Gloucester Saint

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.

New keeper coming in as #1. Lumley or Lis as back up, Baz on loan in the new year when fit again to a lower league 1/promotion chasing League 2 side. Bart is probably a good model for Gavin to look to - rebuild in leagues 1 and 2, and back to the Champ in his 30s if he makes significant improvement. The fact he’s a RoI international is irrelevant as they are the worst they’ve been for generations, like Wales under Bobby Gould.

Totnes as a seat could swing back to the Lib Dem’s, the town itself wants rid of the Tories and is Lib Dem/Green, but Brixham has been solid Tory partly because of the fishing and Brexit. The fishing community got so badly shat on and lied to by the Tory Brexiteers that you’d hope they’d get their revenge at the GE but experience tells me that working folk in this country love the Etonian jackboot in their face.

Great result, patient display first half and higher tempo after the break. Superb goals by Smallbone and Armstrong. Brooks very good, should have had a penalty and then one given when it wasn’t (Manning). Downes excellent. McCarthy has made a huge difference in goal, I think we will bring in a first choice keeper whatever the result at Wembley. Wonderful vibrant atmosphere, pity about the underclass baiting the travelling Baggies at the end. Shitty when Derby did in 2007 and 17 years on the armpit of our fanbase does it. Enjoy the win, get excited about Wembley but show some respect and class towards good fans and a good club (WBA).

Bournemouth/Ringwood to Brighton is not an easy drive to do on a regular basis. Between Havant and Chichester was always bad and if Goodwood is on even worse. I knew someone who commuted between Hayling Island and Bournemouth and found it very challenging, Brighton further still. I’d have thought Brighton let him have some days at home but with their Europa campaign this year that’s probably been less often and he’s probably been staying in Sussex more often than not.

Now you’re getting to the root of the issue. What VAR has brought a searing spotlight onto is the complacency, ineptitude, poor concentration, and sloppiness typifying English refereeing. In rugby and cricket, admittedly vastly superior sports these days to football, look at how professionalisation has transformed refereeing. Communication is so much better, in rugby they are miked up, and confident in explaining their decisions. When mistakes do happen, they put their hand up to them which helps enable two-way respect. Look at cricket, the replays are so much faster. It’s no more difficult to work out if a batter has nicked it to the keeper than judging an offside, yet it takes a fraction of the time. Similar for LBWs. If PGMOL members and the body want to earn any respect, they need to be far more transparent and humble. Then, the focus can be on the clubs and players to clean up their act and show more respect. They wont though, too arrogant and complacent. I’d put PGMOL and 75% of the referees on performance management measures for next season, if there’s not a huge improvement they need to be dismissed. We can bring in better from overseas until we train our younger referees to the standards expected.

It did read like a sanitised version of Duck without the references to soft arsed pinkos. Farage in government I suspect would be similar to Boris in many ways - effective at campaigning, getting slogans across, but not the level of consistent attention to detail on a day to day basis for Whitehall. Unlike Boris, I think Farage knows it too. He makes far more money now than he’d make as an MP/Minister and has a lot more freedom to do/say what he wants.

Good grief https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13415849/Tory-woke-wars-Grants-Shapps-dismisses-Common-Sense-minister-Esther-McVeys-ban-LGBT-lanyards-Whitehall-saying-not-bothered-staff-expressing-views.html Her stupidity in full: https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/government-to-scrap-equality-and-diversity-roles-minister-says Talk about prioritisation! Let’s ban non-jobs for thick people in the cabinet. Good response from Andrew Boff there and you can tell Schapps was thinking ‘oh FFS, not this crap’. She was quite happy to take RDA funds to get her business, based on equalities issues itself just to underline hypocrisy, going before Steve Hilton apparently advised Cameron to abolish them. Within 18 months, LEPs had to be set up as it was obvious RDAs did vital work and er, it’s a bit hard to do place-based innovation and devolution without a similar structure. Hilton used to have a decent brain apart from that brain fart, but now part of Donnie’s Orange single digit IQ army.

