meregreen

The Tories use the term "benefits trap", and completely miss the causes of this so called trap.Low pay and shortage of decent jobs.Instead of offering real help to the unemployed, the vast majority of whom desperately want to work, they seek to demonize them. That we put them in the tender care of an incompetent twit like IDS simply beggars belief.

Who gives a **** what they do who they sign or where they're going. Why do we have a thread on the vomit stained inbreds on a Villa site. Do you think they have a thread about us on their site that is discussing our team line ups. First and most definitely last time I ever visit this nauseating thread. Rant over.

Alas its cheap imported Russian coal ... Sadly labours policy of accelerating pit closures in the 60's left us no choice but to import it

Simply not true.Labor did shut many pits' you are right about that. But it was done in a carefully managed way , with full consultation with the NUM. Heavy investment was put into the remaining pits, so that within a few years Britain had the most efficient deep mined coal in the world. We were actually self sufficient with the coal stocks we had, the only way foreign coal could compete was by importing from countries that either paid their miners a pittance ie Poland and China, or was mined cheaply by strip mining from opencast mines, the most environmentally destructive. Germany always took the attitude that coal mining was a strategic industry and so warranted subsidies to support it, that's why coal mining still exists on a fairly substantial scale there. We still have enough coal stocks under our feet in this country to last 400 years. Tory industrial vandalism means that unfortunately it will stay there.

They should at least stop treating drug problems on the NHS. If you're stupid enough to turn to drugs, that's your problem, not the tax payer's.

That is a very shallow, right wing attitude to take, Ajax. Things are rarely that black and white.

I'm sorry that I don't share this ridiculous idea of legalising drugs. In my opinion not enough is being done to fight it or punish it.

Awful player offers nothing, if we shipped him out this month he would'nt be missed 1 single bit! Whoever has scouted this player needs a disaplinery. Send anyone of us out looking for a player for say 3 months on a budget and im sure we could find better than Tonev!

I think he was recommended to the club by Petrov.

He's no Graig, that's for sure.

He's always been regarded as the most talented of the two. Injuries have blighted his career, so it would be good to see him given a chance. Just how bad would he have to be to be any worse than our current mediocre midfield.

FA Cup means sweet FA.

Shame on you. The greatest cup competition in the world still means something to some of us. Sky and the abomination that is the Champions League have not corrupted all of us.

I must be getting old. Its the FA cup!!! Play a full strength team, I've been waiting all my life to see us win this, the worlds greatest cup. You and your club only get so many chances in your life to win it, don't waste a single one.

Some people will never understand how those of us who witnessed our winning the League and European Cup absolutely despised & detested ellis. This really isn't a Lerner v Ellis debate.

I disliked him from the very first day he walked into the club, as did eventually most, if not all of his fellow directors. They ousted him in 1972 only for the money man; Pat Matthews to engineer his return. He was then ousted again from the chairmanship by his fellow directors in 1975 as he didn't see eye to eye with Saunders who the other directors were backing. People need to understand that had Ellis been in charge 1975-1982, Saunders would have been gone as would our chances of winning such high honours. When he returned it was one of the most depressing days of my life.

I had the misfortune of meeting Mr. Aston Villa as he liked to be called, on a number of occasions. I always sensed from his demeanour & comments that he considered the "men on the terraces" of Aston Villa to be nobodies and beneath his contempt. As far he was concerned it was his club and we could go **** ourselves.

Nothing he did was ever for the fans or the club - it was only ever about Herbert Douglas Ellis and what he could get out of it. From being the first director to take a salary to engineering a stock market listing of the club which made him a fortune and saw the shares of the ordinary fans plummet by over 75%.

Despite what has happened in the last three years, the day he sold his control of MY club was one of the happiest days of my time as an Aston Villa fan.

My thoughts exactly. You had to be there to know the disaster this man was for our club.Lerner may not be perfect, but at least one senses he has some feelings for the club and its fans. Ellis was only ever interested in himself. When Brian Clough asked Ellis to take himself and Taylor to VP, Ellis replied there was only room for one Mr Aston Villa. The arrogance of the man knew no limits

I obviously get the bashing of Doug but that man seriously cares about this club

He cares about Herbert Douglas Ellis. We were simply there to feed his vanity. Anyone who has the arrogance to call himself "Mr Aston Villa" is in serious need of of a dose of humility. Why are we even talking about this man?

