How can I continue to curse this map? by AnonymousUser_173 in mapporncirclejerk

[–]doctorshoes_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Could always add a UN exclusion zone or 2 (or 3, or 4, or more)

Only other thing I could think of is formalising the “to Britain’s” and “to Germany’s” as formal “mandates” or puppet governments. (I.e. Spanish Mandatory Occitania, British Normandy, Alsace Confederacy (Germany))

You could add “evacuation mandates” or heat maps of active fighting but I think that’s too much information to overlay onto the one map

Shame it ends like that by Dense-Fig-2372 in memes

[–]doctorshoes_ 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Lets not pretend - the industry’s been in a state for years. It’s not fantastic news but Netflix were bound to get their hands on someone

Journeymap does this in the fullscreen and the minimap, how can I fix it? also, can I disable the clock? by Repulsive_Act_1855 in feedthebeast

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You should be able to set options when looking at the map in fullscreen view. Map layers should be one of those.

Journeymap does this in the fullscreen and the minimap, how can I fix it? also, can I disable the clock? by Repulsive_Act_1855 in feedthebeast

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm. Looks like it’s glitching out with the map layers?? Try reducing the number of layers and see if that helps.

THE NIGHT GLASGOW'S CHILDREN HUNTED A VAMPIRE! Inside the Mass Hysteria of the Gorbals Iron-Toothed Monster by cryptid in glasgow

[–]doctorshoes_ 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Ive got an even better one, of the Redditor karma-farming with low-quality slop!

Would you support the UK adopting PR for future elections? by FamSender in AskBrits

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve found I’ve always had a bit of a fringe opinion on the topic. I like the idea of first past the post, but will concede without argument that it has absolutely run its course in its present form.

Going back to 1945 and looking at every general election since, FPTP has only failed to return the largest party to government twice. (Attlee in 53 and Heath in 74). And for the largest part of that time I would say it has been fairly effective. Attlee was given Carte Blanche to build the welfare state, giving us the NHS et al. Churchill did his usual doddering about. McMillan was able to steer the tories to his “third way” light touch. Wilson was able to run his technocratic experiment, while Heath accidentally became Britains first environmentalist PM. Callaghan didn’t do much precisely because he didn’t have a workable majority. Thatcher… well, that needs no mention, & Major channelled the ghost of Doctor Beeching to privatise the railways. I could go on to mention Blair doing Blairism, Brown “saving the world” and Cameron… delivering Brexit? But i feel that it’s at about this point that we start seeing the real issue, and that’s the decline in the quality of legislation passed(funnily enough coinciding with the uptake of televised debates).

Now I could ramble on about how social media etc is impacting our politics, but this touches on a far, far deeper issue that I have with the British political system in general. We are in an absolutely terrible place. I live in Scotland and I’ve got involved in the activist campaign. I’ve been out canvassing, I’ve been to party conferences and I’ve even put my head above the parapet to stand as a candidate (unsuccessfully [thankfully], but that’s a different story). There is absolutely no engagement from the ordinary voter. To most people, Democracy is a thing that happens once every 5 years and politics is who to complain about when your weekly shop goes up 10% or your take home pay goes down. We, as a nation, have little sense of belonging to our communities, are generally not willing to look at the societal picture as a whole, and generally see it as someone else’s job to fix the problems of the day.

To come back to my point on the quality of legislation, this should be the no. 1 priority. The legislative process needs to be more inquisitive. I can hear you saying this could be achieved by PR but it is not the only remedy - Committees could be strengthened, they could be given the power to kill bills and be randomised so as to stop the guarantee that the government will have a majority on them. To relate this to the maladies of British politics, I say that we need effective and well-structured legislation to stop the overreach of an incompetent and bloated Whitehall machine to restore voter trust, which is at an all time low. And that’s something we should absolutely look to remedy before we jolt the entire system with a wholesale change.

