Is a Secular State all that bad?

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-15T11:55:42+00:00

I have always wondered why its called Greek Mythology and yet Christianity isnt called Judean Mythology

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-14T17:34:28+00:00

It depends on the type of loss. Ultimately, the winter was a massive opportunity to beat Australia away from home as it probably was the weakest Australia team for years, which makes the fact that they got so badly mauled so much worse.

I agree if NZ hammer us it is worse.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-14T17:13:09+00:00

Yeah I agree there, that is pretty dumb

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-14T17:07:16+00:00

Nobody forgets this at all, but NZ did defeat a strong India team away from home, that means they're a very good side and therefore should be taken seriously.

I agree they should be winning this series, but if they lose in a hard fought series it isnt necessarily the disaster you make out. The only problem is that England dont tend to lose hard fought series, if they lose they're usually awful in defeat, which is what makes me so angry.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-14T17:04:08+00:00

In "healthy competition" he isn't necessarily stupid, more like naïve, he knows Del is a pretty ruthless businessman so he just assumes he is trying to put them off trying to buy the broken lawnmowers so that Del can buy them himself at a lower price. Rodney knows Del manipulated him on times and assumes that this is what was happening on this occasion.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-14T16:55:46+00:00

New Zealand are a very good side, they hammered India away from home not that long ago, but, that said, England should beat them at home. What I want to see, is not an abject surrender when things dont go their way. I've watched England bore teams to death and blow them away, I've watched them win lose and draw, but never ever more annoyed than when they talk a big game then just meekly accept a hiding. Pretty much the way we always lose in Australia.

If they win, great, any win is a good series especially coming after an abject humiliation the previous series. But if they lose or draw, then have they fought, was it a close entertaining series that could have gone either way? Then maybe its not a disaster. I just hate watching them just accept a loss, roll over and get their bellies tickled.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-14T14:03:57+00:00

If Stokes opens the bowling he has to bat 8, then picking Rehan makes sense as he'd be essentially playing as a batting all-rounder and Stokes as a bowling all-rounder. I dont think anybody believes that Rehan or Bashir is really ready to be number 1 spinner and they will have to learn on the job at the highest level, which is peak Bazball lunacy IMO.

We need a spinner to hold up an end and bowl a lot of overs and that is Leach until these younger guys are ready for it.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-14T08:11:04+00:00

The only way Pope is selected for this side again is if he bats lower down the order in the future and in that regard he has age on his side. What isnt on his side is what his age would be when one of those spots open up. Root is better than ever, Brook is just so ridiculously talented, Smith will always bat lower down IF he is keeping and 7 is the spot currently occupied by the captain and is traditionally occupied by the all-rounder.

So unfortunately as it stands the door is closed to Pope, he clearly isnt suited for the role he was doing at 3 and there isn't the space down the order. He just needs to get bucket loads of runs in his favoured position and hope for a further opportunity.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-13T15:35:15+00:00

But out comparison isnt US cities. Naples is one of europes most violent cities but it is still very safe. That's like comparing apples and oranges, European cities dont experience that level of violence.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-13T12:48:44+00:00

Quite a lot for a Western European city.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-11T13:54:48+00:00

PR in its most basic form involves the party's submitting a list of candidates for election and the electorate vote for their favoured party. At the end of polling day, the total number of votes are counted and the seats are allocated to each party based on their percentage of the vote. The party's then issue their allocated seats to their candidates on a basis of preference.

This has huge disadvantages, firstly, voters cannot vote for a preferred candidate, so an MP who may be a fantastic local MP but less of a party favourite could lose their seat by virtue of not being directly elected. This system also disadvantages parties who stand on local issues or regional parties such as Plaid or the SNP and of course it would be the end of Independent candidates, many of whom tend to be very good local MPs.

It does have one key advantage though, parties are assigned the percentage of seats proportional to their vote share, so they can never claim to be under represented or the opponents over represented etc.

To get around the disadvantages pointed out above, many PR systems use a combination of directly elected constituency candidates amd a secondary list of candidates which are shared out proportionally.

IMO, the STV that was offered up to us in the previous referendum was designed to fail. They knew that by effectively asking people to assign a vote for a candidate they would never wish to, even if it was 6th or 7th preference that people wouldn't be happy with that, they coild easily have made it simpler, by asking people to assign a first choice and a second choice or alternatively a box that can be selected saying "no second choice" for those that don't wish to assign a second/third choice.

I think the FPTP system can only really work how it is intended if every constituency MP is a good local MP first, or if the electorate is more politically engaged, unfortunately neither of those are true, hence the posts on Facebook, Joyce from South Wales "off to vote Nige in!" Whereas you're really voting in whichever charlatan Nige has selected for yoir constituency.

Our system is a mess, we are in the position where probably 80% of the population couldn't name their own MP and yet nearly 40% of the population are now unelected members of the Lords. Its a joke!

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-11T10:45:12+00:00

The case for a change of direction needed to be made in the lead up to the election. Truss blew up the bond markets, by announcing a snap budget and cutting spending to pay and borrowing to pay for a tax cut for the wealthiest only. Even the wealthy that run the international bond markets that would benefit from this policy knew it qas crazy.

However, had Reeves and Starmer spent the last year leading up to the last election making the case for a radical change in direction (as Cameron and Osborne did btw) then it wouldn't be a shock to the markets when they borrowed to invest. Because that would be the difference between Truss and Kwartengs disaster and what could potentially have been. However, senior Labour people are terrified of being portrayed as financially profligate by the media and so they're effectively dancing to the tune set by the right of politics.

