desensitized43

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

The former labour candidate had no infrastructure or support or campaign help. Given other recent by election results and the 10000 odd majority, then yeah, he would have romped it. I dunno if what he said was antisemitic, but it was definitely idiotic and betrayed a kind of brain gap that you'd hope an MP would be above. It'll be interesting to see how the explanations play out over the next few days.

But ironically what he said would have gone down very well with the demographics of Rochdale.

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

As you know, I’m not a Tory, but it would be a smart move, tactically.  It’s a thing people know Labour is proposing, the non dom hit, so it spikes that gun, and it provides cover for tax cuts. I reckon it’s quite likely.

and that's the reason Labour will wait as long as possible before announcing anything despite all the hyperbole from certain people that they're not offering anything.

15 hours ago, maqroll said:

Mid season points manipulation like we've seen with Everton opens a big can of worms. It's done without transparency and by people who might have bias or an inherent conflict of interest. 

It's very much worse than that. The ongoing case with Everton and Forest is 100% not going to be complete (including guaranteed appeals from both because it's risk free to the clubs involved) before the end of the season so you're going to have a situation where teams have been "kind of relegated" but might actually have survived. It's a massive **** mess and they'll need to change the rules again so these are dealt with before the end of the season.

Interesting interview with Anna Soubry on the News Agents podcast about Lee Anderson. Apparently he was a Labour Councillor until he defected in large part because he expressed some pretty colourful views about the Gypsy community. Didn't know he was affiliated to Labour.

The guy's basically a proper white van man whose managed to somehow slime a way into politics. I think we all know people like him who would swear to the hilt "I'm not racist but...". 

8 hours ago, bickster said:

I think there’s one thing missing and it’s quite crucial, parliamentary convention says that on an opposition day motion the speaker only usually selects only the government amendment, so you essentially have the motion as proposed by the one opposition party and the government amendment. Hoyle broke the convention by allowing the Labour amendment. The situation has only arisen twice before and (I think) on both occasions it had been agreed by all parties that the multiple amendments would be allowed prior to the session starting in the chamber.

The SNP rightly expected that any Labour amendment simply wouldn’t be selected, their anger is justified. The Tories anger, however, is just faux outrage, it makes no difference to them for the reasons you’ve outlined.

I don’t think anyone needs lessons in following parliamentary convention from the Tories who’ve been trampling all over centuries of precedent for years now in order to “get breggzit dun” and literally lied to the monarch in order to shut the place down and get their way.

8 minutes ago, Zatman said:

He should have been sacked a long time ago. It was clear last season they would be cannon fodder but people built them up as a top ten challenger and Kompany be set to replace Pep

Kompany has bought into his hype and so did a lot of peoples. Were barely mentioned in the relegation predictions

I don't think it was clear they'd be cannon fodder. They comfortably won the division playing some really good football. The issue was that doing it at Blues or Rotherham is very different to going to top half premier league teams and trying to go toe-to-toe with them. I've only seen a couple of teams come up and  do that successfully (Wolves is the one that comes to mind). For a lot of the league there's probably 12 games a season where there's a very real possibility you'll be camped in your own half trying to not get destroyed. You can't be trying to pass out while getting no time on the ball, giving away shocking goals, taking 5-0 defeats and then coming out going "well we've got a style of playing and we're going to continue to do that even if it's clearly not working".

Burnley have really been disappointing this season. When they got promoted it felt like they were the best placed to make a go of it but they've been really slow to adapt to the league and needed to abandon some of the principles that served them well last year, play a bit more compact, a bit more long ball and just generally show a bit of pragmatism. That's on Kompany and I think if it wasn't for his name there'd be a lot of pundits and others saying he's got to go. People have rightly been all over Sheffield united for being probably one of the worst teams in the league but Burnley have the same points and only a marginally better goal difference.

30 minutes ago, Genie said:

Yup to the above. 
They aren’t even good at “dead cats” anymore. Kids take phones to schools now sure, but they are not allowed to use them in the classroom. I’m sure that’s true for every school in the country, so why bother making a thing about banning them? 