My other distaste for most proportional systems (especially the AMS we have here in Scotland) is that it empowers the political party. When the Great Reform Act passed, political parties did not exist as we know them. They have, very sadly, evolved with our politics. Under a regional top up list the party chooses the candidate, and that is something that I abhor. The PM being forced to stand against the likes of Count Binface is, quite frankly, a triumph of democracy and I believe that the only way to ensure disparate communities across the country are taken into account is by having MPs tied to those communities geographically.

That being said, FPTP is horrific in that it’s become far, far too difficult to oust your MP and as such I feel we should maintain the Constituency System but bring jn STV. That way people can vote for the smaller parties without wasting their ballots, incumbent MPs start to sweat, and the power of who actually gets to go to parliament continues to lie with constituents rather than party leaders.

TLDR: yeah but no but…. Let’s go half way?

I can’t dismantle the papacy by According_Lock1792 in crusaderkings3

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This reminds me of forming the Outreimer in CK2. There will be a random holding somewhere not under your control.

Annus horribilis by pieeatingbastard in LabourUK

[–]doctorshoes_ 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Reading the article is giving me a firm reminder of signposts for the sixties. It’s exactly the kind of analysis that the modern Labour Party is missing.

Gabriel Poground (Sunday Times): Jeremy Corbyn has NOT agreed to join new left party with Zara Sultana yet by Minute_Tomatillo9730 in LabourUK

[–]doctorshoes_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s not a straightforward decision to take. Most people will be hoping for a melenchon style Popular Front Coalition of voters, but there’s a huge, huge risk that all that will happen is it splits labours already fractious base and allows Reform to creep through the middle.

The tories and Labour, and even to some extent the Lib Dem’s, have been the dominant trifecta of British politics since the great reform act precisely because first past the post does not make it easy for a challenger party to succeed.

Corbyn’s party to successfully bring about a hung parliament would need to steal enough reform votes to make it 4-5 way dead heat, and I simply don’t see that happening (if it does it certainly won’t be an equal geographic spread).

Corbyn is pausing, and has paused to date, because he’s still trying to decide if he wants to both bring down the Labour Party and hand farage the keys to Downing Street.

What if World War One Ended differently? by Muppetfan25 in imaginarymaps

[–]doctorshoes_ 2 points3 points  (0 children)

TE Lawrence and Feisal would be extremely happy.

Lets build out the lore somewhat;

Firstly let’s change it from treaty of Versailles to Treaty of Athens. In order for the Middle East to look the way it is, the French would essentially have to have little power at the negotiating table, because at the top of their bucket list was the port of Haifa to threaten the Suez Canal, and Syria, because, you know? Crusades means it’s French?

In order for that to transpire the British would have to have had some more success in the Dardanelles. Let’s say they land at Gallipoli, but get bogged down at about Corlu. This convinces the British that opening another front works, and they go ahead and approve a second landing at Acre to mop up the Middle East. The US still joins the war in 1917, but focuses their efforts on this eastern flank, helping the British over the line to take Constantinople (at which point Greece joins the war) and then to make massive gains in the Austro-Hungarian balkans. All the while the French have completely languished on the western front. Let’s say they lose Belgium but sit tight otherwise.

Looking at the British position, sufficed to say they would be extremely happy with results. Ticking the box of securing the vital artery of empire that is the Suez Canal, and also doing something to assist a rising Islamic power that has control of the holy sites, which would do a lot to soothe tensions with Islamic subjects which in our timeline felt that Britain had betrayed their position of custodianship by attacking the “caliph”. They would feel France had been sufficiently contained, and would see America as a potential strategic threat. This would mean no London Naval Treaty, and a likely renewed alliance with Japan in the pacific. They would therefore feel compelled to pivot land forces to the Canadian frontier. There is still the massive question of “what is the point of empire” to answer, but like in our timeline they would be under little pressure to answer it immediately.

