itdoesntmatterwhatthissay

11 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

I've got student debt. I'm not angry. 

Corbyn didn't promise anything. Labour didn't win the election...

And Labour and Momentum are offering an interesting strategy to opposition. 

As we all know, the opposition get a hell of a lot less screen time and column inches. So whilst Labour are still figuring as much as they can in that domain they've taken to a different strategy that served them well in the election. 

Whether it works or not remains to be seen, but lots of members are in 'election mode' and campaigning hard in Conservative marginals and the seats of ministers. Door knocking, holding events, speaking to folks. 

They think that face to face interactions are more powerful than social media or mainstream media. It's the Bernie Sanders thing. My only issue is if the Conservatives can hold on for another 4 years whether that many of those canvassed will remember/care/have the same priorities. 

He promised "he'd deal with it".
With that attitude I hope you never complained even once about the Brexit red bus slogan.

Also no, Corbyn got a lot more positive screen time and the Conservatives got far more negative.

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I caught this by accident over the weekend. It's a sort of play/documentary and it's very interesting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08zj2wq/performance-live-why-its-kicking-off-everywhere

A sort of potted history of how being angry with power structures got us from the Arab Spring to Trump - it's a short(ish) straightforward telling of recent history and it's very good.

I enjoyed it too. it felt a little light on info but at least it wasn't overtly partisan; which is pretty amazing for Senor Mason as he's had a very interesting and contradictory couple of years.

I also watched 'The Red Pill', which I thought was pretty good, even if it could have explored many more issues and causes. 

5 hours ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

The very 'political' (rather than economic) decision, to deploy austerity in 2010, when the recovery was looking pretty good, is a big reason for the UK having a particularly 'slow' recovery, versus other highly developed nations.  

Some sectors of the economy were improving, others weren't. 
I won't disagree that the Conservative ideology rushed a judgement but the Labour one of wasting money and remaining unaccountable for failures both put the economy/public sector in real jeopardy and eased Conservative opposition. 

34 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

You're conflating two different commitments. One was the promise to remove tuition fees, which was in the manifesto and is, as I understand, still Labour policy. The second was a commitment to consider wiping all student debts, pending an investigation into whether that would be feasible. The answer to that seems to be in the negative. I don't see the back-tracking here. 

True. It's easier to let rumours rumble on the internet instead. It means you don't have to deal with the problem unless challenged. We all know how promises can be misconstrued. 
It was probably fortunate he didn't put his promise on a bus.

Btw I'm definitely being facetious, I understand what Corbyn said and meant.

We need to keep signing oldies so when we Brexit we can get some young South American's in as replacements....I know, I know, I'm ruining English football  

21 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said:

I think we have given Gary more than enough chances to prove himself sadly. Time for a move. Was unlucky with 2 major injuries so early in his career but to be brutally honest to  have less than 100 starts at 25 tells its own story. 

Best attribute was his long passing from difficult positions and that never materialised at senior level. Still time to learn, but perhaps not at Villa.

1 hour ago, peterms said:

We are still in the phase where Corbyn is working with a PLP which is mostly unsupportive.  Some are supporting, some are accepting positions but seeing themselves as free to jump ship whenever a better chance for their personal advancement arrives, some are opponents who have shouldered weapons while he commands the support of the party and a large part of the country, some are resolute opponents who are even now working, scheming, briefing against him.

It's like trying to pick a team from a group consisting of the first team, the reseves, the bomb squad, and Birmingham City.

This is the foundation of all sorts of misunderstandings.  As an economy, living within our "means" is what is environmentally sustainable.  But that's not what they mean.  They mean instead having a "balanced budget", failing to understand the difference between a household and a government (or possibly deliberately seeking to deceive people on that point).

That is the recipe for recession,  and the reason why our recovery from the last recession was the slowest in recorded history, artificially slowed by policies about "living within our means".  It's illiterate nonsense, don't be doing with it.

Absolutely about the PLP, shocking behaviour and they wasted two years. They need to learn how to be part of the process, as Corbyn did for 20 years. But division continues, which sadly means it's very difficult for Corbyn to embrace the detractors even if he is admirably trying.
Still, his favourites need to start performing past Tory rhetoric/manifesto promises and I believe he does too. Labour need granular policy discussion so the final Tory swinging vote  (and others) sees Labour as credible. 

Absolutely agree with you again, that's a different 'living within your means' and government does a particularly bad job delivering policy that delivers real change for ordinary people. However, it's not as recession stimulating as spending money wildly on promises you haven't actually costed; which is much of the Labour manifesto. And not only due to costs but due to delivery.
I look at the promise to take back the water companies and I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, but it leaves me chuckling for quite some time when I think about what that means and what their method to do it might be. I say might because I've heard nothing from Labour about what that promise means and what the purpose is. 

