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Post by carlton43 on Apr 30, 2024 20:21:12 GMT
I accept that, which is why there is a huge range of Tory opinion on this forum. We even have heslingtonian in the Tory sub forum even though he has been badmouthing the party and those of us in it like a scorned spouse for months. However, on Noakes, there's a limit. I simply don't see her as a Conservative. Incidentally I am very happy to be removed from the Conservative sub forum as I'm no longer a Conservative supporter. Let's please attempt to keep our big tent on the right and of the right here in this small part of our Forum. I will accept banishment of course if asked to go, but I like it here even if far less comfortable with many of you than I used to be. I have broadened bridges with some members of the Red Team because they are going to win, I am not very tribal, I have intellectual and cultural interests that are closer to them than to most of you, more of them are interested in serious films. I have always had friends in Labour and often more friends there than in the Conservatives. Do any of you feel the earth moving under our feet politically? This is not a 'left-right' issue. This is is deep fundamental stuff. We are faced with a large and growing internal enemy of the anti-British and it is being added to every day. How long before they are difficult to beat? How long before they outbreed us? Anybody else concerned about it?
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Post by greenchristian on Apr 30, 2024 21:50:20 GMT
Do any of you feel the earth moving under our feet politically? This is not a 'left-right' issue. This is is deep fundamental stuff. We are faced with a large and growing internal enemy of the anti-British and it is being added to every day. How long before they are difficult to beat? How long before they outbreed us? Anybody else concerned about it? If you're talking about Islamists (or Muslims more generally) it's worth noting that there has been a massive increase in apostasy levels in the last few years. Muslim leaders in the west are claiming that something like a quarter of young Muslims are leaving Islam (usually they embrace either Christianity or some variety of secular atheism). I don't think Muslim birth rates are high enough to compensate for that (especially since the numbers are likely to increase, rather than decrease). If you're talking about the woke left, then they tend to have even fewer children than the average. So those groups outbreeding everybody enough to become completely dominant isn't a likely outcome in the foreseeable future.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,719
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Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 30, 2024 22:22:31 GMT
Is that really all it is? Class 2 NICs you say? Is that what Brits living abroad should pay? I've lived abroad for 11 years and never paid it, but I think I'd better start. If you were working immediately before you left the uk and work abroad you qualify for class 2. It's £179.40 - gone up a bit with inflation
Hmmm. Interesting. I wonder if I qualify for anything for the three years I was working in Hong Kong 30 years ago. I expect it's too old by now. I usually get my records annually when I do my tax return, and annoyingly I have: "1994-95: 47 weeks. It is too late to pay for this year." rassenfrassen only five weeks short.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,719
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Post by J.G.Harston on Apr 30, 2024 22:34:32 GMT
Can you explain the German system (genuinely interested)? As someone who works in the benefits area (and is not exactly a right wing ideologue), I am deeply unimpressed by Pension Credit. It is a very perverse system whereby someone with very slightly lower national insurance contributions (and therefore State Pension) can unlock a whole host of additional benefits that leave them much better off than someone with a slightly higher State Pension. I think some sort of minimum income floor is beneficial, especially with groups like the disabled and housewives in mind, but I’d rather make Pension Credit less generous and increase the State Pension instead. Broadly speaking, it works like this. Pensions are made up of "pillars", that are broadly similar but sometimes very different across countries. This is why these studies comparing different countries' pensions are worthless. They don't quite match (I've taken some liberties to try and make it a bit more comprehensible and slightly less dull). Pillar 1: UK has the state pension, Germany has basic pension. Very few people get the latter, and it was designed because you could end up with a terrible pension. Because... Pillar 2: workplace contributions. In the UK, this is your basic workplace/occupational/superann or whatever moniker you prefer. In Germany, this takes the role of both the state pension and workplace pension (this bit isn't quite true but for ease of comparison here it is). Now here's the rub. It's based not just on years of contributions, but how much you put in in your best working years). The end result is that one in three Germans receive less than 750€ per month, which is less than the UK state pension - but those who do well out of it do very well indeed. Pillar 3- private pensions. Increasingly common in Germany for the reasons set out above. There's no SIPP or equivalent sadly. Pillar 4- this is one I've made up as it is worth stressing. UK pensioners get free healthcare. Germany pensioners get subsidised healthcare paid from the social security of the current workforce. This rarely factors into discussion of the two systems. One of my hobby horses is the Pillar 4 bit. It's as though there's a conspiracy amongst people who compare UK pensions with other countries'. Also, does Germany have any equivalent of Housing Benefit/Council Tax Benefit which is another "pension top-up" that is never mentioned in comparisons. My Mum's state pension + pension credit + benefits has often been more than my wages.
