LondonLax

You get a lot more dynamic mix of parties in a PR system. A small single issue party can get a few members in parliament based on the number of people interested in their single issue, they then get asked to form a coalition and often grow from there into a proper party. It's hard to get a big majority and govern outright if people are not compelled to vote for a major party to prevent their vote being wasted. A party has to be spectacularly good to convince over 50% of the population to vote for them and not one of the other options. By contrast, first past the post systems nearly always tend towards becoming a duopoly over time. Australia uses AV for the lower house where you rank the parties in order of your preference and then votes are distributed in those preferences until one party gets at least 50% of the vote. What this means in practice is small singe issue parties offer to direct their core voters to give their second preference to a similarly aligned major party in return for consideration on their important issues. It means a Greens voter (for example) doesn't consider their vote wasted and will put greens first but probably Labour 2nd, knowing that their vote will end up with Labour in a closely contested seat. Personally I consider Proportional Representation to be the truest for of democracy.

May called an election when she didn't need to in attempt to increase her majority and ended up losing her majority entirely. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

If a European country was playing a match in the Middle East and the host nation decided to hold a minute silence for the victims of a terrorists act that had killed a number of the host nations citizens I suspect the visiting team would join in as a mark of respect to the host nation. One of the Australians killed last week was even a local from the city where the game was being played. The Saudi FA were told in advance by the Australian FA and the Asian Football Association that there would be a minutes silence but the Saudi officials refused the invitation to take part. The players themselves may not have known what was happening due to the language barrier, one of the Saudi players did in fact line up and observe the silence.

I suspect the Torys will win but with a much smaller majority then they hoped for, creating disunity within the party. At the same time they willbe trying to negotiate Brexit which is a bit of a poisoned chalice in itself. Meanwhile Labour will be getting their house in order having seen some hope in the Corbyn / Sanders style of politics and may well win big in the next election.

Just being a pedant, but the religion was not around in the days of Jesus. It started 600 years later. Otherwise carry on

I think it requires serious training and would be too much of a commitment for the general public. How an untrained person thinks they will react in a situation like this is rarely how it plays out when the adrenaline kicks in. There was an interview with an Australian who was stabbed in the neck and the interviewer asked what the attacker was wearing. The guy couldn't remember anything about the attaker beyond the detail of the knife he was holding. That mirrors my (much tamer) experience of being mugged by a guy holds a knife.

And one off duty officer was on the scene having a night out. He rugby tackled one of them and was wrestling him on the ground whilst the armed officers were arriving. He's also in a critical condition with stab wounds to his face and neck

Corbyn is only 3% behind Blair in 97

The minimum wage in Australia is $17.70 which works out as £10.25 at current exchange rates. It would be an interesting study on the effects of minimum wage on employment and inflation. A number of U.S states have no minimum wage but they also have workers working 2-3 jobs for 60hrs per week who still need government assistance to make ends meet. That is a totally forign concept in Australia.

Trump is just trying to drum up more custmers for the US weapons manufacturers. Same as his trip to Saudi.

I don't think you are very good at understanding other people.

Apparently the Germans have reported that they have been asking for this intel for months but the US intelligance agencies did not want to share it with Germany in order to protect their sources. Yet Trump shares it with Russia, a strategic rival in the Middle East. You must question his judgement on that surely?

It feels like a lot longer than 3 and a half months.

Turns out the 'Aussie' streaker was actually a Ukrainian false flag operative!

I think it was his back story that won it rather than the song itself.

I also thought he was more machiavellian/playing to his crowd but it appears he is just totally mental.

Remember all our musing earlier in the thread about whether Trump would pivot to become statesmanlike after the election

The spice man always delivers hilarity with his crazy capers. Melissa McCarthy is hosting SNL this week as well.

Yeah am interested to see where this goes.

At the moment LePen has a ceiling on her support so to her parties extreme views. She is leading the French version of the BNP. The danger is if she is able to remodel the party to a more socially acceptable version, akin to a French UKIP. She may well be able to reach a position of power.

If your government commits to a public spending program that directly requires your only revenue stream to be $x then it is no surprise when you run into problems when that revenue stream falls below $x. Norway is a much more diversified economy but not only that, they have diversified their sovereign wealth fund, furthermore, the revenue from oil is not linked to their social spending program. They understood that if it was its fluctuating price could not be relied on. Also, the 'free money' would distort the domestic economy via rampant inflation to such a state that it would wipe out local industry. Instead the money is invested in a wide range of companies, currency and properties around the globe with the majority of the profits reinvested in the fund. They draw down a small percentage (4%) as a dividend to spend on the local economy but populist governments are not able to raid the pot to deliver big social programs like Venezuela has.

Their who economy was based on oil exports, their success was tied to the price of oil. When it was $100 a barrel everything was sweet, since it dropped below $50 the country has fallen to pieces. The very definition of a 'banana republic'.

Interestingly in the Scandi counries parental leave is very generous and a portion is reserved for the father. This means that when a baby arrives both parents take some time out of their careers (usalluy about 6-12 months each?). Then their childcare places are heavily subsidised so both parents can go back to their careers sooner. They also have the smallest gender pay gap in the world. A portion of the pay gap is still down to prejudice though I think. I had read about a study where the same CV is shopped around to different employers, only the name on the top was changed from a female name to a male name. The 'male' CV gets more interviews than the female one unfortunately.

Granted it might not be for much longer but at the moment Northern Ireland are still a part of your country.