Also, every nation has had a slow recovery since this last recession and it's a lot more to do with things like the oil markets, finance and global trade/manufacturing than national policy. I do however welcome responsible public spending but not giveaways.
Though if you want to play that partisan game then who presided over the recession and who was in charge when we pulled out of it? That argument doesn't really get us anywhere but I'd be happy to look at how policies pre and post recession shaped something like the cost of housing, which, in the context of 'living within your means' is a predominant contributor.

4 hours ago, darrenm said:

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Labour were never getting it together, they made little progress and I believe Momentum has legitimised their ineptness by swaying people to Corby, not policy and the party. I'm sure there are coherent MP's and hopefully one day we will hear from them.

I'm sorry I don't understand any of this. Not sure what you mean by they were never getting it together, little progress and legitimising ineptness etc. Who are the coherent(?) MPs?

Ha, I didn't understand how you could call them coherent! I tend to follow debates and am absolutely sick to the back teeth of Labour putting forward Shadow Ministers who bring nothing to the table and are outshone by Conservative backbenchers acting as the real opposition. Some Labour backbenchers are doing well but they appear the opposition of the opposition. John Healey is a good guy for his remit.
Also Corbyn is consistently saying one thing and MPs say another, even on what they'll be doing during this holiday break!  

I also think the Tories were spectacularly poor. They had a weak manifesto because they thought certain flagship policies/consultations would be included in the conversation, of course they weren't.

The manifesto was definitely weak. That didn't help them at all and gave Labour an angle to attack but lots of traditional Tory voters still go on board with it. Lots of people still believe in austerity.
I believe in austerity as living within ones means. And I agree with you on many agreeing with it, but there was a shift from the voters on things like education, which actually the Conservatives are quite strong on, despite the pathetic non Grammar narrative that gets thrown around. Yet they didn't promote T-levels, increased wages in skilled apprenticeships, or wages between some Uni and non-uni courses moving closer. They did however get involved in a fairer funding policy that Labour once supported! 
Imo, they not only had a weak manifesto but a weaker strategy in dealing with the very worthy and welcomed Labour promises, even if they were uncosted.

They mismanaged a fair few policy announcements and even the research for them. It was a robotic campaign that would have benefited hugely from involving a wide range of opinion to shut down the opposition, instead we got May delivering soundbite after soundbite while Corbyn actually campaigned on his promises.
Far from having no successes as blandy fells, they had a few very important policies that they did little to nothing to identify or promote.

Their campaign in any other election against any other opposition would have been average. Corbyn's team getting him in safe seats with plenty of core support to enthused crowds and then in stadiums singing Oh Jeremy Corbyn etc made the Tory campaign look weak. As I say, compare the Tory campaign to Cameron 2015, they wouldn't be a lot different.
I thought it was condescension more than a campaign. And that's my main issue with it. It didn't even get to average.

I definitely agree with you on Cameron, he was a showman and tbh, a bloody brilliant one. But his policies stunk and like Blair/Brown, he got lazy in his position, dropping every shred of purpose that he once shaped as the big society.
Since May came in, from a professional POV, I have seen a monumental shift in Ministers wanting to understand policy. It has been wholly refreshing both in terms of conversation and delivery. 

I do agree with you on the print media and Momentum but we need some real objectivity and not this partisan approach to conquering the rags, where the left are as bad as the right.

A _single_ left wing paper (Mirror) is as bad as the right consortium of the Telegraph, Times, Sun, Express, Metro, Mail, etc. The Guardian and Independent are left-leaning but don't do hatchet jobs on the opposition. The hard right wing paper circulation dwarfs the left. 
In modern Britain? Definitely. The right wing press splash nonsense in our faces and dwarf circulation of readership, but does it dwarf influence in the UK?
The Guardian and Independent are perhaps two of the worst papers out there, pretending to be objective or left leaning, but actually promoting the worst type of journalism, ignorance. (not all of it, but it's mostly 'Where's Wally' for good journalism)
And who reads their hyped headlines and 'in depth' stories that barely scratch the surface of the problem? People who write the news. Celebrities. Producers. People who influence millions of people in a way the papers stopped doing many years ago. That then moves to social media, which is already the most influential media outlet and many many times worse than the rags. Suddenly, chanting '**** the Tories' is as endearing as singing 'ohhhh Jeremey Corbyn'. And now, because everyone has 'liked' it, the News can legitimately spin it in whichever way the reporter wants.

