HanoiVillan

I don't think the timing (a week before the local elections, and more importantly the mayoral election and 2 years after the offending posts were made, with a general election in between) or the channel for revealing this scandal (Guido blog, well-known helper for Tory 'dirty jobs') is in any way a coincidence. I think what we've witnessed more than anything over the last 24 hours is senile dinosaur Livingstone blundering into a Crosby-laid heffalump trap. And fair play, it's worked a treat. BBC went with Ken over Hillsborough or doctor's strike for Question Time tonight.

The Goldsmith campaign has recently been sending letters to British Indians advising them to worry about the security of jewellery in their houses should Khan win, while also boasting about Goldsmith palling around with Narendra Modi (who at the very least demonstrated total indifference to an anti-Muslim pogrom that killed 1000 people while he ran Gujarat). That goes beyond anything they've done, said or suggested about Corbyn or McDonnell. Nor is 'well, they've done the same thing to other people before' particularly good as an excuse either come to that.

My feelings on this are basically that Livingstone has made a complete knob of himself, and having now made more than one foolish statement about Jews and anti-semitism and so on I think it's probably time for him to disappear from politics. Shah is primarily guilty of putting stupid shit on Facebook in my eyes. Her 'map' post can clearly be seen as offensive, though (without having seen it, I'm going by media descriptions) it sounds like whoever made the 'map' might have been trying to make a point about America's financial support for Israel (which should be a legitimate matter of debate) but in a very crass way. While I feel a bit sorry for her (though obviously not knowing the full facts) the reality is I can see why this is a big deal. And I have to be honest about myself as well: I sure didn't have any sympathy for Aidan Burley when he went to that fancy dress party in an SS uniform. So yes, of course my response is partly party-political. Dog whistles are specifically chosen to fly under the radar of 'racism', but the Goldsmith campaign has been absolutely disgusting, and the idea that the issue is 'security' is nonsense.

I loved Darren Gough as a player, it's such a shame that he's so annoying in real life.

He was the first to use the word 'freeze', however looking back at the conversation @blandy was responding to your point about 'a reactionary decision based on the information he was given at the time: 'open the gate or people are going to die', ie. the moment he chose to open the gate, which is what you've tried to make all too much of the conversation about. There's really no need to talk about me behind my back like that, you can just tag me in the post if you would like a response.

I predict @snowychap is going to have a seizure when he reads this . . . The point, Woody, is it should never have got to that moment. So whether what he did in that moment is forgivable or not, literally nothing else he did that day is forgivable. So it's all really rather irrelevant, and still puzzling why you're talking about it.

Let's think a bit more about this. Trains are a fairly appropriate metaphor I think. Mr Duckenfield was even standing in a box, not totally unlike a signal box. The trains are supporters, going about doing their thing, and the signals and block systems and switches are the normal, well-understood police plan for crowd control. The situation we actually have is a controller turning up in the signal box, not realising that train safety was part of his job and not familiarising himself with how any of the equipment worked. Then, when the inevitable happened and there was a multi-train pile-up, the signalman spent the next twenty years lying about what happened and slandering dead train drivers.

I know you've said you feel you aren't as articulate as you wish, and I'm not meaning to pile on, but a decent rule of thumb is to look back at what you've written: 'I do believe the Liverpool fans drove a train through the police non existent plan.' And think, is it possible to drive a train through a non-existent plan? If not - and obviously not - what does the fact that my metaphor makes no sense suggest about my understanding of the situation? FWIW, I think there are one or two points you've made about changing cultures and so on that would be productive and interesting to discuss, but it's snowed under a lot of misunderstanding.

Nor is 'beating a man to death with your bare hands' actually an appropriate or proportional response to the (fictional) offence.

Dildo got taste.

In unrelated news, my financial advisor tells me that forecasts suggest it's a good time to invest in breweries in Western Australia.

Looks **** terrifying.

Bowery in particular was a bizarre signing. I knew Chesterfield fans who'd barely heard of him.

How we could have done with Andy Carroll this season.

I know Aguero doesn't drink at all during the season, or at least so it's claimed anyway. While I understand players drinking, I'd always rather they didn't.

Bentley looks good, he's enormous with arms like a gorilla but he's still quite athletic. He'd easily be good enough for a top of the table Championship side, the more likely reality is that he'd rather be a PL bench-warmer.

You do sometimes give the impression of disagreeing with people for the sake of it. Obviously the reception would be better, there isn't even a debate to be had on the topic. We literally have evidence, from recent weeks, of the reception young players got and it was always less negative than the senior players.

I'm betting it has something to do with Trump's self-financed campaign, though I agree that's probably not predictive of much.

The phrase 'basic human nature' does rather suggest that contact-free tribes in the Amazon would intuitively understand Sheffield Wednesday's ticketing system, which is probably a bit of a stretch.

Well, okay, fine. Let's stop talking about it then, and start talking instead about how he had utterly failed to familiarise himself with standard police crowd control procedures, the layout of the ground or even that crowd control was part of his job.

Just look at Dean Saunders, how that man finds work in football is harder to understand than string theory.

I think people are puzzled why you're insisting on highlighting the moment he had a difficult decision to make rather than addressing the dozens of earlier moments when just doing his **** job properly would have meant the difficult decision would never have occurred.

Don't be ashamed, be happy. You get to watch a brilliant, brilliant TV show for the first time. I'm jealous, not smug.

Yeah, love this show. Thought I wouldn't originally, but totally love it at this point, and don't care about accents.