Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jipehog]

Industrious fuckers, not as good as timberborn beavers though

Macron famously compared himself as president to Jupiter when he first won the election. Ie, he tells people what to do, and they make it happen, dictator style.

According to his people the idea is that the president cannot be a micro-manager, he is the ultimate decider but the cabinet must deal with daily politics. That overall it was just a posture and a way to distance himself from previous two presidents. Is that a valid reason?

[Loud Whispers]

The dutch trains are being plagued by badgers. The railway service just finished clearing badger lairs today, only to discover more 2km further down the line. All trains on the line have been cancelled, the railway dikes have been compromised too much by the digging underneath. It is expected that over here in Noord Brabant, trains won't ride for another week. In Friesland, it is expected there will be no trains for at least a month.

Protected wildlife vs railway company. Round 1. Protected wildlife wins! FATALITY!

Quit badgering me trains!

[da_nang]

Finnish Parliamentary elections today. There's a good chance for a right-wing victory over the center-left government led by the Social Democrats.

Polling shows that the Social Democratic Party (center-left), The National Coalition Party (center-right/liberal conservative), and the Finns Party (right/national conservative) are neck and neck.

EDIT: Votes are counted. The National Coalition Party is the biggest party with 48 seats, the Finns Party second biggest with 46 seats, and the Social Democratic Party third biggest at 43 seats.

We're looking at a minority right-wing government, a center-right coalition government, or a grand coalition. The National Coalition Party, the Finns Party, and the Christian Democrats are missing two seats for a 50%+1 majority. It's highly unlikely the Swedish People's Party and the Finns Party will work together. A right-wing government would therefore need to look for support from the Centre Party (23 seats), Movement Now (1 seat), or maybe the Green League (13 seats). It's doubtful the For Åland Party (1 seat) will offer support for a right-wing government with the Finns Party.

Code: (Elected parties) [Select]

National Coalition Party    48 seats    20.8%
Finns Party                 46 seats    20.1%
Social Democratic Party     43 seats    19.9%
Centre Party                23 seats    11.3%
Green League                13 seats     7.0%
Left Alliance               11 seats     7.1%
Swedish People's Party       9 seats     4.3%
Christian Democrats          5 seats     4.2%
Movement Now                 1 seat      2.4%
For Åland Party              1 seat      0.5%


[Digital Hellhound]

Marin and the Social Democrats did very well for a government party (+3 seats), but their coalition partners got absolutely butchered. Media and party leaders are pointing fingers at tactical voting there (Left Alliance and Green voters going over to SDP, Centre to the right wing), which sounds believable to some degree. Greens had an especially disastrous collapse.

The Finnish right is currently obsessed with government debt and planning cuts to government spending at any cost. NCP also wants tax cuts. How that's going to balance the treasury is anyone's guess.

In the long term this country is kinda fucked, which granted is the case for most of Europe. Population aging fast, babies not being made, pension and healthcare costs ballooning while nurses are already fleeing the field in droves. All parties save for the True Finns are calling for increased immigration to save the economy, but poor and underpaid migrants aren't going to fill every shortage (plus, it's rife with exploitation) and Finnish immigration services are known to make life hell for the potential highly-educated professional immigrants.

Plus the parties actually calling for concrete action in climate policy are not the ones being voted for. NCP wants green capitalism to save us all, True Finns are either in the 'not real' or 'real, but we can't do anything' camps. Hurray.

An interesting phenomen that has been pointed out is the social media boost the True Finns got, with a majority of young voters going for them. They are very active on Tiktok and it's the tiktokker candidates who were among the most voted. Other parties don't really have a Tiktok presence save for a few individual candidates (who generally did well). The algorithm heavily pushes True Finn content, though, so I imagine it's harder to break in.

To be honest I have only respect for the True Finn social media machine, if only the left could also flood the place with easy populist soundbites as effectively.

[EuchreJack]

Damn, that sounds like the hellhole I live in! (America)
TikTok's a great way to promote candidates: It's built by the Chinese and candidates are funded by the Russians.

[EuchreJack]

The Finnish right is currently obsessed with government debt and planning cuts to government spending at any cost. NCP also wants tax cuts. How that's going to balance the treasury is anyone's guess.

Easy: Cut services.
Except the old farts don't want THEIR services cut.
Yup, same problems as the US...

[brewer bob]

Yeah, shitty results and things gonna get more messed up than before, but the election outcome wasn't really surprising.

Pretty concerned what this might mean to many of my immigrant friends...

To be honest I have only respect for the True Finn social media machine, if only the left could also flood the place with easy populist soundbites as effectively.

This just makes me think that most people shouldn't be allowed on the internet if they buy that shit so easily.

[da_nang]

Silvio Berlusconi is dead.

And Italians rejoiced.

[brewer bob]

Good riddance!

[martinuzz]

Let's hope he will be a trendsetter for some of the other old populists to keel over

[da_nang]

Hell has frozen over in Finland (shorter English version). The National Coalition Party has formed a government with the Christian Democrats, the Finns Party, and the Swedish People's Party. The submitted government program is right-wing as fuck (relative to Finnish politics), especially economically.

Tax cuts, service cuts, benefits cuts. If you're on a mortgage, good luck; I hope your finances are in order, cause the housing benefits are going bye-bye if you own more than 10000€ in real property. Unemployed or otherwise down on your luck financially? Fewer days of unemployment checks, and social assistance benefits are going to have even more stringent requirements. Sick? First sick day is unpaid, medicine will be more expensive, and there will be more emphasis on private healthcare—as if KELA, our social security agency, is going to be happy to compensate for the higher costs. Student? Better be prepared to work while you study and/or move in together with complete strangers (IN FINLAND?!), 'cause the government is fucking with student benefits as well. Hell, they're even trying to entice retirees to go back to work with lower income tax for pensioners.

The poor will suffer, guaranteed. More will be funneled into social assistance, and whatever checklist-bureaucrat hell the government is planning to make of that.

I'm guessing the only thing the Swedish People's Party managed to do was safeguard the Swedish official language status, the Sámi law proposal, and rein in the Finns Party on immigration and perhaps the international arena. In any case, they are now no longer right-of-center. They're full right-wing.

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot. They're also reining in on political strikes and sympathetic strikes, as well as making it easier to fire people, and have local work contracts (in contrast to national union work contracts).

[EuchreJack]

On this day was the Finnish Crim Squad born

[Great Order]

Hopefully Finns will be faced with all that and balk fucking hard.

I'm saying that from a country that faced over a decade of austerity and went "We need more austerity"

[scriver]

Not finnished yet

It ain't over til the Finnalé

Other Finnish puns

I hope it goes better next time, neighbours

[Loud Whispers]

I'm just surprised to learn there's a Swedish party in Finland