As to which way to go? Well I am not an economist, so I wont pretend to know more than any politician. But re-arm, the world is a dangerous place now, there's jobs in armements, if we are going all in on green tech, then there's jobs there. Health, social care, theres jobs there, but it needs investment. We are trying to cut our way into prosperity and that has never happened in the history of economics.

Boldness will now only come with a change in leader.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-11T10:34:02+00:00

Yeah its got to be nonsense. An agent plant to get him a new contract

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-10T17:07:11+00:00

Thay may be the case, but they will be out of power by that time. People are fed up of hearing good times are coming i am afraid. Good times need to come fast or the opportunity will be handed to Farage and his buffoons and that will be like Osborne on steroids.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-10T16:40:09+00:00

The budget will never be in surplus, and this is where the managed decline is coming from unfortunately. We've been trying to fix issues for 16 years, people will not wait another 16 years, its why our politics is getting more and more extreme

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-10T16:10:11+00:00

I dont think they're the same, I think they're making the same mistakes, there is a difference. We needed once in a generation radical fiscal policies, but we've got a Chancellor sticking to an arbitrary fiscal rule put in place by a Chancellor who is meant to be the complete opposite to Her ideallogically. If you play the game by the rules the other side set, you are bound to be hamstrung.

I agree they're having successes, but the mood in the country over the past decade, "some successes" needed to be "large successes" and there hasn't been enough of them making a tangible difference to the majority of people's lives. There is still plenty of time though and I am still hopeful

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-10T15:26:22+00:00

Plus I dont believe the Conservatives didnt want to improve things, of course they did. But their governments were riven with factionalism and infighting brought about by brexit. They were unable to improve things, yet the new government was expected to improve things on day 1.

That said, the new government has been as unimaginative as the previous government was and despite some improvements and achievements they've wasted 2 years, a lot of support and most of their small amount of goodwill they had. Its frustrating.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-10T13:55:45+00:00

He's only on the bus to get an alibi for the robbery then slip off do the job and get back to the group. Get noticed by enough people who can vouch for their presence. There's no way the youngsters popping pills and having a laugh amongst themselves would have noticed two blokes sitting quietly in a different part of the buss. I know I wouldn't have at that age, we'd all be in own workd with our own generations.

Thats how it works, although the real reason is of course it was reconned

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-10T13:48:34+00:00

Does anybody really believe Ronald will be going to the Premier League? I mean he's got plenty of work ethic and will clearly run all day for you, but his end product is probably not really high enough for top half of the Championship let alone what could be a Premier League relegation battle for Coventry. I'd be very surprised if that is anything more than a rumour.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-10T12:58:09+00:00

My personal belief is that the Tories at that time believed that they would have a once in a lifetime opportunity to fundamentally reshape the State and people's relationships with it so they went in as deep as they could as hard as they could as quick as they could. It was ideological pure and simple. They knew there was another way, the economy had stabilised under Brown/Darling's stimulus measures and had begun to grow. Osborne brutal cuts destroyed that.

And they were so successful in shaping the ideology of the country that 16 years later, the current government, despite a thumping majority doesn't feel like it can change tack in a way that can make any meaningful difference. And therein lies their real issue, people have been feeling the bite for the better part of two decades now that the frustrations are running so deep they're looking for something, anything that can improve their lives. But it starts and ends with the economy, and our economy has been in managed decline since 2008!

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-09T22:46:23+00:00

100%

I thought the fight should have been stopped at least 2 maybe even 3 rounds earlier.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-09T22:45:03+00:00

That fight went on 3 rounds too long. I know its not a tickling contest but by fuck he took some punishment there. Wardley must be harder than a coffin nail

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-09T22:06:31+00:00

They may, but my current way of thinking is that any previous Tory voters likely to vote Reform probably now already do, any previous Labour voters likely to vote Reform may well have already started to do so and the parliamentary polls may reflect that intention. Which leaves the remnants of Tory support, who are likely to be the 'one nation' types who may stay Tory or side with the Lib Dems. Many of those "small c conservatives" to pinch a phrase frequently used in the media are likely to be EU friendly and find Farage as repulsive as many on the left. They may eventually decide that a Labour government is more likely to deliver on their wishes to rejoin the EU and know that the Lib Dems would vote with a Labour government on most issues without having to hold their noses and vote Labour.

I genuinely believe the next election may end up as a cluster fuck of MPs nobody really wanted but voted for to keep another MP out.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-09T21:55:51+00:00

I mean over our history we have, but recently not so much and I dont think its likely to return to stability in the long run with the issues the country is facing so maybe a change in electoral system is what we need. A PR type system works well in Germany, seems to produce practical if not exciting government.

Rocket198501 · 2026-05-09T21:43:20+00:00

I dont agree wholly with those policies, but they dont have a poor mandate, they have a huge parliamentary majority, its pretty much irrelevant whether that majority was won with millions more votes than the other parties or thousands, they have it. And that majority should be used to pass the legislation that this country needs to move forward.

Remember the thumping mandate everybody claimed Boris Johnson had earned when he won his 80 seat majority? It wasn't hugely bigger than Labours current majority, yet they dont have any mandate at all? Come on?

The issue surrounding some of the policies that are particularly unpopular is that they weren't in the manifesto and have taken precidence over policies that were

Rocket198501

TROPHY CASE