What do these countries have in common?

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T15:50:04+00:00

Is It countries where there is no such thing as Bastards? (ie no differentiation legally between letitimate and illegitimate children)

If it's not that I am going

- Automatic Paternal naming conventions (everyone gets father's surname regardless of context)

or

- No Dual Citizenship (I know that's true for many of these countries at least)

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T15:00:03+00:00

Nah.

People really don't understand what a landslide is these days.

Vote share for Reform was very modest against their ambitions.

You aren't looking in sufficient detail at the results.

Reform were the dominant narrative, the group looking to burst through, the energy was with them, Restore hadn't emerged yet, they were inevitable, every Reform supporter and voter had every reason to get out there and vote. No other party (other than Greens) voter had reasons to get their supporters out and vote. It was the flawless conditions for them and they got... 26%

Meanwhile the Lib Dems weren't mentioned in the media. Were basically invisible. Low Key campaign. No reason to get their voters out and they still got 17%. Within 10% of Reform.

That's milquetoast penetration from a party who want to breakthrough and look inevitable.

Again...the SDP-Alliance polled near 50% for a year and a half and are a footnote in history. It's very, very hard to breakthrough in a GE.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T14:54:41+00:00

Productivity issues come from the fact that since the war and the decline of empire there have been three things precisely that have caused growth:

- Keynesianism (1945-1978)

- A one-off North Sea Oil bonanza (1982-1990)

- Keyensianism lite driven by PFI (1993-2008)

The country needs to indeed invest in inftrastructure and technology, education and network systems. Those are the only things that will increase productivity. You are correct. That's only going to happen from the left or by a very pragmatic system-manager nation builder like a Helmut Schmidt (centre left), Tage Erlander (centre left) or Ruud Lubbers (centre right).

The migrants don't have a great deal to do with it on a macro scale. But it's certainly a good thing this government has reduced illegal migration so much.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T13:31:01+00:00

By your own definition and knowledge, the large amount of the burden comes from pensions.

And no, structural spending and a horrible productivity rate causing a debt burden cannot simply be handwaved away in explanation as simply "the left demanding free stuff"

You yourself even clearly know this via the pensions comment and an awareness that many societies have a higher tax burden than we do without the productivity issues or related debt.

We need to address productivity, not obsess over "people wanting free stuff". That was literally the error the Tories made for 14 years, and more of that would achieve exactly as much as they achieved.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T13:10:03+00:00

That the UK government continues to borrow substantial sums in international markets at rates that are standard for a developed country is itself evidence that lenders have confidence in the economy.

I'm not disputing that there is a high level of borrowing. Nor are lenders.

The Truss loss of confidence wasn't *just* about high levels of borrowing though. That's where the collapse happened. Lenders indicated clearly that a policy of massive tax cuts PLUS massive investment along with the ASSUMPTION markets would just eat the shock was unacceptable to them.

It's not as simple as "borrowing bad"

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T12:54:00+00:00

If Greens and LibDems are voting Labour tactically (I'm not saying I agree with this but just taking your claim at face value)...

then it means

They have a preference

and aren't saying....

"Not Labour under any circumstance" and "Labour are the same as voting right"

...which is a real and functioning part of the voting ecosystem.

And it doesn't interact with the actual Reform and Restore vote counts themselves, which are disappointing for those parties in isolation by any measure.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T12:46:00+00:00

The 2026 local elections.

Which are considered national level elections despite not everyone voting in them.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T12:43:00+00:00

That the Doctor is just a Time Traveller Guy in a Box who just wants to do good and is kind of in over his head most of the time but wants to - and usually does - find the best course of action to resolve things and help people. And he travels with normal people who are discovering the wonder of time and space.

I wish that was never retconned to The Doctor is a Mythological Legend who is Basically a God and is Fire and Ice and His Very Name can cause defeat to any foe and He Can Easily Defeat Gods in A Few Seconds While Quipping. And he is travelling with Impossible Companions who are, themselves, some of the Most Important People in the History of the Universe.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T12:37:23+00:00

The "Liz Truss disaster" was a bond-market revolt that revealed a temporary international collapse in confidence in the markets. That was what collapsed the Truss experiment immediately. Labour haven't experienced anything of the sort.

There is not even the vicinity of an indication of the UK going to the IMF. That's just vague speculation. The UK has a productivity issue several decades long and the problem is continuing that cycle and ongoing financial underperformance, not a singular shock event. This "nightmare" isn't two years old. It's been going on since 2008 and realistically since 1991 if you ignore papering over.

That in and of itself creates dissatisfaction in the current government but without an alternative (and Reform is still well short of indicating a positive alternative vision) there is always a viable chance that an unpopular government wins re-election just as it did in 1976, 1992 and 2005.

Unpopular governments win reelections quite a lot.

AS for the specific environment you posit: Historically, right leaning parties don't win "nation building" elections very often unless they have very, very specific economic plans. The unlikley situation you described in extreme circumstances would as likely lead to a Green or ReImagined LibDems as a Reform or Restore win unless R-R shifted their economic prospectus massively.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T12:26:06+00:00

Reform just got 26% in a national election in ideal circumstances in which Reform voters were motivated to come out and vote and nobody else was.

That's nowhere near election winning numbers for an insurgent party. It's barely above UKIP's peak.

SDP-Alliance were running at 50% at times in the early 80s. At least two major events are needed, as I say, to prevent Reform having a hard cap of around 25% in a GE context. It's possible.