This guy is a donkey. Failed to score a league goal in his final season in Italy, and we paid 7 million quid for him when we are desperate for a creative midfielder. Did anyone watch the useless lump before signing him. Makes me despair of giving Lambert any mor money to waste. 40 million spent on 15 players, only 3 of which I rate,Benteke,Okore and Lowton. The rest were no better and in most cases worse than we already had. This guy is just another example of our club signing a poor player .

The stupidity of this post is amazing

Rudeness must be your middle name. Try coming to a game instead of watching Villa on the TV. I have been going to Villa Park for 50 years and this guy is pretty poor. 7 million pissed up the wall when we were desperate for a creative midfielder.Try commenting with specifics rather than primitive insults to other posters.

I am sorry I can't make it to every villa match because I do not live in England at the moment but I'd love it if I could go to the matches instead of watching them. You also clearly know nothing about Libor as proven in your post. You ask "Did anyone watch the useless lump before signing him?", well yes I did and Libor was a very young striker that caused a lot of fear into many good Europa league teams. He was touted as a very good prospect for the future and Lambert knew that. He managed to even become the Europa leagues top goal scorer with 10 goals in 11 matches at the age of 23. Now he has come to a new league and despite our awful form, he still scores goals. Give Kozak some respect. Without Kozak, we would be in the relegation zone right now.

My point about viewing players and games live is that you can make a far better judgment of things than through a TV screen. I'm basing my opinion on what I have seen.It differs to yours, fine, you are entitled to your opinion of your fellow countryman. I will not call your post stupid simply because it differs from my opinion. I'm not particularly interested in the Europa league, there have been some pretty cranky games in that. Domestic league performances are a better guide to form IMO. The fact that Kozak was largely ignored by his club in those games should have sounded a few alarm bells. I have seen very little in his performaces to change my opinion that money was spent on him that could and should have been better spent on the creative midfielder that we so badly need.

This guy is a donkey. Failed to score a league goal in his final season in Italy, and we paid 7 million quid for him when we are desperate for a creative midfielder. Did anyone watch the useless lump before signing him. Makes me despair of giving Lambert any mor money to waste. 40 million spent on 15 players, only 3 of which I rate,Benteke,Okore and Lowton. The rest were no better and in most cases worse than we already had. This guy is just another example of our club signing a poor player .

The stupidity of this post is amazing

Rudeness must be your middle name. Try coming to a game instead of watching Villa on the TV. I have been going to Villa Park for 50 years and this guy is pretty poor. 7 million pissed up the wall when we were desperate for a creative midfielder.Try commenting with specifics rather than primitive insults to other posters.

Nothing wrong with my spelling.. He's a mediocre nonentity, who has good stats because he rarely tries a pass that is anything other than a bland sideways tap to a team mate.. Delph tries to create, and so inevitably his passes carry a higher risk of being intercepted. I know which I prefer. The guy is simply not a Premiership footballer. Nothing personal against him, but he' one of the reasons we are so lightweight and uncreative in midfield. I hope that in January Mr Lerner will provide the funds to replace not just him but one or two others of limited ability.If not, then I fear for us.

This guy is a donkey. Failed to score a league goal in his final season in Italy, and we paid 7 million quid for him when we are desperate for a creative midfielder. Did anyone watch the useless lump before signing him. Makes me despair of giving Lambert any mor money to waste. 40 million spent on 15 players, only 3 of which I rate,Benteke,Okore and Lowton. The rest were no better and in most cases worse than we already had. This guy is just another example of our club signing a poor player .

When mediocrities like Ahmadi are rated by some Villa fans, you start to realize just how long its been since we had a midfielder with genuine quality. Oh for a Paul Merson, Andy Townsend or a Sid Cowans. It makes you want to weep that our midfield has been reduced to nonentities like him.

One of the poorest midfielders I have seen at the Villa, and I've been going since the 60's. Stats mean diddlysquat. My eyes tell me he is a pretty mediocre player. Still can't see what he has done since last season to deserve his place.

I think the first version was closer to the truth.

