Germany aren't being altruistic, they've got an ageing population and they're not breeding enough, they need fresh blood.

I read today that Germany is openly talking about receiving 500,000 asylum seekers per annum, for 'the foreseeable future' (and 800,000 this year).

Incredible, really (IMO).

On a basic level, does Germany:

a) Have housing currently spare to house 500k unexpected people.
b) Build houses at this rate *in excess* of current population growth trends.

Germany's population will shrink more slowly than expected over the next 45 years thanks to high levels of immigration, the country's statistics office said on Tuesday.

Immigrants and asylum seekers, many of them from Syria, have brought net migration to its highest level in more than two decades, and fuelled an increasingly heated national debate.

But the government and industry say immigrants are badly needed to counter the looming demographic squeeze caused by an ageing population.

Germany's population, which hit 81.1 million in 2014, will shrink to between 67.6 and 73.1 million in 2060, the statistics office said. The level of immigration will determine which end of that scale the population reaches.

Shrinking population sounds good to me, even if most of them are older.

Did anyone here pay their £2 £3 to help Labour pick a winner?

I was thinking about this the other day. If Corbyn can covert all those people who flooded in to support him into a new form of organisational base, he might get a similar army of enthusiasts on the ground to that the SNP were able to form after the Indyref.

Mate, you need to stop using phrases like "swivel-eyed". It's beneath you to resort to name calling just because you don't agree with people's policies.

Soz mate, not actually trying to piss anyone off (and I'm not saying Labour = 'swivel eyed'), but I genuinely think Corbyn and his policies are off the scale, and anyone who seriously believes this back to the 60s dark ages politics is going to work is IMO being totally irrational, as so far many other commentators have also said.

Huh. I thought it was something Cavey said a lot, but it turns out he's only said it 14 times: search.php?keywords=swivel&terms=all&author=cavey&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

Swivel on, I say!

Huh. I thought it was something Cavey said a lot, but it turns out he's only said it 14 times: search.php?keywords=swivel&terms=all&author=cavey&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

Swivel on, I say!

I think it arguably is the one good use of Swivel-eyed to apply to the policy of "He'll never become prime minister but I'm voting for him to change the narrative against the EVIL TORIES and ensure that by doing so the EVIL TORIES will go virtually unchallenged in the next election and by doing so I think we'll have less EVIL TORY POWER as in 2025 people will be really pissed off and probably vote in Ed Balls so there will be no more EVIL TORIES."

It's up there with voting for a party as they will renew trident because although you disagree with it for its world destructing capabilities it does enhance the prospect of nuclear war which although you are terrified of the destruction that will cause will have the key benefit that if the planet is turned to glass, our CO2 emissions will go right down so that's the greenhouse effect sorted.*


*May not be a valid comparison.

Calling Osborne 'Gideon' for example.

Actually it's me that gets annoyed by that.

I think it arguably is the one good use of Swivel-eyed to apply to the policy of "He'll never become prime minister but I'm voting for him to change the narrative against the EVIL TORIES and ensure that by doing so the EVIL TORIES will go virtually unchallenged in the next election and by doing so I think we'll have less EVIL TORY POWER as in 2025 people will be really pissed off and probably vote in Ed Balls so there will be no more EVIL TORIES."

Hmmm... guess I'm just a bit sensitive to it.

And yes, the swivel-eyed thing is exactly the sort of thing you tear a strip off other people for if they direct such comments in the opposite direction. (Calling Osborne 'Gideon' for example.)

Mate, you need to stop using phrases like "swivel-eyed". It's beneath you to resort to name calling just because you don't agree with people's policies.

Kind of like Kinnock paved the way for a Labour victory in 97, whilst never really looking like he'd win an election himself.

I ike to think I'm pretty open-minded, but I do find that I pretty much skim read or entirely skip many of your posts that keep re-hashing the same silly name calling, because the phrases catch my glance and it makes me skip over them. I think this is because the focus is too much on playground names rather than what you actually want to say, which I am sure is (or could be) interesting and of another viewpoint to the one I find myself at according to my own nature and beliefs.

I've never "torn a strip" of anyone, for any such thing.

Still, I suppose it's too much to expect you to get your basic facts straight, when there's another opportunity for a "dig 'n derail" to be had, play the man not the ball.
Sigh. Sure the Windows 10 thread could do with another update re. how stupid people are to install it; any chance of a breather in this thread?

Expand, please. Unless you mean "Paved the way" by losing so badly that the New Labour project was the only way forward and electing Corbyn will go against the party's own research into what they need to do to win.

You're being really unpleasant to me recently.