The roofs and walls of these schools are falling down around them, maybe fixing those is better way for him to keep them safer.

Oh yes, I'd forgot about the RAAC. In their defense that's successive governments that have known about that who've crossed their fingers and hoped that the bomb didn't go off on their watch.

There's a pattern though...if it costs anything to do something about it, they aren't interested.

4 minutes ago, Genie said:

Rishi has started his war on phones in the classroom now, those things that are already not allowed to be used. He wanted them to be not used even more to make the students safer.

It's of vital importance to the nation. Never mind the state of the NHS, Councils going bankrupt, literal shit being poured daily into our rivers and seas, an economy stalling, war in Europe and the Middle East, the meltdown of his party at the ballot box and I'm sure I'm forgetting many other things. We've got to stop them kids being able to send those noods to each other and read about all the terrible things his party has done to the country that might make them want to kill themselves.

Sheffield are absolutely atrocious. I genuinely feel sorry for archer being sold there. 

6 minutes ago, Genie said:

Nothing yet from Rishi or the Tories about another humiliation?

That's because they're all sharpening their knives for a Julius Caesar moment and Sunak has decided to follow jolly old Johnson's example and hide in a fridge.

 Does this mean we need to find a new profanity filter?

2 hours ago, Jareth said:

Ali was clearly vetted and passed fit by the Labour establishment, and had a track record serving Blair. Many came to his defense to save him. Of course he should be cut off same as anyone else who have crossed this 'line'. But you have to wonder, if he's not a left-wing nut job conspiracy theorist, then why on earth would he say what he said?

Only he will know for sure but if he believes what he said then it's hard to argue he's not an anti-semite. It's possible he doesn't believe what he said and he's playing to a certain crowd. The conspiracy theory that Israel knew about October 7th and chose to let it happen as a pretext for eliminating the Palestinians, is absurd but arguable that he's just an idiot. Where he crossed the line for me is the comments on Jews being in control of the media. There's only one way to interpret that.

Just caught up the days **** up from labour. Allowing a guy to stand who seemingly believes (enough to say it aloud at least) that the Israelis knew about October 7th and chose to let it go ahead as some kind of pretext to conquer Gaza.

It’s too late to remove him from the ballot in the Rochdale by election and it seems that he won’t be removed from the party for…reasons…not quite sure why when countless others have been ejected for far less.

23 minutes ago, Mr_Dogg said:

Yep, Biden is too old, that is undeniable. But that is an absolute hand grenade, will have a huge affect.

If Biden was re-elected, I believe he would be surrounded by people who could keep things under control, whereas Trump would just have yes men and lunatics.

That's the difference for those that are in the "they're both as bad" camp. Being president should be having a lot of intelligent people experts in their field around you to take and act on the best advice available. When you replace those people with sycophants who know next to nothing about their brief you get Trumps, Johnsons and Truss's.

What a catastrophic evening. We’re sleepwalking towards trump 2.0 and it’s terrifying.

It’s a shame his wife isn’t inclined to talk some sense into Biden and get him to stand aside. 

1 hour ago, DJBOB said:

One of the more pernicious propagandas that right wing media and social media have been effective at it is perpetuating this 'unfit for office' and 'Biden dementia' (as evidenced just by the clips you referenced).

There's a difference between 'unfit for office' and 'too old for office', the latter of which everyone can agree with.

But in terms of being fit for office - Biden has done a remarkable job with the narrow majorities he had on legislation, put together an effective cabinet staff with very little controversy, and has rebuilt many of the international ties severed during the Trump era - all while navigating two dangerous international conflicts.

That his major legislative accomplishments (lowering prescription drug costs, major country infrastructure that Republicans like to pretend they voted for, created domestic manufacturing jobs, child tax credit, green energy jobs) are not immediately touted is a major PR failure but the very accomplishments themselves won't be noticed until years down the road when Biden is long dead. It's not a quick media hit like LOWER TAXES that have profound negative long term impacts.

