Active Member
Active Member
OMG, shrink that picture!!
Unfortunately I don't think it means he'll be leaving the country.
Too Privileged to Get It
surprised no one has mentioned it yet; MP's voted to follow through with Brexit, despite a sizeable opposition by Labour. I don't have a link handy, unfortunately.
Active Member
Well they had to really, it's totally pointless to oppose it. I voted remain but I have no idea how they could possibly stop it.
The interesting thing is the Labour leader - popular with and kept in power by the party membership - opted to push ahead, despite the membership being largely remain, and the MPs - voted in by constituents who largely voted to leave - are in many cases pushing to remain
What a mess! If UKIP weren't such a seedy bunch of jokers, I would be worried about a trump/le pen scenario unfolding
Active Member
The whitepaper has a sizeable chunk of lies in it too
Active Member
I'm getting really pissed off with self appointed leave spokespeople saying that they always knew leaving the single market would be the outcome and the campaigns made it clear. NO THEY FUCKING DIDNT. The message from Leave was always about getting a Norway type of deal, even Farage was saying this. The entire Leave campaign was having cake and eating it too. The remain campaign warned this as a possibility. There is no mandate for a hard Brexit out of the single market
Active Member
On a similar note I am annoyed with how much coverage UKIP get generally... they are nothing. We have a 40 million plus electorate and they got just under 4 million votes... 20 million ish voted brexit iirc... to me this says nobody really has any faith in UKIP
Ok 4 million is a fair chunk, but when it is so evenly spread that it only yields a single MP, it does feel like the village idiot in every single village, rather than a mass movement
Also Nuttall's New beard, flat cap and jacket ensemble is hilariously contrived.
I wish the Tories and Labour would just get their act together
Active Member
I find it hard to take Paul Nuttall seriously because he looks so much like Edward Hitler. I expect him to engage in some comedy figets with FarageOriginally Posted by Sutekh
Throbbing Member
Corbyn is on average around 16 Points behind in the polls to Theresa May, bear in mind polls always overestimate support for Labour and the Left in general, so the gap is wider.
i read somewhere that with people over the age of 60 in a recent poll Corbyn was 57 points behind Theresa May. Been nothing like it for nearly a century.
So there is obviously going to be a void....people will either turn to Liberal Democrats or UKIP, people are taking them seriously, they will probably do much better in the next election..unless something catastrophic happens...May will hold onto PM..
With UKIP maybe people have been looking across the pond and seeing the whole Trump thing, i think its the directness of Farage and UKIP that might be a gaining factor. I dont think it will be enough to win here as the culture situation is different in many ways.
Banned
ANAL CYST? Is this a real news story?
Active Member
Lol it is yeah, I remember seeing it
That's what happens when you have unpaid, hungover interns at the controls
tempus est umbra in mente
Throbbing Member
What does everyone think about Le pen..right now in March 2017 i dont think she will win...
But this is exactly how i felt about Donald Trump and Brexit.....
Its really hard to tell...
Why do i feel its more likely lepen will win after Geert Wilders lost...urgh confusing
tempus est umbra in mente
Let's break this streak of unimaginably bad public decisions then? Please?
Active Member
France has a two round voting system which is what I'm hinging my hopes on for her not winning. If it were a system like the UK or USA I'd be very pessimistic indeed.
Throbbing Member
This is what i dont get how does the two round voting system make any difference??
If for example the US did have a two round voting system...it would have been Trump and Clinton...why would Trump have not won the second time??
The other candidate Macron is coming across a bit empty..and vague and dull ...he is basically a French Tony Blair..but younger..says all the right things ..but he is not really saying anything new..all bit flat..
He is very much a centrist...sort of like Hillary.. centrism is dying in Europe...
it may be a miscalculation....
Active Member
I get the feeling that America is always going ot be a two-party race though; there's no one "other candidate" in France. And it was Republican Vs Democrat, not someone vs far right nationalists. I have the feeling that if the second round is LePen vs someone else, the majority of French people would rather vote for the other person than LePen (and I don't really see some wacky left winger being that second person) - I don't think it's guaranteed that this will happen, but the system seems to guide people towards making a better (as in, who they'd be happier with) choice. I could see the two-round system working positively in the UK; whether or not our stupid Ward system would still get in the way of that is an issue in itself; in 2015 my vote went to "whoever is most likely to get the Tories out of my ward", which isn't a great basis for a vote.