You've just picked out one sentence from several entirely 'proper' posts I've made to this thread in the last few days and picked me up on that, and then chucked in yet another dig about other 'lesser' threads that I should be posting to instead.

EBG's profane and vitriolic rants directed at Bamba though? Just fine apparently, he got what he was asking for.

You're not going to bully me out of this thread.

He did do a lot to remove the far left from the party (the entryism of the Trots for example), started to refashion the party's approach on issues like business etc, and to reshape Labour's image to something more professional. I'd say he laid the foundations for Smith and then Blair to build on.

I sometimes wonder how things would have panned out had John Smith not died...

Expand, please. Unless you mean "Paved the way" by losing so badly that the New Labour project was the only way forward and electing Corbyn will go against the party's own research into what they need to do to win.

He moderated and modernised the party, and he was a bloody good orator as well.

Without the Kinnock years New Labour would never happened, a bloke like John Smith would never have become leader.

I'd really like to see an alternate timeline where John Smith won a general election.

That's such rubbish and you know it. I only picked YOU up for claiming something, to score points, that actually I hadn't even done. So pardon me for pointing out this inaccuracy.

I'm not raking over the EBG/Bamba coals again. I purposely kept out of it and said so, and have moved on. I'm not EBG's (or Bamba's) keeper.

But it's the last point I really take issue with - I've never bullied anyone in my life. If you think me calling you out is "bullying" (as against a backdrop of knowing me personally for thirteen bloody years when I've stuck up for you dozens of times), you're off your head. For clarity: I'm happy for anyone to post in this thread for what little that is worth, as long as they're constructive. I don't mind people falling out, being polemic to a point etc., I'm no saint, but when seemingly the sole reason some people post is to piss Person (A) off, or wind up Person (B) because of some historical shite or other, and in so doing they derail a really interesting discussion and/or discourage our quieter (often intellectual) posters from contributing, that pisses me off.

Sorry to hear that Mimi.
As APOD has noted, much of the whole Corbyn thing *is* irrational to an awful lot of pretty sensible, mainstream people. I try to accommodate people where I can, but I'm sorry, I'm me, I do write in mildly polemic terms and if people honestly don't know where I'm coming from after 10 years that makes me sad - but sorry, I'm not changing. People don't have to read my posts or visit my thread, I'm not making them.

Last word regarding me personally, CBA commenting further on that score.

I've heard you talk about your thread before, but I don't know which thread you are talking about

I guess the problem, for me, is that your name-calling takes away from the substance of your posts, so it appears to weaken your arguments and the points you are making. Fair enough if you don't care, but the more you say it the more you seem to be rallying against something unsubstantial with objections made of playground opposition.

EBG's profane and vitriolic rants directed at Bamba though? Just fine apparently, he got what he was asking for.

Anyway... do people think a Corbyn victory on Saturday is now a foregone conclusion (as I do), or could one of the others yet force a second round and/or even win?

DP on standby/on ice this end. Standing by, DEFCON 2.

I think there's still a chance of a Burnham win. I don't think that Corbyn will quite get 50% in the first round.

Kendall out first is a foregone conclusion. Her votes will split between Cooper and Burnham.

Then if Cooper takes enough of those to oust Burnham, Corbyn wins, as he'll get some 2nd choice from Burnham supporters.

If Burnham makes the last round though, he'll likely pick up the 2nd choice from most of Cooper's votes and Kendall's 3rd choices. So it's not impossible that the AV system will bring in Burnham instead of Corbyn.

That might actually be the best for the Labour party too, as long as Burnham gives Corbyn a prominent role in the shadow cabinet to reflect the shift in party mood.

Corbyn to win overall still favourite, but I think Burnham's a decent enough shout for me to stick a tenner on at 7/1.

An excellent read on feeling conflicted by Corbyn

http://thequietus.com/articles/18714-jeremy-corbyn-labour-election-rally-policies

One more thing: if Corbyn were to contend a General Election, it's worth considering who he'd be up against. Cameron insists he won't contest a third election, with George Osborne his anointed successor. That could be a gift to Labour – it's not just that Osborne is scum, it's that he can't conceal it. No one seems too bothered for now, so long as he's just some Igor lurching round Cameron's lab, but when that face has been on every TV screen in Britain for months, radiating smug malevolence, simultaneously spiteful and weak... that's not the customary front-benchers' mask, with its semi-convincing, stencilled-on sincerity. That's the face of a snivelling, evil bastard. It's unmistakable. Giving him that little Roman emperor's haircut hasn't changed a thing; Osborne may still be thought of as competent, but he will never be popular.

It assumes that Corbyn could nudge the Overton Window leftwards while in opposition (which is almost unprecedented), while under ceaseless, scurrilous – and sometimes well-founded – attack.