This is not a point to pick with you specifically but just a generalization that people, and specifically American people, are easily swayed over a 30 second clip (though this is nothing new and why Obama is so popular despite Biden arguably accomplishing more than he did in the first 2 years) as opposed to the actual betterment of the constituency. 

Too old to me say's he's unfit. He's not been the worst president, not even close but when his major achievement was getting there in the first place to beat out an orange fascist it's not saying much. He's been poor to average.

It's not just "right wing propaganda". He's old, slowing down, slurring and forgetting obvious things a man in that position ought to know. I don't know if he has dementia, but he certainly should be tested. My 96 year old grandmother has dementia and I recognise enough in what I'm seeing from Biden that we should be concerned. It's not just him though, Trump is also too old. You've also got senators and congressmen serving well into old age (as we have here with MP's and Peers), some of them on the supreme court are there for life. That can't be right. There's got to be some kind of upper limit imposed otherwise you get the situation we have now where you might as well put Dick Van Dyk up against Bill Shatner and be done with it.

1 hour ago, Panto_Villan said:

Not really, because that would imply both choices are equally bad. It should be pretty obvious to literally anyone with a functioning brain that Trump is much worse than Biden, even if Biden is past the age where he should be holding office.

Also if someone followed me around with a video camera for a few weeks (let alone years) you’d probably be able to make a highlights video making me look senile and I’m not even 40 yet.

Totally. It's a choice between someone 'unfit for office' and 'dangerous and unfit for office'

Just seen the clips of Biden confusing France with Germany, macron with Mitterrand (who’s been dead nearly 30 years) and unable to remember the name of hamas.

This year really is like that South Park episode where the voters have to decide between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.

10 minutes ago, sidcow said:

****.  We're not going through all that shit again are we? 

Well unless he plans to be the first immortal human in history it’ll happen at some point. He’s definitely not making it to 96 like liz.

King Charles diagnosed with cancer.

No mention of what it is or how far along.

Keep waking up and checking to see if the US have responded to the Iranian drone strike yet.

They just look ridiculous at the minute. “We’re going to respond” “we’ve decided our response”…wait, leak what you plan to do, talk some more shit…nothing.

In the meantime all the targets you might have struck have been emptied of all the high value targets making anything you might do pretty much pointless.

12 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

It can equally be argued that the US is pushing proxy wars against all of those nations that exist in defiance of it - I think the US is setting tests at least as much as it's taking them.

 

Well we all have our strategic interests, don't we?

Iran want to push the western nations out of the region so they can have a free hand as one of the dominant powers. Western nations don't want a situation where one nation rises to that prominent position which would threaten oil supplies and international trade through Suez.

It wasn't that long ago that the US (under Trump) assassinated one of the IRG generals in a drone strike so I get what you're saying. Ultimately though the situation will need addressing at some point. Either the US will have to deal with Iran either diplomatically or militarily or leave the region.

On 28/01/2024 at 17:27, Jareth said:

It sort of makes sense that the US go to town with Iran - save us all the foreplay. 

It certainly feels like the US are being tested on multiple fronts right now, in Ukraine, the Middle East and in Taiwan. 
 

They look weak and massive risk averse and it’s encouraging enemies to be bolder in their rhetoric and provocation. It might makes sense to strike inside Iran as a warning to everyone else that the US is still willing to make tough decisions.

It's weird because you look at other sports (Rubgy, Cricket, NFL etc) which don't have segregation and largely it all goes off without any trouble at all, except for odd idiot.

Personally I think segregation has to some degree created more of a problem than would otherwise have been. You've got 2 sets of fans in their designated areas shouting abuse at each other in something like a mob mentality. If you gradually introduced "mixed" or "neutral" areas to stadiums you might find that to some degree alleviates some of the problems without totally killing the atmosphere of the game. I think to some degree the league and media encourage the tribalism thing because we all love the atmosphere of a big derby.

At the end of the day we're all just fans and human beings and if you were sat next to an opposition fan and could have a laugh and a beer together, discuss and watch the game in a friendly way as happens in other sports over the world, surely that's better.