The real question surely should be , can Britain afford to see so much of her national wealth siphoned into an ever smaller number of rich hands. If the price of that is the re emergence of Dickensian poverty then the answer is no. Targeting the poor is merely a deflection of the real problem of low wages and unfair wealth distribution.

It is possible to be successful without being greedy. For Boris to extoll that particular human trait, is rather sad. Eddie Meyer was right, underneath the veneer of jovial buffoonery, he is a "nasty piece of work". More of this and he'll walk the race to be

the next leader of the nasty party.

Methinks Cameron will be reluctant to push the drug taking angle on this one . His own shady past on this subject might rear its head again.

The worlds full of cynics who lambast the system. Well democracy is still the best form of govt. we have . How many of those cynics have actually got off their arses and tried to do something about a system they say is going so badly wrong. Very few I'll warrant. We have the representation we vote for, if you're not happy vote them out. There are people in this world risking their lives to attain what we take for granted. There is no perfect world out there, you take our Parliamentary system warts and all. By and large it has served us reasonably well. 

 

How odd.  The person who is soon to publish a book about all sorts of interesting sex parties, and who was famously photographed with George Osborne in a setting where she says he took cocaine and he says he didn't, has been raided by police.

 

The raid was to look for drugs.  She says there were no sniffer dogs used, and the police asked about her forthcoming book.  No drugs were found.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/george-osborne-cops-raid-home-2366160#.UlqBO1JnuNY.twitter

And it is in that bastion of accurate, unbiased news reporting that is the Mirror!

 

So someone who is around 40 and 'respectable' shagged and took drugs when he was 20 something, preferring not to talk about it, hardly a story.

 

Our MPs should be accountable for what they do now, not what they did as youngsters.

 

All you shagging, high, student VTers take note. If you have high political ambitions, stop what you are doing, and start living the relatively clean life of us boring 40-somethings.

 

You've rather missed the point. Most people are not interested what Gideon did as a young scrote. The point is were the police there to look for drugs, or was it to do with finding possible evidence to back up her claims in the forthcoming book. I don't know the answer to that, but it would, if true, be a far more serious allegation.

 

 

 

i dont think its one way to be honest i think both parties are equally as bad as each other

Thing is Dem that in my experience I have found that Labour politicians, and those supporting them,  are very quick to accuse others of something that they see in themselves and in fact is more prevalent in their own actions than in those of others.

 

Not saying that the "art" of politicking isnt on both sides just that some of the more ,  shall we say unpleasant,  behaviour comes more often (in my experience)  from the left side of the political spectrum.

 

Character assasination is a speciality of the right. The rather tawdry attack on Millibands dead father being but its latest example. Politics is a pretty rough and tumble business, but the Daily Mails attitude is fairly symptomatic of the worst exesses therein. Dacre and his ilk are all too prevailent in the Tory press. I suppose all our takes on these things are somewhat clouded by our own political leanings, as are my own. But I grew up in a Tory household , and over time came to my own standpoint politically. Have to say, that over many years, the hysterical ravings of the right wing media made that choice somewhat easier to make

 

 

aren't you confusing a Newspaper with a political party ? 

 

Richard was talking about the " political spectrum", and those that support particular parties. I believe newspapers would come under that heading.

 

i dont think its one way to be honest i think both parties are equally as bad as each other

Thing is Dem that in my experience I have found that Labour politicians, and those supporting them,  are very quick to accuse others of something that they see in themselves and in fact is more prevalent in their own actions than in those of others.

 

Not saying that the "art" of politicking isnt on both sides just that some of the more ,  shall we say unpleasant,  behaviour comes more often (in my experience)  from the left side of the political spectrum.

 

Character assasination is a speciality of the right. The rather tawdry attack on Millibands dead father being but its latest example. Politics is a pretty rough and tumble business, but the Daily Mails attitude is fairly symptomatic of the worst exesses therein. Dacre and his ilk are all too prevailent in the Tory press. I suppose all our takes on these things are somewhat clouded by our own political leanings, as are my own. But I grew up in a Tory household , and over time came to my own standpoint politically. Have to say, that over many years, the hysterical ravings of the right wing media made that choice somewhat easier to make

...even if his sons then changed his will to avoid tax......

Two cynics. I'm outnumbered.