Don't get me wrong, I know it works both ways, eg - the BBC Corbyn witch-hunt, but I think most of us are happy to accept that the right wing in the UK prefers print, whereas the left is working its magic elsewhere and very differently.
Eughh, all this talk of left and right make my skin crawl! ha.

@blandy I could definitely name some successes, I have been doing that for very many months now. Included a couple above but I am no fool to the reality that the Conservatives have been failing with deliverable positive policies such as the overburdened education syllabus for primary and consequently, difficult secondary progression and increased workload for teachers. Though tbh, education has always been a government plaything. Freeschools, baby!

19 minutes ago, darrenm said:

They do have a coherent opposition. Very coherent. It's just a shame it's taken them this long to get it together. Progress are all but wiped out and the NEC are about to become Corbyn/Momentum controlled.

When you look at the daily coordinated attacks on Labour from the vast majority of print circulation that then gets airtime on the TV and parts of social media, it's incredible that Labour denied them a majority in the election. Lots say the Tories were poor. I don't think that at all, I think the Tories were brutal and ruthless, attempting to exploit any weakness they could but it still wasn't enough.

Without Momentum, Labour would have been properly wiped out this election. You could say that without Momentum, the left of Labour wouldn't be there and we would have someone like Angela Eagle or Owen Smith, but it's unlikely they would have done much better than Miliband by being Tory lites.

My view is that Momentum are seen as dangerous by the right because it's now undeniable how powerful they are. They're the counter to the Murdoch, Dacre, Desmond, Barclays, Tory protection racket except they know how to engage people to create the feeling of a movement. The print media are still powerful amongst the working class and the old but they're having less influence all the time. We absolutely need Momentum to fight the old print media and rob them of their power.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Labour were never getting it together, they made little progress and I believe Momentum has legitimised their ineptness by swaying people to Corby, not policy and the party. I'm sure there are coherent MP's and hopefully one day we will hear from them.

I also think the Tories were spectacularly poor. They had a weak manifesto because they thought certain flagship policies/consultations would be included in the conversation, of course they weren't. They mismanaged a fair few policy announcements and even the research for them. It was a robotic campaign that would have benefited hugely from involving a wide range of opinion to shut down the opposition, instead we got May delivering soundbite after soundbite while Corbyn actually campaigned on his promises.
Far from having no successes as blandy fells, they had a few very important policies that they did little to nothing to identify or promote.

I do agree with you on the print media and Momentum but we need some real objectivity and not this partisan approach to conquering the rags, where the left are as bad as the right.
Watching The Mash Report last night reminded me of how painful the conversation has become.

So frustrating to sign another midfielder who is a bit of everything but not great at anything specific.

However, Terry and Whelan are two great spine players and we desperately need a spine. He's not as quality a midfielder as some oldies but he will surely be a worthwhile cover player at the very least. Plus, he won't last long which is good for younger players.

6 hours ago, PaulC said:

I was talking to my local pharmacist the other day about gp group practices being more about profit than care for patients. This particular one we were discussing take on 50 new patients a week when they cant care for the ones they have.  The biggest difference for me over the last 30 years is the quality of care from your GP has gone downhill. I know that's digressing form pensions but its all a big worry  the way this country has gone. 

Labour have a better idea with regard to pension age. People who do hard manual jobs cannot go on as long as people who work in offiices. they should be allowed to retire sooner. You cant expect nurses who work on wards to work until 68 they will burn out well before then. Needs to be scaled depending on the job you do

On the first point. PCT's wasted money like there was no tomorrow and CCG's shifted those opportunities elsewhere. Led by GP's, people predicted that some areas would experience patient number increases as a way to increase direct revenue. Worked in benefits, why not health! Though that's a massive oversimplification. 
Both systems were/are mismanaged, or had the potential to be. Though it wasn't helped by very many politicians forgetting to properly explain/factor in population increases, people living longer and the costs of new treatments/technology and their implementation. 

Retirement age reform should come after retirement living and housing reform, in terms of importance. It is not as easy as saying, you worked this hard so should retire earlier, particularly in the public sector. We need to give people chances to part-retire/retire early, work less/contribute more, or improve a work/life/economic balance, that will be achieved by delivering affordable living, which by 2037 will look very different.

The public sector certainly offers better progression/certainty/flexibility. That's a lot tougher in the private sector where pensions are less fulfilling and employment and career change past 55 is a concern.

Labour might have a different approach but whichever party you feel is getting it right, imo, everyone is failing to offer anything but a piecemeal approach to solving the looming retirement problem.

