DaoDeMings

That's a risk you have to take. Shouldn't be stopping Ramsey captaining his country just because in hindsight he got injured.

I do agree it's much more complex than just tax the rich. But the super-rich still don't pay enough. They pay more tax than they ever have because they're richer than they ever have been. They pay less tax than the rest of us proportionally. They kind of are bankrupting the country, though. Our public services, such as transport and energy, are absolute shite and are becoming increasingly expensive. The shareholders who own these companies are getting more and more rich off the back of this. Again, it's more complex than that, but it's certainly a large part of the problem. Measuring the value of a society on economic growth is fundamentally the issue, though, as you said, and the solution is beyond complex. God knows how to solve it!

Harsh but alright. Don't think we're gonna agree on this one

We should be well equipped and decent enough to allow one of our most valuable and beloved players a few games off for international duty. Liverpool let Salah go away, don't they?

Think that's harsh tbh. If the Olympics means a lot to him who are we to tell him he can't go? Obviously, there's a limit but is it really worth fracturing our relationship with a player who could easily go and play somewhere else where he'll get paid more and realistically have more of a chance of winning things?

This is where leadership from the left comes in. Someone needs to pick a stance, a stance that provides a positive vision for the future rather than fuels hatred, and **** stick to it, challenging Farage's nonsense. The two main parties just buy into his rhetoric unconvincingly and end up flopping about in the middle saying nothing of note. One day I hope Plaid Cymru takes off like the SNP did and I'll be able to hop over the border to live in an independent Wales.

I think the importance of how it would 'reflect' on the club or Grealish is overblown. If he comes back and performs it's all forgotten within 2/3 games. Don't think it will happen and it probably wouldn't be smart on our part given his wages, but he was one of the best in the world one year ago. He'd be brilliant back here.

If Emi wants 4/5 games at the start of the season off to go to the Olympics he should get it. Where would we be without him? If we really want to be competing at a high level we should have the squad to cover the first-choice goalkeeper for a bit anyway.

While I kind of agree that their economic policy probably isn't fully fleshed out (because they know they have no chance of governance anyway), I see no problem with changing the tax system so that the billionaires and shareholders that have been bankrupting our country for years can finally pay their fare share rather than stealing from us. 'Cloud cuckoo land' is often thrown around as an insult at the Greens, but Labour, the Tories and whoever else are the ones really on cloud cuckoo land if they think they can keep plodding along on the same path and expect the climate crisis to sort itself out.

Why?

This is one of the things that annoys me about the Labour Party at the minute. The world really needs leaders on the left to challenge the narrative that Farage etc. are peddling. They can't be allowed to influence people without challenge in the way that they are. Hopefully, Labour being semi-competent in government will appease people enough that they don't turn to far-right populism, but I don't have much faith.

The thing that I think makes Farage/Reform a threat to the Conservative Party is that fundamentally they all share similar interests. As with Trump and the Republican party, if it appears that Reform is galvanizing support better than the Conservatives, the Tories will all happily jump ship as the next best thing that protects their own interests. As much as many Tories like to parrot ideas of 'tradition' and 'heritage', really what they're interested in is money and power. If it looks like Reform offers the best chance to keep themselves and the rest of the wealthy classes happy and in control then I don't think they'd hesitate to let the Conservative Party crash and burn. I do find it hard to imagine the Conservative Party dying entirely, and I think it probably won't ,but as you said, the possibility does make this election interesting.

Perhaps their importance in the 00s scene wasn't recognised at the time but nowadays anyone who was into the indie scene in the early 00s would definitely have Is This It as one of the eras best/most influential albums. Retrospectively it holds up way better than anything by The Libertines imo

I would absolutely agree by my own standards. But the ‘centre’ seems to move to the right year on year so in today’s money I’d still probably put Labour centre-left ish (relative to the rest of the political context)

I had the same thought - not sure how possible it is to get accurate data on that kind of thing.

Wonder what he means by 'cynical calculation'

Ah, I didn't see that. Would be interesting to see if there are any predictions from pollsters etc.

This is what I meant in my post, haha. Think you're pretty spot on on your analysis too. Best to vote for a further left option than Labour if it's a safe Labour seat as it pressures Labour to the left and raises awareness of issues that labour are weak on. But it's also probably not worth doing that if it risks getting the Tories in. I change my mind on this a lot, but that's pretty much where I'm at at the moment.

Did anyone ever think that? I haven't seen anything about turnout predictions but my assumption would have been that anti-Tory sentiment being sky-high would get people out. I suppose polls showing a landslide makes people complacent? I get the feeling people are more disillusioned than ever with politics too, given COVID, partygate etc., Truss and Sunak's insane incompetence and Starmer's bland opposition.

No, regardless of the platform they run on, each individual government tends to move to the right once in power. E.g. Starmer's government is going in on a broadly centre-left platform but will likely move more towards the centre. I never said each government is more right wing than the last.

Historically, parties only get further to the right after entering government. Opposition becomes stronger over time so the incumbent party gets defensive. You also inevitably get more tied to lobbyists, donors and state actors. This situation is a little unprecedented with the Tories being so incredibly bad and Labour probably coming in with an extremely large majority, so I wouldn't be surprised if initially we saw a slight shift to the left given Labour will have a bit of a free pass for a while. But long-term there's no reason to think that they'll start moving to the left - if anything, they'll move to the right.

Think it'd be popular actually. Don't Brentford do it? Haven't seen any of them explode

ffs Real Union are going to end up with a nicer Villa kit than Aston Villa aren’t they? In all seriousness I think that’s really nice and hope we get something similar. Contrary to the post above if we get something along the lines of the Acorns nike kits i’d be buzzing…one of my favourite kits ever!

Not just about numbers, is it? Grealish won a treble last year and played a big role in it. He was one of City's best players. Hardly nostalgia

No, but they're not the same situations for me. Grealish's season has been impacted by injury, Rashford not so much. Grealish has played a bit part role at City but still looked decent when he has played. I don't think Gordon, Eze and Bowen don't deserve to be there at all, I just think out of Gordon, Eze, Bowen and Toney, Grealish should be in ahead of one of them on his ability to change a game.