Gloucester Saint

Why not? Although as others have posted, signing Bazanu as a League One quality keeper at best for what £14m, when it should have been £750k + add-ons as a back-up, Lumley and making McCarthy a top earner, the club’s diabolical reputation for recruitment doesn’t inspire any faith. Although with a record of extortionate and inexplicable failure like Ross Stewart, Guido Carrillo and Paul Onachu in the striker department, it almost (I said almost!) looks an improvement. Lis would be cheap so would suit from that perspective.

I was at that 4-3 too, brilliant game. Great moment of terrace humour - Ipswich had a striker, Bontcho Guntchev, and he blazed a good chance direct at goal over the bar at the Milton end. Lad behind us was doing the usual early teenage ‘you’re a wanker’ routine of shouting and gestures and a middle aged bloke standing near us said in a droll voice ‘He won’t understand you - he’s Bulgarian’ 😂 Ipswich definitely got the better version of George Burley the manager. The Robson/McMenemy peak teams were just before my time but would loved to see them play each other live, saw the 83/84 Saints side in my first season of being a supporter and the 84/85 one. Ipswich’s peak was probably 74-82. Wark, Talbot, Mariner, Brazil, Cooper, Beattie, Gates, Muhren, Thysen, Burley - some serious players there. There was an episode of Bobby Charlton’s scrapbook on Sky where it was another 4-3 at the Dell, might have been 1980/1, Keegan and Wark amongst the goals, my old man and his friends were at that one (lucky things). Regret is that the Pochettino/Koeman SFC sides more recently didn’t win a trophy despite being in and around top 6 and Europe, were certainly good enough.

Broadly agree, and can understand it at a personal level but it doesn’t say anything positive about the job he’s done at SFC or his belief in it. It smacks of running away from his own mistakes to going back to being a cog again in a huge wheel instead of a leader. Drops Martin right in it, no protection now if he doesn’t win the play offs, I think SR will sack him if he doesn’t as there’s clearly frustration at the trajectory of results all-round and sheer amount of tinkering and experimentation at this stage of the season. Norwich are likely to part company with Wagner even if they make the top 6 so I reckon Martin goes there. Wilcox has a mixed report card - good outgoing sales, especially Lavia and Tella, repaired some of Ankerson’s appalling catalogue of recruitment mistakes. The incomings have been more mixed, Stewart was a horrible mistake on a par with Carrillo and Tall Paul which is a damning endorsement on SFC mismanagement. Certainly too, Wilcox and Martin’s replacements need to bring in an experienced first choice keeper in the summer, along with two first choice strikers, and loan Gavin out in League One or Two. Looks like League One/Lower Champ is probably his maximum level if he gets more consistency.

Just had an SSN app update that Man U have approached formally. From Long Shot’s posting, doesn’t seem too much of a surprise and yes, may explain the drop off in form and Martin feeling comfortable returning to strange tactical decisions. Mixed views - got some good fees in eg Tella, Lavia, but the Stewart debacle has cost the club promotion via the automatics and probably play offs.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/trump-threatens-biden-with-image-of-president-bound-and-kidnapped-in-back-of-maga-truck/ar-BB1kMPAc?ocid=nl_article_link Classy from Trump and his Neanderthal followers

