Gloucester Saint

Further evidence, as any was needed, that social media is especially a sewer in an election https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1ww6vz1l81o Some of it was teenagers on a wind-up, but some of it suspiciously like overseas chatbots. Doubt if many, if any, were actual Reform supporters

Yep, don’t agree with throwing things at politicians in a democratic society, but yeah, laughing it off is the best option as he’s done. My favourite reaction was from Arnie when egged out and about: ‘that guy owes me bacon’. Excellent.

Latest polls grim for the Tories - Sky breakdown forecast based on the data seat by seat and when Grant Shapps/Michael Green was phoned to say his seat was at risk, he ended the call! https://news.sky.com/story/tory-support-has-fallen-most-in-areas-where-it-was-previously-highest-mrp-poll-suggests-13147397 Farage obviously thinks Trump will be a busted flush then. Mind you, grumbling about too many students doing social science degrees, anyone willing to guess what Farage’s son studied? He is a character though and more of the Tories focus will now go on fighting him. Which is a problem as the FT reports this morning that three of their major donors have pulled the plug for this campaign. Edit - agree with Whelk that it was a bit underhand of Sky to call Shapps/Green as private and out it in air.

Agree, the only fees will be £8m for Onachu, £3m as agreed on DCC (he was cheap to buy as his reputation was slipping), Perraud similar fee, and Lyanco’s case, dumping the wages would be a result. Whoever thought even at £6m that was a good purchase should never be allowed near professional football again. Of course, the one fee that we don’t want to contemplate is KWP. But the reality is that he only has a year left, at 27 in his prime. Spurs have a £30m buyback apparently should they want to use it but are notoriously stingy and were hoping Leeds won so they could pick him him off for £15m. Now Saints will want £25m at least and rumours of Chelsea interest which might push Spurs up. The best case is that KWP signs a new deal with maybe a relegation release clause for £20m or so, but this has to be part of the equation.

I agree with you, Sulemana might as well stay and be an impact option on the bench. He was a regular through the autumn for Martin, got that bad hamstring injury, Ryan Fraser went from impact sub, scoring vital late goals at Hull and Millwall, to starter and never let anyone else have a look in. Sulemana could play further forward if we’re one down with 25 to go and a side have dropped off. Very disappointing for what £22m, but Rasmus was hopeless. Alcaraz I’d keep as showed some form in the PL last time, but Onachu if grey can get £8m plus full wages take it, and draw a line under it, as he’s a few years older and depreciation eats into the value. ABK they won’t sell unless they get above circa £17m, which they won’t get until clubs are confident his shoulder is fixed. He was at the PO final and I’m happy for him to compete with THB, Jan and Jack, as we’ve got so much other business to do all over the squad.

From a Lib Dem perspective, independent of the main two parties, Starmer has dealt with the hard left better. The Diane Abbott episode has not been good enough I agree. That briefing to the Times was just daft and inflamed things needlessly. As I think Duck said, he’d already proved he’d got the hard left under control by expelling Corbyn, and Abbott has lost the whip for quite some time after those terrible comments. She probably wasn’t standing on health grounds but now is. He’s suspended two others on that wing though who have some repellent allegations against them. By comparison, Sunak has constantly been undermined by Truss in particular, who he should have expelled after she was a nodding dog on a platform where Bannon was praising Tommy Robinson FFS. She beat him in the internal contest and she, Clarke, Jenryck and others have rubbed his nose in it every day since. Every mention of her loses them another 20 seats. If he’d kicked her out, and she’s since appeared on another far right platform which joked about rape https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/kemi-badenoch-liz-truss-podcast-carl-benjamin-b2555595.html, he’d have helped detoxify the Conservative brand a lot. Not totally, but limited quite a bit of the damage coming. There was a segment on Times Radio where Matthew Paris said that the Tory hard right will never like Sunak or agree with what he does, so he’d have been better off having a purge like Boris did with the Tory left and centre MPs over no deal. He had the majority to do it. Sunak was too scared of the Mail and Telegraph to wield the 🪓 when needed. That said, I’m pissed off with us and Labour not giving James Bagge a free hit like Martin Bell had in Tatton against another disgraced Conservative. It’s in the national interest for Truss to be humiliated like she did our country. Revenge via the ballot box against her and that other loon Sinclair from the IEA. Braverman goaded him for months to sack her also before he grew a pair, revelling in comments about homelessness being a lifestyle choice for example which appalled everyone cross-party. Anderson was clearly racist towards Khan yet there was days of indecision before giving him the push because he was so scared of the ERG What’s App groups. I would give him some credit for standing up to that lot on smoking, but then he’s timed the legislation out now. BTW, not being pious as Lib Dem’s have their share over the years too.

