desensitized43

It was interesting that Sky chose to run an interview this morning with a guy who's current really involved with several Muslim groups Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), Muslim Engagement and Development who says that this is an attack on free speech. He was also one of the main ring leaders of the group that was protesting outside schools in Birmingham saying they shouldn't be allowing "LGBT literature" in schools. Hardly a poster boy for the "we're definitely not extremists" cause.

I don't think he's overconfident. He strikes me as a deeply insecure person on a number of levels, hence getting so defensive when he thinks people are laughing at him. It was only a few weeks ago that he literally admitted changing how he was going to vote at the last minute because people were laughing at him. Like a lot of people he overcompensates through bravado but like you say, he's actually stupid, so he gives the game away with what he actually says when you listen. He even did it again yesterday when he talked about his parents saying he needed to go to reform in order for them to vote for him. I mean, what the **** is that? He can't even count on his parents unconditional support? That maybe hints to something in his upbringing, but who knows. Ultimately, his insecurity causes him to look for some kind of validation or affirmation wherever he can find it so he has to call about the emails and letters he says he receives from people saying "you go, Lee!". So yeah, total bellend. Obviously one of those guys who's definitely a racist but lacks the self awareness to know he is. Undoubtedly very stupid. Manbaby.

Did you hear the opening to his statement? He had apparently positioned himself behind a giant flag, started spouting his nonsense and all the journalists were giggling, one assumes, because a giant flag was saying it wanted it's country back.

I don't know about you but I think when you add "Great British" to the front of something it makes it at least 70, maybe even 100 times better. Great British Power Great British Rail Great British Wind Great British Bake Off It's just makes me fell like Winston Churchill is in the room with me telling me everything is going to be alright chap and we're going to beat those Bratwurst eating so and so's.

When I stayed there for a work event last year I noticed from my hotel room there was an apartment block opposite and on these massive high rise balconies were artificial grass, kids bikes and slides etc. I just thought - Who'd want their kids playing on a balcony 50 stories up? Who'd want to raise a family in a high rise apartment? It just seemed like an utterly mental way to live unless you're a single person or maybe a young couple without a family.

I think it's general dissatisfaction with everything. The urge to give whoever is in power a kicking, regardless of whether you broadly agree with or like them, is pretty powerful.

That's the double danger of having someone on those wages. You want them gone and you're willing to basically move them on for nothing but the bastards just won't go. We've felt that pain with the likes of Richards, Bent and McCormack.

I've been susprised how well this guy has done. If the money was right I'd sign him permenantly in the summer but knowing Barca he's probably on something utterly ridiculous.

Yep. You think the players have a shitty attitude now just wait until they've officially been told they've got nothing more to play for. See Chelsea for how that goes.

What got me was when he started talking about people undermining democracy. I don't think the guy who's not one a general election and lost his own parties internal leadership election but still ended up as leader by default because the person he lost to is batshit crazy can talk about respecting a democractic process.

I'm not sure it's particularly controversial to say different things to different communities as long as what you're saying in one doesn't directly contradict the other. In one he campaigns on stuff that would be pretty standard stuff in a lot of the country (Hospitals, Public Services, Business, Football etc) along with a couple of things more specific to Rochdale (grooming gangs) and a wedge issue (trans) but says nothing of Israel/Palestine. In the other he basically wastes a sheet of paper on a single issue which to me suggests he thinks that demographic are far more interested in what's going on 3000 miles away than what's happening with their local maternity hospital...it might be so, but I doubt it and it's very simplistic. The fact he won suggests he at least him some of the right notes in that constituency though.

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

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.

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...".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.