Can’t say I follow Tice and Farage much but yes, it does appear that Tice committed to that on 3 January this year. Looks like the One Nation Conservative movement and older generation era splintering away, voters under 50 won’t go for much of this and it’s as unsustainable and unlikely to pass the sniff test with global markets as Truss was. Tim Montgomerie labelled it barking mad on the £50bn of ‘wasteful public spending’ (yes, he does have an agenda but he’s broadly not wrong in saying that): https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-reform-party-is-too-wedded-to-the-free-market/ The Spectator missed this out on renationalising some utilities and limiting overseas impact in their overall tone of their piece which is the one headline Reform policy (there’s other micro ones like free Wi-Fi on public transport) I do agree with very broadly. However, it would come with a hefty up-front price tag, which is OK if you’ve left enough in the Treasury to absorb it and enjoy the longer-term savings it would make and free up household incomes. Their tax cutting policies make that very unlikely https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64464933 If Farage is correct and they want to cause a ‘Canada’, they certainly could play a disruptive role, more so than Goldsmith did in 1997. What happens after the GE would be interesting, although without electoral reform they will burn a lot of cash for little tangible political return eg seats or councils held (I can’t see them doing local government at that scale but hard to build a network for repeated success without) after settling the score at this GE. Depends what their medium term goal is - to swallow the Tory Party, infiltrate it, maybe push the One Nation group into an expanded Lib Dem camp like a moderate Tory Limehouse moment? Or do they see themselves if Farage takes a more frontline role as being a more effective pressure group in the media and online to a Labour government with what looks like being a material majority. You’re probably more in touch with Reform UK so open question I guess - what do you think they want to achieve 2025 onwards?

Tory right wing/ERG and Reform into a civil war death spiral - hard to see a pact happening https://news.sky.com/story/row-between-conservatives-and-nigel-farages-reform-as-tory-chair-calls-richard-tice-a-threatening-bully-13105273 Hence the latest poll https://news.sky.com/story/tories-could-be-left-with-fewer-than-100-mps-after-next-general-election-major-poll-suggests-13105117 Gullis’s appointment is another lack of judgement by Sunak. May’s local elections are not going to be pretty.

Good article in the DT https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/03/29/tory-advisers-desert-rishi-sunak-for-keir-starmer/ PS - whilst it wouldn’t be quite as big a landmark as 1997, keep an eye on the Sun. Eschewed politics for several weeks, then double page interview with Reeves, front page quotes by Starmer and Trevor Kavanagh’s assessment on the budget not saving Tory hopes.

More chance of seeing Rod Stewart this season in a Saints shirt PS - happy to eat humble pie if he scores the winner at Wembley!

One very immediate problem for a new government stemming from a failed 1980s policy https://www.standard.co.uk/business/thames-water-ofwat-crisis-bills-regulator-utility-debt-nationalisation-bills-kemble-shareholders-b1148304.html All very well Gove being annoyed - and what he says is true, but idiotic to have national utilities having billions taken out in dividends in the first place https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2024/mar/28/thames-water-crisis-sewage-rivers-funding-uk-recession-gdp-economy-sterling-business-live They clearly took a great deal of heed of his speech six years ago https://news.sky.com/story/michael-gove-water-companies-must-clean-up-their-act-or-face-tougher-regulation-11272867 As with the trains, not as if there’s a market for consumers to shop around in to make the imaginary free market fairy an option. Hope none of the rowers fall into the Thames during the race https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68674088

Some good articles here about why they are continuing to slide and out of touch beyond their very narrow and elderly membership base https://www.ft.com/content/88fbf5c4-828e-4552-948e-951475cf626c https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/frank-luntz-political-strategist-tory-partys-biggest-enemy-themselves-general-election Agree with Luntz, people predicting total wipeout won’t see that. They will still get at least 150 seats, anything better than 1997 is probably success at this stage as it is a far, far worse administration even with hindsight than Major’s.

That picture sums it up perfectly. Even by Red Waller and ERG standards, incredibly basic. Would have been perfect BNP local elections material mid-1990s, so ideal for today’s Reform UK. Sunak has totally lost the plot. Conservatives always talk up the areas they represent, erm not in this case https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jonathan-gullis-criticises-constituents-conservative_uk_63f3475ee4b0616708dc8626 Good news coming shortly though Kraken https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/seatdetails.py?seat=Stoke-on-Trent North Another to toast when he falls in the autumn.

And this bloke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Ferrari In fact that’s a balance as Johnson is Lib Dem/left wing Tory, Ferrari is right and O’Brien left. It’s not the journalist presenters with a slight angle on GB News, it’s the fact you’ve got current ministers and MPs from a single party presenting news shows. If they cut that out, there’d still only be 100 people watching but they’d be ok with OFCOM because it’s no different to Andrew Pierce and Kevin Maguire debating on GMTV.