Midfield player who isn't the greatest tackler. Tis the Villa way.

1 hour ago, wazzap24 said:

Sarah Newton doing a great job during the drugs debate in parliament today. 

Apparently alcohol isn't one and our current drug policy is the right course of action, based on (and this is the best bit), the 'best available evidence'   

 

Good job Crispin Blunt didn't. Some brilliant speakers throughout.

17 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

Got to admit other than seeing him as figure  of fun on have I got news for you I didnt know a huge amount about him but having heard how he campaigned in Fife in a Mercedes saying "A Bentley would be most unsuitable for canvassing " he's either a comedy legend in the making or more bonkers than Boris 

Not in the making! From his accurate and brutal assessments to his expression of indignation when someone says something stupid. he is downright hilarious and always has been.

My problem is that he's too focused on process and so nobody knows it's hes actually able to understand deliverable policy. Either way, imo his more obvious talents are wasted if he's not in some way part of the governance conversation.

1 hour ago, blandy said:

There's a few different strings in there, aren't there?

The policies thing, I agree,. The two sides tended to focus on apocalypse if we stay/go and not put much of a realistic positive argument forward. And the media, by and large was either on one side or the the other, or in the case fo the TV tended to consentrate on personalities rather than exploring the truth, as you say..

But I'd completely disagree with " giving the main brexit campaigners a voice is [not] giving 'leave' a voice". The leave campaign was not only given a voice, it was given more of a voice and went largely unchallenged when it continued to spout utter lies.

Fair point. They certainly did that over and over again. They, like remain, sat behind toxic narratives, but the immoral actions of some sections of leave had the opportunity to deal some hefty blows.

You're right that it's different strings, does one hear or listen to music?  But I don't feel the remain voice was heard as well as it should have been, even if more often than not it had weightier experts delivering conclusions (not assessments). 
That's my biggest frustration of the last few years, that we weren't able/willing to tell people why the EU was great, it was assumed that everyone already knew when policy wise. we don't. have a scooby

2 hours ago, blandy said:

I think that's, how can I put this? a mistake. Obviously how you vote is entirely up to you, but to say the "view of leave" (whatever that is) wasn't listened to is, um, not really credible.

In terms of the politicians, the likes of Farage, the tory little englanders - the Rees Moggs and all them - they've been banging on about leaving for yonks, and affected Gov't policy and actions enormously over the years. The press likewise has had a huge effect. So they were listened to.

In terms of ordinary people who wanted to leave - the main reasons seemed to be "Foreigners/Immigration, "Control", Money, and Sovereignty.

It's probably true that the effect of immigration on some places was ignored for too long. Though it's also true that the UK chose not to be more stringent on immigration, rather than being somehow forced or unable to because EU. And the UK chose to spend all its money on London and the South East, rather than being more even handed across the board. And anyway, in the past 2 or 3 years, immigration has been a major issue and people have been listened to.

The other 3  - money, sovereignty and control are frankly bollex, or in truth being in the EU is advantageous with regard to these. Money - we're better off in , by a mile. Sovereignty is spurious. the world is interconnected and sovereignty is pooled to an extent in or out of the EU - whether in terms of international treaties, NATO, the UN, trading standards and all the rest. When you ask people "what law are you looking to no longer have to obey the day we've left?" no one can answer.

I'd say if anything, leavers have been listened to too much in many regards.

I'm not an enthusiast for the EU - it is bloated and wasteful and things like the TTIP (which was canned eventually) were shockingly bad, but I voted remain, in the end, because more than anything I don't and didn't trust the effwits who've been wanting to leave to have a clue about what to do or how to negotiate leaving.

I'm willing to accept their voice was heard and it was something I unsuccessfully tried to research before the election. If you (or anyone) has any pointers I'd really enjoy researching them.
I did however find many policies that people weren't willing to discuss, on both sides of the argument. 

But still, I don't feel giving the main brexit campaigners a voice is giving 'leave' a voice. I don't think anyone can say the media comprehensively explored any policy area and vocalised the solution with boring but knowledgeable people or politicians helping to further the debate.
Instead we got experts predicting doom or boom and even remainer Cameron was in on it. Worse still, there was no clamour from any political side to stimulate the debate. Even now!

On your last sentence, yup, absolutely fair point and sadly very many effwits. 

6 hours ago, bickster said:

I don't actually believe many people if any at all voted to leave the EU because "them people who want to stay won't listen to my point of view". It might be what they say to you but in reality if a million people who wanted to remain had knocked on every one of their doors and listened to every exasperated Daily Heil style rant your thick old friends could muster, they'd still have voted to leave. And they'd still have said no one listened to them. 