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Here is an article of the French election. https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%...PAoPg50R0A&s=1
Active Member
i tend to find American's Americentric i tend to notice this more when I travel even in terms of interstate all news seems to geared to local events local weather events and crime as the old joke goes "what do you think of the ignorance and apathy in America " i don't know and I don't care". when asking people about events in France Turkey or even Venezuela, if it doesn't directly effect them they them neither know or care this is a dangerous attitude that will lead to much grief in the long run my hope is that as a nation we become more aware and begin to restore critical thinking long game processing and general long term effect awareness before it's too late
-Louie
tempus est umbra in mente
can anyone condense what the implications of this are leaning towards? I understand that they have more than one stage in close races, but what happens if Le Pen loses this round (which it looks like, barely) and then wins the next? Do the rounds just extend until one candidate accumulates more than 50%?
Either way, this is scary close...
Throbbing Member
If somebody was able to gather an absolute majority then it would be over from the first round, otherwise the two most voted candidates proceed to the second round. There it is settled for good, since one will obviously get more than 50% of the (valid) votes. So yeah, if Le Pen wins next round, it's over and she's the president. *shudder* But I don't think that's likely. Le Pen is still way too extreme for France and she won't be getting many of the other candidates' voters. Exit polls currently show a 62%-38% win for Macron in the second round. I know, I know, people have been getting increasingly wary of polling, but I'm inclined to trust this one. It's still a very high percentage for Front Nationale though, considering last time they went to the second round in 2002, they only got about 18%.
Last edited by Alexandros; 04-23-2017 at 09:36 PM.
God is an American
This is why I only support ranked ballots with instant/immediate runoffs: two weeks until the final decision is enough time for all manner of bullshit to drastically sway the results.
tempus est umbra in mente
On another hand, it's also enough time for people to sober up and realize "holy shit, that lunatic might actually win! Time to stop fucking around and actually get out there and vote, because that would suck."
I think a lot of Americans right now can identify with that sort of thing...
Active Member
Macron is predicted 60%; I am optimistic for the "oh shit, not her!" reaction.
RE: "France had another terror attack on the eve of the vote". I noted that the instant knee-jerk reaction came from Anglophones quoting Sky/Fox, while flipping over to Liberation/Le Monde reported that it's just that one guy (with a record) shot a police man. Which is just a regular Thursday (three days before the vote btw) in America.
I am less optimistic about what might happen with the UK snap election. I think all the not-Tories need to stop fighting with each other and develop a plan.
Active Member
If we can't stop Brexit my main desire is to have someone achieve a much softer Brexit which includes single market access and free movement of people but I just can't see Jeremy Corbyn negotiating this. I think he's pro Brexit so I will vote Lib Dem I think
Active Member
Because of our shitty voting system I'm going to vote for whoever has a higher chance of ousting the Tories in my constituency, which is probably Labour looking at the last few elections.
Active Member
It's amazing you get wifi under that bridge since you're such a fucking troll
Active Member
read a headline in a french magazine said "France don't trump yourself"made me smile
-Louie
Throbbing Member
I dont think there is much enthusiasm for Macron...huge amount abstained from voting...most can see he is a tool. Not much will change. Its basically more of the same. People just see it as the least-worst-option.
I dont see anything in him that is much different to the current leader Francoise Hollande.
He wont dare question the EU on anything, despite the fact there are gaping holes in the system.
Its just he was up against Marine Le-Pen...the Front National has such a toxic legacy in France....
Also she was NO Donald Trump terrible public speaker...she had none of Trumps machevillian ability to draw people in....
Also i cant imagine Nigel Farage from UKIP winning an election in the UK either...
Had it been someone of the rightwing without out the National Front baggage i reckon they could have won..i thought Francis Fillon was going to win..but the corruption scandal brought him down.
Active Member
More of the same vs. highly-corrosive and willfully destructive bigotry-promoting fascism-fetishizing is a pretty clear fight. Whine about a lack of further progress when you don't have somebody trying to blow it all up. A sense of perspective goes a long way and this idea that people shouldn't be thrilled that someone who isn't a racist fuckhead isn't going to be in a charge of a major first world nation when their main opponent claimed that Jews shouldn't be allowed to weare yamulkes in public is babyish and stupid. It makes people seem like smug and pseudointellectual downtalkers rather than people having a conversation.
To say "It's great that Le Pen has been defeated and I hope that in the future competition is less between centrists and right-wing extremists and more between left-wing candidates and centrists" is reasonable. To act like everyone happy a centrist beat out a lunatic is somehow stupid or naive just makes you look like a tool.
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