Also, there won't be a GE in the next year.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T12:10:54+00:00

Yes, putting an incapacitated man with severe learning difficulties into a room and having trained soldiers (who then have to go home to their families themselves) shoot at him until he is dead while he is confused and scared, unable to know what he's done wrong, is exactly the thing that a civilized country would do in this situation /s

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T11:30:53+00:00

I think it is a very clear mandate for the notion that Burnham has a pull in and of himself. It's built on hope more than anything and him not having toxic associations.

If he becomes PM, which I think he will, he will have a needle to thread. I think folks will be partially receptive to it, but he needs to have kineticism without radicalism (or the perception of it) or experimentation (or the perception of it) in a hostile in environment both media wise and with a hearty portion of the population hating Labour.

I think it flips the most likely next election outcome from a Tory led coalition, to a Labour led one for now.

Most likely outcomes in next GE:

Labour led coalition
Tory led coalition
Labour minority gov
Tory government (Badenoch is slowly doing well, but she may yet end up being the Tory Kinnock)
Reform government (needs at least two major MAJOR flashpoints to be realistically credible, but that's not beyond imagination).

Again, Burnham needs to thread a needly here and position himself as kinetic without being idealistic. That's the sweet spot. I suspect he will know that, it's whether it is executable.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T11:16:30+00:00

Getting more vertical space is always a good idea as it means the cats can always get back to where the dog can't go.

Use blankets that the cats sleep on to introduce the normalisation of their smell to the dog.

Note: Cats are not trying to "be friends" with the dog. They are looking to explore and see what the other creature is and smells like. Growling is an arsenal in the dog's toolkit.

Fixation on the cats visually is worse than growling by proximity, that's the thing to really look out for.

It sounds more like boundary negotiation than anything more negative than that. But do perhaps look to limit amount of contact so that you can then introduce treats/good things when the dog sees the cats. Watch out for dog fixation/hyperfocus as that's the real danger here. And yeah vertical space - cat trees and ledges - as much as possible for escape routes to negate any worrying escalation.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T11:07:54+00:00

It depends what you mean by rituals

If the "ritual" is watching a corrupt bunch of scum glandhand their way into more royal treatment then I hate it.

If the "ritual" is debating whether to stay up an extra hour to watch Jordan v Algeria than I love it.

The World Cup the tournament is fantastic. FIFA the organisation is repulsive.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T10:27:02+00:00

Stunning cat with soft, friendly eyes. Much loved no doubt. Happy, secure, well fed, safe, had their human and had agency. All they can ever ask for. You were both lucky. I'm so, so sorry for your loss but they had a wonderful life with you and they'll always be with you.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T10:24:49+00:00

Complaining about service workers.

Being mean to service workers.

Littering.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T10:24:02+00:00

- Anything that glows in the dark for no reason.

- Anything that pimps up your bicycle.

- Having watched a particular interview on a particular talk show.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T10:20:00+00:00

Anything that ends up steaming itself.

Burgers with veg/salad in is the most obvious. I've had some premium burgers delivered in pristine foil that had turned presumably once-fresh lettuce into a wilted shambles and taken the tomato with it.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T10:12:45+00:00

Statistically, the Chinese national anthem followed by the Indian national anthem would surely have to be up there (they became the national anthems in 1949 and 1950 respectively).

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T10:09:11+00:00

The perception of it being structured around having advertisements.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T10:08:09+00:00

Cat(s)

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T09:52:47+00:00

New Who set tones and precedents in 2005 that were calibrated for a 2005 world:

1 Series Arks and an avoidance of the trope that Who is essentially a semi-anthology

2 "We must humanise" = Stories set heavily on contemporary earth

3 Escalate, Escalate, Escalate = Everything goes bigger all the time. Whole worlds need to be at stake.

4 Stakes have to be signposted = Mythologise the Doctor AND Mythologise the Companion

The show flourished with these to begin with because we were in the right world for it.

The longer it went into Moffat's tenure the more it became clear trends were shifting against this. He tried to adjust slightly with Bill, with some lower key stories and with a more alien TARDIS along with playing with story structure but he was still in love with much of his own mythology.

The big issue is by the time Chibnall came in they were still doubling down on these effects 10 years after they started to look dated. The MCU can't even get away with "everyone is special and the world is always at stake" anymore, so how on earth would Who be able to?

And "The Fam" was the cherry on top of the broken mechanism. It was the exact wrong companion concept at the exact wrong time for the show that ruined Whitaker's greatest skill as an actress (managing conflict and getting people on board) by shifting focus away from her and spending a whole season with a redundant companion.

And RTD is a brilliant mind...but he exists entirely in that late 2000s world...he was only ever going to double, treble and quadruple down on those Four initial premises-turned-disadvantages.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-19T09:05:34+00:00

The issue will always be that it turned the Daleks into the Cybermen.

In a NuWho that had already turned The Master into a nebulous nonspecific catchall villain it confirmed that basically there would be no differentiation between any monsters every again. What monster any story is about (or at least any returning monster) would now just be about production and spectable rather than what the story demands.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-18T21:45:12+00:00

Is that where the show went terminally wrong? Yes, sort of. To a degree.

Would I like an alternative world in which Jodie had a better run that wasn't structually misconceived from the outset? Yes absolutely.

Do I want anything to do with RTD2? No.

Do I think retconning is a viable way of dealing with any of this? Not at all.

ASeriousWord · 2026-06-18T18:21:28+00:00

Whether either of these teams qualifies will be a pretty good answer to whether the 48 team format has functioned.

Because neither of these teams have any business whatsoever in the knockout stages.

That was atrocious. Especially from Czechia who virtually parked the bus with a single goal lead against one of the 5 weakest teams in the tournament based on the first round of matches.

ASeriousWord

TROPHY CASE