FBI needs to be tracing every one of those comments threatening jury members and coordinating some dawn raids to get these thugs out of circulation, charged and on the equivalent of remand for a while. Appeasement won’t work with Trump’s movement any more than it did in 1930s. 🇩🇪 If you threaten juries in this country it’s a custodial sentence, the length depending on seriousness of the threats. It’s playing out as I thought, Trump’s base making lots of noise but it’s all the people who were going to vote for him anyway. The 10-15% swing state voters are the key, time will tell but polls consistently showed before the trial that if there was a conviction, voting for him went off the table. Usual morons like Boris and Piers Morgan brownnosing.

Agreed, we’ll need two frontline strikers with Che joining Wolves, AA more of a wide forward and Stewart, well getting him to start a game would be huge progress. The latter has to be a bonus ball as competition who can force his way in with a pre-season under his belt and a view to being match sharp by the autumn. Broja could be the second of those but nearer £15m if it is a permanent deal or loan with an option/mandatory at say 10 PL goals at £20m if the ACL hasn’t robbed him of that change of pace he had. Agree that the club transfer record needs to go on the frontline striker signing, maybe even £30m, if some of the Sulemana outlay can be recovered to help fund it.

Far more serious cases and trials to come arising from his role in the violent facist insurrection on 6 January. I suspect the loonies will rally around him in the polls initially and then reality will dawn over the coming weeks and months in some of the swing states that re-electing him will 1) destroy their entire democratic system and 2) their nation will join the rogue list of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. The timing of the case was political but the verdict is as damning as it could be. All 34 counts is shattering.

This thread is about to get busy. Guilty on first count apparently, 33 counts to go once the results of the jurors sheets come through. EDIT - found guilty on all THIRTY FOUR counts https://news.sky.com How about some music?

At his peak, oh certainly, different calibre to Che altogether, Che would admit that himself. But he’s struggled at West Ham and declined after a good start at Villa. We’ve already got one striker we can’t get on the pitch, the others signed need to be reliable on at least that aspect. If taking him on a season’s loan helps persuade them to sell us Flynn to help them take wages off their FFP then I could live with that a bit more.

Lallana is ok if it’s a player-coach role first 12 months and coach after that, but if the Ings rumours have any mileage then these days that would be a downgrade from Che, great as Danny was first time around. Hopefully we will see some proper business with pace and energy, because we will need plenty of both.

Lallana is OK with me if it’s a one-year playing-coaching deal and coaching beyond that, as he has a growing reputation as a coach already involved with the England u21s and has at least some of his qualifications I think. Two years playing would be too much at 36 I agree. Ings is on £125k p/w at West Ham, let them stay saddled with that. I’d rather remember how great he was for us under Ralph. The stories on the Hammers websites have more than a whiff of West Ham seeing a solution to free up their wage bill. Let’s hope that’s all it is.

They are ripping themselves apart on this ‘policy’ https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/tory-campaign-in-meltdown-as-minister-criticises-sunaks-flagship-national-service-plan_uk_6654b7a4e4b0f5ad55979a43/ Steve Baker seemingly also at loggerheads with CCHQ along with other ministers about his Greek holiday relating to a leaked email https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ni-minister-steve-baker-among-tory-mps-accused-of-lack-of-effort-by-conservative-hq-as-he-campaigns-from-greece/a540078450.html

Downes if there’s a £12m option and Hammers News are correct is a no-brainer. We will need to go alongside him a Wanyama/Bouba Diop type giant. In terms of upcoming free agents, Callum O’Hare has been linked heavily to us and Villa, Jack Clarke as others have said. Hamer is another option - but not a free agent - if Alcaraz doesn’t come back and Stu moves on. Of one the key variables will be what happens to the large number of loanee have out. The club supposedly wants around £20m for ABK which I can’t see anyone paying until a run of games proves his shoulder issue is fixed once and for all. Alcaraz is probably coming back, and Perraud would be a step up on Manning. Tall Paul to stay in Turkey on loan again or permanent if they can agree a deal. Will need a couple of first choice level strikers if Che goes to Wolves as expected. Clearly a first choice keeper, Ramsdale on loan wouldn’t be a shock.