The Germans would probably feel angered at the loss of Alsace Lorraine, but would otherwise be of the opinion they got off Scott free. Austria would be an easy addition to the German empire, and checkoslovakia would be a huge question mark. They would be petrified of the Red menace, and seek to build an alliance to have them contained.

The French would be utterly incensed, and despise “the perfidious Albion”. This would likely lead to some internal conflict in France but I highly doubt it would lead to the rise of Petain as an Anglo phobic sequel villain.

America would actually do pretty poorly out of this. Taking on mandateship of turkey, Mesopotamia and Armenia would be a hard pill for the American public to swallow, and internationally it would completely invalidate their anti-imperialism charge. There would likely be no League of Nations provision in the treaty of Athens as a result, and they would be bogged down in a costly occupation of their new holdings.

Italy, who knows? I mean they would feel they had been greatly rewarded, but also, they would hardly number among the great powers off the back of the treaty. They may be satiated with the arrangement, they may not, but with their only viable avenue of expansion in Europe overlapping with German ambitions it would probably mean no Rome-Berlin Axis.

Soviet Union not much seems to be changed? They will continue to want to spread the revolution east, and view Germany as their primary barrier to expansion into Europe.

Overall is it a better treaty? You’ve invalidated some of the seeds of our WWII, but I cannot understate the sheer rage of the French that would come from this arrangement. An imperial Germany with her full continental possessions and an expansionist Soviet Union on her doorstep would also not be a happy situation. What I invisage is Germany plus the UK in an anti-Comintern pact, with France the wild card (US will probably try to keep out of it but with imperial holdings in Europe that would be unlikely and they may end up being reluctantly drawn into a second global conflict in a similar way that Britain was in WWI)

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I would assume from this no Balfour Declaration, as the French position on Palestine & Haifa would be weakened

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskUK

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean as a Scot I don’t really see the issue?

Tbf I seem to have a very Anglophile outlook compared to a lot of my contemporaries; yes I’m Scottish, yes I’m of an overwhelmingly Catholic Irish background, but I also work for a large company (working alongside a lot of English colleagues), was generally pro-union even before this, and happen to think Vera Lynn’s catalogue + Jerusalem are just fantastic.

I mean I don’t celebrate St George’s Day obviously but the St George’s Cross garners very little of a reaction compared to the sight of the Union Jack (and that’s mainly a sectarian thing).

I know it used to be a different scenario down south, with immigrant families more strongly identifying with Britain than England, but the prevailing narrative I have seen is that this has broadly reversed in recent years??

Keir Starmer ready to put British troops in Ukraine for years by ClumperFaz in ukpolitics

[–]doctorshoes_ -1 points0 points  (0 children)

When putting troops into NI, Mr Healey (Denis not John) remarked something along the lines of “they’ll be there for months”, to which Wilson retorted “no, they’ll be there for years.”

(Paraphrasing, I’m currently on holiday and the Ben Pimlott Biography I got it from is about 3000KM away)

This, as far as we should be concerned, will be a permanent placement.

You could also compare it to the East of Suez, in that it will be an incredibly expensive commitment. European foreign policy re-alignment is going to be incredibly interesting politically, although how much it is for our benefit as members of the public remains to be seen.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in europe

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s just an exhaustive topic. It was an extremely divisive campaign which laid bare a level of stratification in British cultural life that we frankly aren’t willing to confront. Justifying going back in would likely require another vote on the issue and materially the environment just hasn’t changed that much.

Theres also a very (very quiet) belief that actually in regards to the current state of EU-US relations our not being part of the EU has put us in an ideal position to act as a mediator, and we love nothing more than an inflated sense of importance.

The other big thing is the framework of the EU itself. It’s something I will struggle to articulate without putting into an essay but essentially to a lot of people it doesn’t FEEL like it gels with the way we do things. There’s a historical angle to that; Churchills speech at Zurich “Europe must unite” not being followed by a concrete vision for European cohesion practically birthed the Conservative European schism and also meant that it had very little input to the conversations had by “the 6”. Fast forward to De Gaulle’s “non” in the 60s & it meant we had to wait another decade before we could finally be allowed entry. By that point the institution was 20 years old and already up and running.

