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[Criptfeind]

The crown estate would still pay for itself, and the castles and mansions would still attract tourism, if the UK got rid of the crown. It's just that you have to get rid of the royalty, not get rid of them and give them back their royal estates.

This makes sense to me, although it does seem to be saying we should take wealth and privilege away from people that inherited it from immoral ancestors, which is a hard sell in a society mostly controlled by people who inherited wealth and privilege from immoral ancestors.

[scriver]

So far my predictions seem correct. White exact result will not be known until Wednesday because of postal and early votes being delayed (and also customary correction checks of all votrs), so far it looks like the left and right-minus-SD is both equalling out at ~40%, and SD becoming the goverment-maker with their 17%.

Only other way is if either of the two largest parties from each wing, the Social Democrats and the Moderates, join up with the other wing. The Moderates refuses to work with the left as long as Vänsterpartiet (Left Party) is part of the goal, and Vänsterpartiet holds 8% the left vote. So what it comes down to is whether the Social Democrats will abandon all pretentious of still being left-wing and join up with their neo-liberal comerades-in-thought on the right or not[/url] (Miljöpartiet, the Environment Party, who while they are the most liberally inclined of the "left", are more or less irrelevant because of their meagre 4.5%). Either way, SD stands only to gain because if the Social Democrats refuses to join with the right, SD becomes the only way to secure government, but if S forms a government with any of the right-wing parties then SD will see another wave of disappointed social democrat voters join them.

And if you don't think the Social Democrats stands to loose to SD, well, they're certainly feeling threatened enough over the prospect to let the union whip fly (Google translation of article here).

So after five months since the election Sweden finally got a government today as the Riksdag elected a Prime Minister. The Social Democrats and the Environment Party forms a joint government through the support of the Centre Party, the Peoples Party/the Liberals, and the Left Party. It wasn't my primary guess of what was going to happened but I did call it second, as highlighted above.

As expected, the Social Democrats completely folded to the right wing parties in doing so. They went as far as to sign a written agreement that means they're abandoning all main fighting points of Swedish socialist agenda in favour of huge, far-reaching neo-liberal reforms of the Swedish system. I really can't overstate the kind of damage this will cause to Sweden's system, and likely irreparable. If there ever was a point one could truly and indisputably say the Swedish Model was dead, this is it. And they wonder why things are going so badly for the Social Democrat movement.

I'm foreseeing a massive loss of support for the Social Democrats in the next four years to the Sweden Democrats, their main computers for the lower class and workers' movement vote. All that remains to see is whether the latter will be the biggest or second biggest party after the next election - regardless their likely usurpation of the Moderates seat as the biggest right-wing party is likely to shape the rest of the conservative arena for the foreseeable future.

And if you want something darkly funny to laugh at in this horrible mess then listen up: the Left Party (the furthest riksdag party to the left) cast the kingmaking vote for the Socdem state minister today, in full knowledge of this agreement they are beholden to promising this long list of reforms that the Left does not support (they've promised to "fight" the reformars in the riksdag but their 8% can't do much against the others' 90%. Their only chance to prevent them was to prevent the government from forming by not supporting it) - but not just that: Part of the agreement is literally that the Left Party be excluded from all forms of political influence. The Left Party literally voted to remove themself from any and all kinds of political relevance. They might as well dissolve the party for the next four years. They had the power of whether this government went through or not, and they voted to strip themselves of all power. Fucking priceless.

[ChairmanPoo]

Why did they support that?

[SaberToothTiger]

My guess is that they did so to make sure that the status quo, however awful, remains. A reelection would likely mean gains for SD and nobody wants that.

[scriver]

Why did they support that?

I can't come up with any explanation that makes rational sense.

As SaberTooth says it might be the case that an reelection - and if they didn't come up with a viable candidate for State Minister today the speaker had promised to call for reelection - would mean an increase of percentages for the Sweden Democrats (SD). However, if election/party support surveys were to be trusted, it also meant a decrease of support for every other party except the Left Party (V), which stood unchanged, and the Social Democrats (S), which also had gained support.

There was the chance that the reelection might mean a Moderates-Christ Democrats-government-with-the-support-of-SD instead (or in a worse case scenario, if SD would have surpassed the Moderates as the biggest rightwing party, an M-KD-SD government). Which they of course would not want. But then they actually could have worked with the other parties, particularly the other left wing ones, to oppose right wing policies. Now we have a supposedly left wing government that has bound itself to extreme right wing policy. I don't see how this is better. Especially in the long run, as I believe it will completely undermine people's belief in the left wing parties. It certainly undermines mine, but it is already pretty dug through to begin with.

And as I linked above, SD is already profiting from support flow from disenfranchised underclass and workers' movement demographics. They're going to profit from this too. So basically they traded a chance of SD gaining seats in the Riksdag for a chance of SD stealing their own voter base, all while supporting a government that has signed an agreement to literally prevent the Left Party from having any kind of influence of politics. It's utter spineless madness.

[smjjames]

@Scriver: Sounds like some sort of non-eucilidean horseshoe loop or something....

Anyways, regarding Brexit, theres chatter that they could do a snap election, and they've been exploring a second referendum (it's the BBC liveblog as it's not one particular entry)

[misko27]

Seems that the British, having run out of ideas to rule out, are being forced to reexamine some of them.

The crown estate would still pay for itself, and the castles and mansions would still attract tourism, if the UK got rid of the crown. It's just that you have to get rid of the royalty, not get rid of them and give them back their royal estates.

Ok, argument as follows.

Major Premise: Taking away private property is the ESSENCE OF COMMUNISM.
Minor Premise: COMMUNISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE
Syllogism: Taking away private property is bad.

Major Premise: UK is GLORIOUS CAPITALIST COUNTRY>
Minor Premise: Taking away private property is bad.
Syllogism: UK shouldn't take away private property.

Additional Premise #1: Royal Family owns the UK.
Additional Premise #2: Taking away the UK would require taking away their property rights.

Conclusion:
Abolishing Royal Family is the equivalent to establishing a British Communist State.
QED.

[scriver]

You seem to assume much too much americanism in your reasoning

[Loud Whispers]

Monarchical Ancapitalism will solidify the monarchy with the floating of the Royal Crypto

[Dorsidwarf]

12 minutes

5184 comments

Brexit only, Final Destination, No Banter

[scriver]

Has to be bots?

[Elderon]

So greece accepted agreement about Macedonia changing their name to North Macedonia , which, at least according to BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47002865 , caused lots of protest on Greece streets and division in government.
Can someone with more intimate knowledge about these events can explen why big part of Greece population are so upset? Doesn't name change alleviate fears about potential NM territorial ambitions and dibs on Greece cultural heritage? Or is there some other conflict beneath it?

[scriver]

North Macedonia still had Macedonia in it, obviously. The Greeks wants them to stop calling themselves Macedonians. This allays nothing any more than the previous Former Yugoslavic Republic of Macedonia name did. Accepting the name Northern Macedonia would only encreditate the Macedonians' claims on the name, which is what the Greeks dislike, so it's understandable that anyone who is against the slack people calling themselves that would still be against it calling themselves that with a "North" in front of it.

[ChairmanPoo]

All that conflict about salad preparation. Madness

[scriver]

I know what you mean because fruit salad is one of the handful of words I remember from Spanish class