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Post by rcronald on May 1, 2024 4:17:29 GMT
Do any of you feel the earth moving under our feet politically? This is not a 'left-right' issue. This is is deep fundamental stuff. We are faced with a large and growing internal enemy of the anti-British and it is being added to every day. How long before they are difficult to beat? How long before they outbreed us? Anybody else concerned about it? If you're talking about Islamists (or Muslims more generally) it's worth noting that there has been a massive increase in apostasy levels in the last few years. Muslim leaders in the west are claiming that something like a quarter of young Muslims are leaving Islam (usually they embrace either Christianity or some variety of secular atheism). I don't think Muslim birth rates are high enough to compensate for that (especially since the numbers are likely to increase, rather than decrease). If you're talking about the woke left, then they tend to have even fewer children than the average. So those groups outbreeding everybody enough to become completely dominant isn't a likely outcome in the foreseeable future.
The problem with Muslims in the UK isn’t that every single one of them is a neofascist nutter (most of them really aren’t…), it’s that for every single one that secularises/converts, 1.5 seem to radicalise. The ‘woke’ wing of the left (not the Social Democratic, Democratic Socialist or the remains of the Christian Left ) worldwide would probably go extinct in the long term because, like you said, they have extremely low fertility rates (probably South Korea level of low).
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Post by doktorb🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ on May 1, 2024 6:44:08 GMT
Are we really tiptoeing into "we need to outbreed the enemy" territory here? Could we perhaps not?
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Post by rcronald on May 1, 2024 6:54:31 GMT
Are we really tiptoeing into "we need to outbreed the enemy" territory here? Could we perhaps not? Kerala is going to be 50% Muslim by around 2050 (Around 50% of babies born a decade ago were Muslims), when it is currently 26.5% because Hindus and Christians are not having kids there.
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Post by batman on May 1, 2024 6:54:44 GMT
Nothing further about Kate Osamor, though I think someone said that today might be the day she regains the Whip. Meanwhile nothing from Apsana Begum so we will have to see if there was any truth in that story.
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Post by carlton43 on May 1, 2024 7:28:54 GMT
Are we really tiptoeing into "we need to outbreed the enemy" territory here? Could we perhaps not? Help me get rid of my real and present enemy and I will join you ..... To tiptoe through the tulips ...... Well I might watch from the side of the field.
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Post by johnloony on May 1, 2024 8:45:51 GMT
Are we really tiptoeing into "we need to outbreed the enemy" territory here? Could we perhaps not? Nobody is suggesting that it’s compulsory for *you* to breed
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The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
Posts: 36,798
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Post by The Bishop on May 1, 2024 11:52:28 GMT
If you're talking about Islamists (or Muslims more generally) it's worth noting that there has been a massive increase in apostasy levels in the last few years. Muslim leaders in the west are claiming that something like a quarter of young Muslims are leaving Islam (usually they embrace either Christianity or some variety of secular atheism). I don't think Muslim birth rates are high enough to compensate for that (especially since the numbers are likely to increase, rather than decrease). If you're talking about the woke left, then they tend to have even fewer children than the average. So those groups outbreeding everybody enough to become completely dominant isn't a likely outcome in the foreseeable future.
The problem with Muslims in the UK isn’t that every single one of them is a neofascist nutter (most of them really aren’t…), it’s that for every single one that secularises/converts, 1.5 seem to radicalise. The ‘woke’ wing of the left (not the Social Democratic, Democratic Socialist or the remains of the Christian Left ) worldwide would probably go extinct in the long term because, like you said, they have extremely low fertility rates (probably South Korea level of low). Is there any actual hard evidence for such a ratio?
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Post by rcronald on May 1, 2024 12:18:12 GMT
The problem with Muslims in the UK isn’t that every single one of them is a neofascist nutter (most of them really aren’t…), it’s that for every single one that secularises/converts, 1.5 seem to radicalise. The ‘woke’ wing of the left (not the Social Democratic, Democratic Socialist or the remains of the Christian Left ) worldwide would probably go extinct in the long term because, like you said, they have extremely low fertility rates (probably South Korea level of low). Is there any actual hard evidence for such a ratio? The obvious answer is no (which is why I used the word ‘seem’). But it is pretty well known that a lot of young Muslims are more radical in their faith than their parents, especially compared to other religions.
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Post by edgbaston on May 1, 2024 13:24:52 GMT
Is there any actual hard evidence for such a ratio? The obvious answer is no (which is why I used the word ‘seem’). But it is pretty well known that a lot of young Muslims are more radical in their faith than their parents, especially compared to other religions. As ever the problem here is seeing a religious community as one homogeneous block. It’s farcical, nobody would ever look at the Christian population in this way.