Now considering buying a pub nearer their brewery near Bourton https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czkvv7rxevgo I can believe it would be a £750k refurb as it’s in a poor state and it’s expensive to renovate around here.

If Mordaunt or Tugendhat get the leadership, that’s possible, this next budget is going to fuck the economy again (not quite at Truss/IEA level, but still badly) for anyone who isn’t a mega billionaire. Always party before national interest with them. When the tabloids keep referring to the record tax levels, they are talking about their non dom owners, not the likes of us. The NI cut - I’d rather have a functioning NHS when I need it getting towards my 50s rather than £90 extra p/month as a higher rate taxpayer. What’s really criminal is how they’ve doubled the national debt from the supposedly unsustainable high point in 2010 (an outlier since 1997) yet trashed public services to ruins, fucked thousands of SMEs over with Brexit who export/import and let infrastructure rot so dividends shoot up whilst we pay the highest energy and transport costs in Europe. Michelle Mone was certainly enjoying her billions of champagne socialism via the VIP lane for mountains of duff equipment. There’s always a magic tree with our money on it for their mates. However, the swivels call the shots in their crazy party and it’ll be Braverman, Femi or some other absolute loon. Trying to persuade an electorate that the party who brought us Truss, Sinclair et al has any economic competence for the next decade at least, probably a lot longer still, is going to take some doing! As Daniel Finkenstein says, it’s their Winter of Discontent and IMF all in one. Rub their noses in it for decades and never let them forget. It was a global disgrace. Plus after they fucked the Lib Dems over in the coalition, then the DUP, nobody will partner them to get them to 326 seats in the future. As a Lib Dem, I can’t wait to us take the Cornish seats and others in the SW return to their proper yellow colour (they’ll hold on in Devon outside the urban areas because the average age). That’s why tactical voting is vital in this election and future ones to deny the useless plastic US Trump Republicans on the Tory right a majority. I’m fine with the One Nation folks in their party - they are welcome to defect to us. Talking of plastic, Trump Republicans, remind me who the OP was again? You won’t see him for dust on General Election night when it’s defeat after defeat.

Durham have picked two spinners as well. Callum Parkinson is one of them, and took the wicket of Middleton. Hants 85-1, Orr reaching his 50 and building a stand with Gubbins. Durham’s bowling looks decent but long tail with the bat, Carse due at 7 when they bat. Clearly anticipating a flat track. BBC reporting they think it will help the spinners especially on days 3 and 4.

Great quip by Mordaunt in the HoC - ‘I am not about to defect to the opposition benches. They wouldn’t be interested in me, I’m too left wing’. Quality response drawing further laughter from Lucy Powell ‘Our reach into previously undiscovered support is much broader and deeper than I ever imagined’. Meanwhile Houchen, the sole consolation in the local election and Mayoral races, becomes ‘Ouchen’ for Rishi https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/national/24308000.sunak-ultimately-blame-tory-chaos-says-tees-valley-mayor-houchen/

Agree with most of this, JWP has more than a decade of regular PL football, dozen England caps, set piece record and some good non-set piece goals. Downes is a very good player, touch harsh to say he’s proven not to be PL calibre as has seemingly done well when given an opportunity at West Ham, but he’s not quite cutting it for West Ham want to be e.g top 8 in the same Jack Cork wasn’t when Saints were at that level for 3-4 seasons but was very effective in the Champ and first couple of seasons back in the top flight. Like Jack Cork was at Burnley, Downes improves them and Everton downwards this season. If, huge if, the club wins the play-offs, Downes if West Ham’s new boss decides he’s surplus, would need to be supplemented by at least one Victor/Diop type mountains who can screen the back 4/5 and get up and down the pitch. Selling Romeu, legs going or not, killed JWP last season, and out of a stupid summer 2022 was one of the moronic decisions of the lot. Smallbone will be loaned out again as would Aribo. Given there’s a new keeper needed whatever the division, probably at least one CB, CM and strikers, good luck to Wilcox’s replacement!

