour since they were tied with Opinium on Sep 11th:

 

7pts (+3) YouGov - Sep 24th

5pts (+1) Survation - Sep 23rd

3pts (+3) Opinium - Sep 18th

4pts (no change) SavantaComeRes - Sep 13th

4pts (-5) RedfieldWilton - Sep 11th

[RoboFox]

Just drove past Sainsbury's. Fvcking queues down the street. Shocking. 

 

[Bellend Sebastian]

2 minutes ago, RoboFox said:

Just drove past Sainsbury's. Fvcking queues down the street. Shocking. 

 

Worried about them running out of 4 star I expect

[Carl the Llama]

31 minutes ago, RoboFox said:

Just drove past Sainsbury's. Fvcking queues down the street. Shocking. 

 

That picture looks straight out of the mid-90's

[RoboFox]

3 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

That picture looks straight out of the mid-90's

It's Norwich. It's today. 

[Corky]

31 minutes ago, Carl the Llama said:

That picture looks straight out of the mid-90's

It's from the 2000 petrol shortages.

[BKLFox]

1 hour ago, RoboFox said:

Just drove past Sainsbury's. Fvcking queues down the street. Shocking. 

 

I'm not surprised at those prices

[bovril]

29 minutes ago, RoboFox said:

It's Norwich. It's today. 

Looks a bit too hilly

[Free Falling Foxes]

As soon as the govt and media outlets said there is plenty of food in the shops and plenty of fuel to go around so no need to panic buy,  it was so fecking predictable how the average member of public would respond.

Neanderthals

 

[Buce]

 

Queues at filling stations, empty supermarket shelves, prices rising, fruit and veg rotting in the fields, staffing level crisis in health and social care...

 

Welcome to Brexit Britain.

Edited 24 September 2021 by Buce

[Carl the Llama]

9 minutes ago, Buce said:

 

Queues at filling stations, empty supermarket shelves, prices rising, fruit and veg rotting in the fields, staffing level crisis in health and social care...

 

Welcome to Brexit Britain.

Stop trying to scare people 

[I am Rod Hull]

2 hours ago, RoboFox said:

Just drove past Sainsbury's. Fvcking queues down the street. Shocking. 

 

No problems on my way home today.

[Samilktray]

Never been a riskier time for your petrol light to come on, what a bloody rush 

[Legend_in_blue]

People making unnecessary visits to petrol stations today.  They're all idiots.

[Carl the Llama]

2 hours ago, Corky said:

It's from the 2000 petrol shortages.

d'oh 

[Tuna]

Got a full tank of diesel yesterday evening.