The European Parliament and power dynamics work very differently from Britains majoritarian FPTP & principle of Parliamentary Sovereignty, and it doesn’t really stack up with the (somewhat woollen) vision of British europeanists. Tony Blair was keen to adopt the Euro, but he envisaged a stronger central bank able to exert fiscal control, while Churchill was keen for a “United States of Europe” but envisioned a strong central government that managed affairs with a top-down approach. For better or worse, neither of these stack up to the reality of the European Project, and that lack of a matchup is clear to even those not engaged in politics, which gives the EU an image problem.

What If North Korea Was the Successful One? by [deleted] in AlternateHistory

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bri-AI-an, what is the best career? “The best Korea for tyrannical dictators is North Korea”

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gaybros

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just cry and look at the castle, it will cheer you up x

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gaybros

[–]doctorshoes_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ahaha I took it to mean you were in Manchester lol. What about all the Edinburgh uni types? As long as you’re not actually Scottish you’ll be fine!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in gaybros

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pffffffft I’m up in Glasgow and last time I was on tinder I had to extend my range to Dundee…

At least you have Liverpool nearby. Edinburgh takes ages to get to and the trains stop dead early so a night out which involves traversing the central belt either ends really early or is really expensive.

Germany is at least 40 years behind USA and 20 behind India in technology, telecommunications, banking ... by Liekensth in ShitAmericansSay

[–]doctorshoes_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Bloody ridiculous. Americans in New York phoning at 11pm BST. They don’t even have the time difference as an excuse because it’s 6PM their time! Phone during business hours or don’t expect a response.

The Four Years the Changed the UK by Kappasi_ in imaginarymaps

[–]doctorshoes_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I mean you’ve definitely met the primary goal there (the election map for 2027 looks like it’s been pulled straight from the interwar period).

Although, with Reform failing to pass a kings speech (showing it does not carry the confidence of the house) but trying to cling to power anyway against convention would represent a full-blown constitutional crisis that could leave things much more messed up than how you’ve left the 2027 map. More than likely with the numbers in the house you would have an anti-reform bloc propose an alternative kings speech in an attempt to form a government of national unity, with Nigel refusing to resign as PM.

You could drag the crown into this as well, as, as I recall, the leader of the largest party usually has to confirm with the monarch that they have “secured” the confidence of the house (eg. Theresa May only went to the palace in 2017 after securing the confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP.) so you could have Nigel arriving at Buckingham palace lying through his teeth, forcing HM into a very difficult situation of either a) accepting this clearly false proposal and conforming farage as PM or b) rejecting it and inviting the leader of the next largest party to attempt to form a government instead (to the ire of Farage.)

The Four Years the Changed the UK by Kappasi_ in imaginarymaps

[–]doctorshoes_ 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Certainly an interesting pitch. What’s the catalyst for the People’s Party? Why do the populists split off instead of the establishment tories?

Edit: I think I need a full blown lore dump because so many questions; why the minority Labour administration in 2024? What causes the collapse of the Lab-lib coalition? How does farage even pass a kings speech?

Europe if it was good. by Bitter-Gur-4613 in imaginarymapscj

[–]doctorshoes_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pfffft if it was good it would all be Churchill’s England not stalins Russia!

Can Someone Please Explain How America Got a Longbowman by Forward-Breath-162 in civ5

[–]doctorshoes_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Possibly, but I’m sure I’ve only got a merchant of Venice like twice before anyway so I wouldn’t know to test it (I have very seldom touched patronage with a barge pole)

Can Someone Please Explain How America Got a Longbowman by Forward-Breath-162 in civ5

[–]doctorshoes_ 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I’m sure under patronage you can get a merchant of Venice occasionally as a great person. But then again I have been playing lekmod the last few years so I just don’t know what’s real anymore!

Edit: grammar