Indeed https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66405229 and was an effective Sport minister despite being very at odds with the New Labour pro-ish EU orthodoxy at the time. Dan Poulter was a far more obvious defector, but interesting article about some of the background drivers here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68979548 Housing is a common interest and move away from recent Tory policies, plus she seemed to prefer trying to rebuild relationships with the French to the very costly Rwanda scheme. Not sure the ERG helped with that objective much though! Be interesting to know her position on the hard right’s current obsession of leaving the ECHR as that’s quite tricky if she was in favour of that. Dover is strategically important on the boats debate so I can see why Starmer did it for that reason. Not one I saw coming even so. It would have been hard for her to stand for election again with the social media interviews being dragged up but as she’s standing down and gets as advisory role on housing as a favoured subject I can see it works both ways on a practical level. The unease of some on the left will probably relate also to comments she made after Charlie Elphicke was jailed https://www.politico.eu/article/tory-natalie-elphicke-defection-sparks-backlash-labour-women/ plus the Rashford comments. Risky move, some pros rubbing Sunak’s nose further in it and pissing Momentum off is always worth votes, but some of the unease is real.

The Rallings and Thresher analysis is quite flawed anyway, Curtis pulls it apart easily https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-wrong-hung-parliament-3042437#:~:text=It is based on an,of a majority in Parliament. Firstly, people have always voted differently in local elections, there’s more Greens, Independents etc. Secondly, Reform didn’t have much of a spread geographically as their powder is kept dry for the GE. Thirdly, it ignores the SNP implosion where Labour are likely to win seats back for the first time since 2010. People aren’t as enthusiastic about Starmer as they were about Blair, but the same is true about every Tory politician bar Thatcher, apart from a brief flicker from Boris before his laziness became more widely obvious and lack of focus led to disgrace. Those two, Thatcher and Blair, are generational figures. The key is do people prefer Starmer to Sunak and the results are pretty clear on that. Boris and to an extent Cameron outperformed the Tory brand, which has been low ever since 1997, maybe 1993. Justin Webb took Maria Caulfield apart on this yesterday https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/taking-them-for-fools-bbc-presenter-nails-the-big-flaws-in-sunaks-coalition-of-chaos-claim_uk_6638872ee4b0e44cfb124111 Its a desperate F5 button press from 2015 - vote Miliband, get SNP (at their and Sturgeon’s peak, not now) et al plus the focus on Lib Dem’s SW heartlands funded by their dodgy non doms. We lived in one of the seats turning yellow to blue in 2015 and our doormat got peppered with that stuff for several months, letters addressed to both of us etc. It worked for Cameron for that GE but May Parliament chaos, Boris scandals and resignations, Truss economic humiliation hadn’t happened at that point. Also, Cameron was toast within months as PM and the Pandora’s Box opened. Rishi limps on, a Ruben Selles following a Nathan Jones, with relegation looming by the same rock bottom margin as last season. Sunak wants to avoid losing worse than Major, get as close to 200 seats as they can. If they get under 130-140, they look ripe for Reform UK pickings and less chance of even a long-term rebuild 1997-2010.

Could be a similar story in the summer if Saints lose out in the play-offs, Martin has hinted at it previously. If the tactics are more pragmatic aka last Saturday at Leeds, and Dragan’s willing to invest, then a loss at Wembley where we’ve had a good go at it, then he could stay even with the turnover of players as it’s a weaker league next season. If he reverts to Martinball, then it could be a similar story to Rosenior. Rosenior is well regarded as a coach, and done well overall in his first major job as #1. Where I think it’s hurt him is that their owner backed him apparently in January to strengthen but presumably on the basis of making the top 6. Dragan could make the same argument if WBA beat us in the semis.