Very interesting indeed, thanks for the additional info.







Ireland has for a long time been a structuarally very conservative country, with a strong influence by the Catholic Church. For example, until very recently, Ireland had the strictest abortion laws in all of western europe and a healthy majority of the population supported it. I think, but am not sure, that this strong Catholic influence is the main reason for their conservative views on the role of women in society.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jul 19 2018 08:21am

while that makes a lot of sense it still surprises me. especially since i've been there and didn't have the impression at all. sure, i've mostly been around young folk, but still...
then again, i didn't expect czechia to be THAT extreme either to be honest. guess not only age makes a massive difference, but i assume rural vs. urban areas as well...

I'm surprised that you're all surprised about Ireland. It's a conservative society relative to the rest of Europe.

I guess the more rural parts are, because my experience in Dublin was anything but conservative

Answered your own question, was about to say it’s a liberal city in a conservative country. The people there are pretty damn religious too, it’s probably the most religious country in Europe.

I think Ireland has a huge age gap, larger than in most other countries. the older women are VERY conservative, and the younger women are pretty darn liberal.

Blair speaking some sense here. It's a shame that the Iraq war overshadowed all his domestic policy achievements.

he's responsible for some horrible immigration policies [1] and neoliberal banking deregulation coupled with deindustrialization of the UK [2].



[1]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3466485/How-Blair-cynically-let-two-million-migrants-Explosive-biography-reveals-PM-s-conspiracy-silence-immigration-debate.html
[2]: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tony-blair-must-share-the-blame-for-financial-crisis-6509408.html

We're a rich country in the EU, so we haven't been able to control immigration from Europe for decades. The only substantive immigration policy I can find that Blair presided over is a laxing of the primary purpose rule, so can you provide a source of an actual policy because what you linked is not a policy critique.

The 'Big Bang' under Thatcher in 1986 was the deregulation of the financial sector, that allowed the merging of bank ownership and closer links between commercial and investment banks. The US shortly followed suit and was a factor in the build up to the 08' recession. The deindustrialisation of the UK was over before Blair even got into office, and again was largely facilitated by Thatcher. My only criticism of Blair over the financial crisis are the deficits we were running leading up to the crisis that limited our fiscal policy options in responding to the crisis.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/8850654/Was-the-Big-Bang-good-for-the-City-of-London-and-Britain.html
Long article on Thatcher's legacy, read the part about industrialisation: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/apr/12/thatcher-britain

This post was edited by dro94 on Jul 20 2018 02:03am

Immigration from Europe hasn't really been your problem. You were never in Schengen and are not connected by land, which makes things incredibly easy to control.