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Post by John Chanin on May 1, 2024 14:33:14 GMT
Is there any actual hard evidence for such a ratio? The obvious answer is no (which is why I used the word ‘seem’). But it is pretty well known that a lot of young Muslims are more radical in their faith than their parents, especially compared to other religions. Much of this is not Muslim specific, but standard second generation immigrant. Many such people seem stuck between the culture of their parents and the culture of the society they live in, and may oscillate wildly from one pole to the other, without finding a balance. Their parents have no difficulty with the dual tradition - they know who they are, and why they live where they live. The third generation normally integrates without difficulty. This is sociologically a well-known phenomenon that is not limited to Britain or to muslims.
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nyx
Non-Aligned
Posts: 596
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Post by nyx on May 1, 2024 16:39:44 GMT
The obvious answer is no (which is why I used the word ‘seem’). But it is pretty well known that a lot of young Muslims are more radical in their faith than their parents, especially compared to other religions. Much of this is not Muslim specific, but standard second generation immigrant. Many such people seem stuck between the culture of their parents and the culture of the society they live in, and may oscillate wildly from one pole to the other, without finding a balance. Their parents have no difficulty with the dual tradition - they know who they are, and why they live where they live. The third generation normally integrates without difficulty. This is sociologically a well-known phenomenon that is not limited to Britain or to muslims. It depends on what you mean by "culture", really. If it's a question of which holidays you celebrate most, what languages you speak in the home, etc, there really aren't any issues with retaining ancestral culture, and indeed many US immigrant groups retain parts of their culture for generations. But it's clearly not just about that, judging by things like the Batley death threats.
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Post by greenchristian on May 1, 2024 16:55:08 GMT
Is there any actual hard evidence for such a ratio? The obvious answer is no (which is why I used the word ‘seem’). But it is pretty well known that a lot of young Muslims are more radical in their faith than their parents, especially compared to other religions. Yes, there is a movement towards radical Islam. In part this is a reaction against the fact that significant numbers of Muslims are leaving the faith (this is the first time in history that a significant proportion of Muslims have been exposed to serious criticisms of Islam, and Muslim apologists have no real answers to those criticisms). When that happens to a religion it is going to drive many followers towards the extremes. And in any religion (or other ideology) it is going to be the younger generations who have a stronger desire to be radical.
However the difference with other religions at least as much a matter of what counts as radicalism in different religions as it is of how likely people of different religions are to become radical. When i was in my teens and twenties the radical Christians I admired (and hoped I'd eventually have it in me to emulate) were those who did things like moving to a sink estate or a Muslim majority country to start a new church. For many Muslims, however, the obvious role-models for living out a radical version of their faith are full-on Jihadis. One of these radical extremes is extremely obvious to the general public. The other is almost entirely invisible to the general public.
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Post by rcronald on May 1, 2024 18:29:41 GMT
The obvious answer is no (which is why I used the word ‘seem’). But it is pretty well known that a lot of young Muslims are more radical in their faith than their parents, especially compared to other religions. Yes, there is a movement towards radical Islam. In part this is a reaction against the fact that significant numbers of Muslims are leaving the faith (this is the first time in history that a significant proportion of Muslims have been exposed to serious criticisms of Islam, and Muslim apologists have no real answers to those criticisms). When that happens to a religion it is going to drive many followers towards the extremes. And in any religion (or other ideology) it is going to be the younger generations who have a stronger desire to be radical.
However the difference with other religions at least as much a matter of what counts as radicalism in different religions as it is of how likely people of different religions are to become radical. When i was in my teens and twenties the radical Christians I admired (and hoped I'd eventually have it in me to emulate) were those who did things like moving to a sink estate or a Muslim majority country to start a new church. For many Muslims, however, the obvious role-models for living out a radical version of their faith are full-on Jihadis. One of these radical extremes is extremely obvious to the general public. The other is almost entirely invisible to the general public.
Always a pleasure hearing your (and CatholicLeft ‘s) views on different religions (and social matters) from a Christian leftist perspective!
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on May 5, 2024 14:59:16 GMT
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weld
Non-Aligned
Posts: 2,379
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Post by weld on May 5, 2024 15:08:07 GMT
Ah yes, former Tory leadership hopeful Rehman Christi...
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Post by Old Fashioned Leftie on May 5, 2024 15:24:27 GMT
Tory PCC majority in Kent down from over 130,000 to less than 30,000.
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