Those people are the very definition of the word gobshite.

A huge reason I voted Brexit was because the view of leave was not listened to. How long did people debate the bus, and still do!!!
I certainty don't think a million people read EU Directives like I did, but I do believe the depth at which the referendum was discussed impacted on whether people felt listened to and therefore, shaped their vote.

Politicians are only now talking about the UK policy environment under EU rule, because they absolutely have to. And tbh, in public,  the majority are making a pigs ear of it.
The media still isn't bothering to put that across and continues to concentrate on partisan reporting. 
Voters continue to be taken in by those soundbites because the wider discussion is not readily available or promoted. Rural and coastal communities continue to be sidelined for conversation about the financial sector and manufacturing opportunities that as yet, we are not identifying.

If the conversation before and during the referendum had been phrased as 'How does EU policy really impact prosperity?', both the EU and the UK would have benefited. 
It definitely would've emboldened some leavers but politicians who actually wanted to win votes would have done their research, come out with proper negotiating and reform positions and I truly believe, convinced enough people that many of our problems with the EU are of our own making.
Imo (and it influenced my vote) the decision to not understand that EU environment, despite decades of concern from impacted communities, is a sign that nobody was really listening or had a desire to.

Just now, rodders0223 said:

Bloke picks up the ball, sees a midfielder drop in to receive it, sees a CB peel off to make an option, looks at both, weighs it up....then just punts one into the channels.
He just cannot football and it's a major reason we create nothing, we don't stretch teams.

You definitely missed out 'charges through the middle of the opposition with dancing feet that we haven't seen since Gabby was 19...loses the ball....like Gabby has been doing since he was 19'

6 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

If Hutton is a starter this year I kill myself.

I don't have a problem with him because I feel he does an adequate job is most positions (adequate for the Championship) but I detest his wait and see approach while on the ball. 
For me, that's a constant problem for us, we all too often let defenders set their positions which stifles our attackers when the passes/ricochets eventually go near their feet.

Slow passes forward remains a fixture....though we shouldn't be too surprised, our players really aren't that great.

Imo you can tell Terry has played at Chelsea. Sees the game really well but heck is he slow....and he seems to know it.

37 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Should people be going back to the good old days before the evil EU stopped making it obvious that there were involved in war and oppression?

Fixed the last line for you Sorry. I'm still hungover and think I'm funny....

Just now, darrenm said:

The 50m uni pool was dug out and tiled to be 50m until someone pointed out that with the timing boards it wouldn't be quite 50m so would be pointless. They had to dig it out again to allow for the timing boards, tiles and adhesive.

Turns it it's now highly sought after as a training pool because it's just a few mm over 50m.

It was never going to be used as a competition pool evidenced by the fact there's no seating there.

Good points well made. Let's hope it can be a training hub and remain profitable and brilliant for the city.

17 hours ago, villa4europe said:

2? 1 was what I've heard, I don't think the tender has come out yet but we'll go for it, currently working on 1 in Warwick and 1 in leamington

basically what's happening is the councils are pissing money on them so they're refurbing them and renting them out to operators who can make a tidy profit on them, part of the refurb is financed by sport England which means that the project has to follow their guidelines, hence why the leisure pools are going and being replaced by proper pools, there's a focus on clubs and organisation rather than people just rocking up and going for a dip, next couple of years the majority of centres will be done

the new 50m pool at brum uni isn't wide enough! It can't be signed off by FINA and therefore used for competitions, not sure if it's by design or a royal **** up

FFS, so stupid.

7 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Fisheries

Worth looking into the wider findings of that investigation. Such as the glorified dinghy that accounts for a fifth of the South West fishing take but never leaves a marina to help the company that owns it dodge fines on the boats that actually do the work.

Reminds me a little of the way we 'recycle' using Dutch incinerators.

13 hours ago, TrentVilla said:

Now I agree entirely on all of that.

@Kingman @TrentVilla

I heard a few podcasts on the subject over the last 12 months but can't remember exactly what was said, not very helpful I know. Speakers seemed to agree that it won't be anywhere near as bad as the housing crash because the loans in say the US, aren't wrapped up over here like housing was.

As I remember, podcast disagreement came on the scale of the crash. Some people said it shouldn't matter because not enough people have bet against the market and the loans are fairly small; others thought the estimation of 'numbers of default loans' was wrong and it will create grave knock on problems within the financial sector.....can't remember the exact reason why...will try and find the podcast.

When you consider how deep we've gone into a new system of car ownership and the now noticeable increase in credit debt, who really knows! It's a worryingly fascinating topic.