Great day, so please for the players, manager, coaches and most of all the fans. Game panned out how I thought, Leeds pressed hard in a fast start but we held them off, and settled in, with a great counter-attack. Superb pass by Smallbone and AA composed finish across the keeper. We had chances to get a second before a hairy last 10 + all the injury time. Only real scare was James hitting the bar. Defensively excellent, THB joins us now for £20m. Alex assured in goal and what a way to finish if that’s his last game. Ditto Che, delivered what he promised in last season’s tweet. Fraser did a brilliant job both offensively and defensively doubling up Huge recruitment summer ahead but we can just enjoy tonight. Potentially a financial sliding doors moment with the Covid loans coming up. Great to see Kat there, Dragan looked delighted but had gone through the wringer emotionally!

There’s already the very successful Duke of Edinburgh awards though, and Cameron launched a National Citizen Service in the early 10s as part of the Big Society umbrella https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/david-cameron-national-citizen-service-b2337765.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Citizen_Service I don’t dislike the idea in principle but the NCS had its budget slashed again in 2022 - and it’s had some serious coin spent on it - under Boris because it had become a holiday camp for middle class kids https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/david-cameron-national-citizen-service-b2006983.html If they want to throw more money at it again, around double is what they are proposing which is a lot, then Sunak should explain how it’s going to get beyond being a post-Brexit alternative to a gap year and level up from the insidious internship culture existing in Whitehall for years. Otherwise 1) it looks like a gimmick for the very elderly thinking of switching to Reform and 2) a continuation of a pet project which has had a very patchy impact at best. Fan the Flames - re-thinking and invigorating residential experiences with the armed forces is a good thing, I agree, for 16-21 year olds where that is appealing.

They’re stark raving mad - cost of £2.5bn too. Proof that they have become the party of the very elderly, English nats, and not much else. It won’t help them with either young voters nor their parents, they barely have any voters under 65 these days. And they wonder why. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpddxy9r4mdo Don’t get me wrong, I volunteered for years and it’s a really valuable and rewarding thing to do but balanced with a senior management full time role and a side consultancy business it was very demanding and activities like playing golf had to go. 18 year olds need to be focusing on part-time work for their further studies or maximising their energies into apprenticeships, not playing the plastic TA and reviving nostalgia of the 1950s for Daily Express readers in their 80s and 90s. Better to actually restore military levels with trained professionals and stop pointless tax bribes when we all know they’ll go up via another route anyway over a Parliament. And encourage volunteering in things people are passionate about and interested in. Work with a range of different sectors at all ages to get a package of volunteering opportunities offers so people get the chance to work alongside people they wouldn’t normally. Good way to offer career development. If the NHS waiting lists come down it’s also a great pathway back into paid work as it gives people examples of what they’ve done at interviews etc.

Today some smoking guns really exposed her. The email you refer to on the mediation scheme, and the response to Mark Davies’s advice, their Head of Media, which confirmed the cover-up. The one which appalled me the most though - and this wasn’t just Vennells and the enquiry should have kept digging to get to the bottom of it - was the seeming obstruction of Susan Crichton’s paper on Horizon’s legal risks for PO Board in 2013. Vennells said she didn’t present/mis-represent the paper as an agenda item and had expected Crichton to appear later in the meeting. She didn’t and it appears was stood down by the board chair, so they are under pressure to come clean and the chair and other board members could also be in big trouble if it’s proven they had sufficient awareness of the cover-up. Vennells was part of it but even today, she wouldn’t drop any of her former executive colleagues in it - they are tight knit in their standard lines and obscuration on key items. Purely about losing face - and to a certain extent, money to put right the horrific wrongs. Suited Fujitsu as well. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cl44j0xgeljo

Nor do I. She’s not the only one that era of leadership at the PO who have used that line though, it’s an obviously a standard line line they’ve agreed to push out. Chair just called it out - coverage of prosecutions in the press at the time pre-2012. Surely at her level you’d ask questions as your organisation was bringing the cases? The email trail is exposing her though. Nice display of waterworks about the Griffiths suicide - many years too late for his loved ones. Had admitted misleading other PO colleagues and MPs - can’t see how she can’t be prosecuted - but allies in justice system will help her as the powerful don’t like to set a precedent. As we’ve seen already with Duckenfield and Hillsborough, Infected Blood Scandal and now this.

By Israel, that means Netanyahu at present, but of course this will be the start of putting pressure on Israel to have a more balanced government if it wants to supply of heavy weaponry to continue. General elections in both US and UK later this year could affect that picture and the European elections may see some volatile results. Add in the ICC arrest warrant and the pressure is building on Netanyahu. The Palestinian leaders would certainly need to do their part and cut the cord with Iran and thereby reduce Hamas’s role. As with Northern Ireland, the two sides have got to make the bold moves and accept some compromises- all the international community can do is create the environment for that to be possible but if they won’t then the status quo is not guaranteed either without getting back on a 2-state track. Otherwise the West is writing a blank cheque indefinitely rather than supporting a regional ally to key to our strategic interests with a long-term negotiated plan to bring the conflict to a manageable level. Iran will have a new and presumably equally hardline Conservative PM but it can’t be 100% certain that they will carry on supporting Hamas and Hezbollah to the same extent, especially as sanctions are throttling their economy and unlike Putin they don’t have a cheque from Beijing, although the price for that will be horrendous of course for Russia.

Didn’t James Fuller keep Fletcha company too making 77* with Fletcha 59*. Could be a huge win come September to keep away from the bottom of the table.

1 and 2 sound like the sensible options to me. I’m not against Rwanda ideologically or morally but more on cost and efficacy - it will deal with so few asylum seekers as a %for what it costs. Would need some resource for the embassy in France and shared staffing but I think that’s a good investment as at least some of the people will feel there’s a chance without risking it in the busiest shipping lane on the planet. It’s better than paying the French police and border staff as we do now but both nations have a huge coastline so some will take more risky spots to cross. We receive the fifth most asylum seekers in W Europe so closer co-operation with the other four is probably an idea if they do come up with a Rwandan alternative which could bring the cost per applicant down. Some of the Tory right might not like working more closely with leading EU nations and the Labour left won’t like the idea of third nation zones whilst processinh but it’s a problem involving multiple borders and also it could neutralise some of the ECHR discourse. Climate change will also increase numbers from sub-Saharan Africa in future decades so co-operation seems sensible as tensions from the Brexit period hopefully ease. Also, the deal with Albania has cut boat seekers there from 4k to low hundreds, politically impossible with nations like Syria, Iran and Iraq, but Vietnam should be possible say. 4 and 5 will no doubt be tried and a few will succeed whatever other options are taken. Dare I say it, post-Macron further progress may be possible https://ukandeu.ac.uk/understanding-the-france-uk-border-control-conundrum-a-closer-look/#:~:text=Despite the warm words at,return agreement with the EU.

We’re going to have work in more close co-operation with the French and others, including rebuilding access to Interpol to proactively track and intercept the smugglers https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/01/uk-police-and-border-force-to-remain-locked-out-of-eu-database-of-criminals Otherwise we are just paying large sums to the French police to just watch illegal and lethal vessels be boarded and launched under their nose https://www.itv.com/watch/news/itv-news-witnesses-french-police-standing-by-watching-as-migrants-board-boats/42dyrpw There is a black market which people will supply, that’s right. And climate change is going to make it worse. Duck - you don’t like my suggestions on speeding up processing of cases and pursuing smuggler leaders, and those funding it, what would you do? Because hiking visa costs at 40% a time for legal migration to pay for 3% of illegal attempted migrants to leave via the Rwanda scheme isn’t sustainable, let alone the huge taxpayer costs.

I agree with some of what he says and it’s plain that Starmer has the life experience to do a huge job which Sunak doesn’t have, added to leading an ungovernable and unmanageable party divided for generations about Europe and underpinned by a membership of elderly swivel eyed loons (Cameron). On immigration is where I diverge. Again, we’ve got to make a clear distinction between the nurse from the Philippines coming to help reduce waiting lists and A&E times, the oncology PhD student coming to study and train with his/her family, and illegal asylum seekers being exploited by smugglers risking their lives on a boat. Empathetic to the latter, but fast track convictions much stiffer jail terms are needed for smugglers before the defence side can get mobilised - if people die in the crossings, that’s manslaughter, full terms for each person drowned/killed with no parole option - and cases have got to processed very quickly and effectively so that people are heading back to France before activist lawyers have even got the appeals paperwork up and running. Still far cheaper than the Rwandan figleaf which only addresses what, 3% of illegal cases. Won’t stop all of them but it’s a hell of risk to take. There’s other types of crime without a 30 year stretch attached. The first two categories, on the second, a far right former Home Secretary (Braverman) artifically put them in the migration figures in the first place to stir hatred, so actually the Tory party has caused its own problems here. As former Tory Minister Jo Johnson says, they should never been in the figures in the first place. They’re more like tourists, and the minority who do stay and work are an asset who help deliver services and pay taxes/rents. They are young and healthy, research showing that they rarely trouble the NHS. Those that don’t increase essential services in their nation of origin, soft power for the UK. On the first category, we need to waive the stupid hikes in visa costs Braverman introduced to get our health service back on track, and that’s also true for the second category. It’s to pay for the extortionate Rwanda figleaf which isn’t needed.