Although Paul Marshall’s social media activity indicated some extremist activity, I don’t think GB News is far right per se from what I can gather. There’s some very wealthy people who want to sell certain policies and ideologies to a very, very small band of viewers who require partisan spoon-feeding. 99.9% of UK adults with joined up writing skills are quite happy to take their own views from the five terrestrial high quality TV news services we have. No need for a Fox News or The Momentum new channel - as the thumping losses by GB News and Talk TV show. The response from the next government is straightforward - don’t ban it if non doms are stupid enough to fritter hundreds of millions on 100 viewers, include it in the Tory Party donors envelope, and put the Tory Party tree logo in the top corner when it’s on air. Everybody knows full well what it is, but if they are going to have current politicians (soon to be shadow ministers) talking about the news then the label is fair.

I must admit the only time I’ve ever seen it was watching a play back of the infamous Laurence Fox and Dan Wooton segment. If that’s representative of their usual output then I’d rather ‘watch’ QVC frankly. I wouldn’t want to watch a channel produced by say the trade unions for Labour either. Not that they’d have the funding to do something like that, even Rupert Murdoch has cut his losses on Talk TV. The Private Eye figure of them losing £71m last year did lead me to look into who exactly was throwing bad money after even worse and why https://news.sky.com/story/broadcaster-gb-news-in-talks-to-raise-30m-from-investors-13026128 and https://www.thenational.scot/news/24139814.paul-marshall-gb-news-co-owner-centre-hope-not-hate/ When the DT calls you unfit to own them you’ve got serious problems https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/08/andrew-neil-opposed-uae-telegraph-claims-refused-job/ and https://deadline.com/2024/03/jeff-zucker-andrew-neil-gb-news-paul-marshall-the-telegraph-redbird-imi-1235850004/ Was surprised to see he was one of the Lib Dem’s biggest backers before 2015 but radicalised since by Brexit. Paul Marshall might as well have bought SFC if he wanted to throw away £100m. At least Dragan got a training ground, 32000 seat stadium and a brand for it!

They’re whining about OFCOM investigating Tory ministers and MPs presenting news shows. No-one wants to watch Fox News B String or BNP TV - hence £71m of murky non-dom losses in year one https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66086560 I don’t want to watch Lib Dem TV or Canary TV either. Sky, C4, BBC and ITV do a more than good enough, and impartial job. The partisan shit can fuck off back over the Atlantic. Murdoch has gotten the message and making Talk TV online only.

Look what happens when the orange Neo Nazi’s teleprompter doesn’t work properly https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/17/trump-verbal-gaffes-ohio-rally-bloodbath

According to the Mail on Sunday, private polling is saying absolute best case scenario for the Tories is a 50 seat Labour majority and worst is 250. Changing leader is cited as making little to no difference in the data. Besides which, Sunak would simply call a GE if challenged anyway. According to the DT, removing Truss was the end for the party - their male editorship really do have a teenage crush for her don’t they?

Another Minister gone https://news.sky.com/story/armed-forces-minister-james-heappey-to-stand-down-at-general-election-13095145 Hilarious article yesterday on the i about how three of the four ex PMs from the last 10 years may be part of the GE campaign (Truss too much of a loose cannon). Can’t imagine Boris doing Rishi any favours on the campaign trail. Shows how deluded and out of touch they are, but when their reading sources are so limited they probably believe that bubble hook line and sinker. Interesting thread between George Eaton of the New Statesman and Tim Montgomerie. Former saying that the polls narrowed a bit just before the 1997 GE and latter saying ‘no, they’ll lose harder than 1997, Major government had brought crime down, restored economic performance, lottery introduction, green policies with cross-party support etc’. There was so much noise around Maastricht and the Eurosceptics, plus the sleaze that it drowned the above progress out. Plus Blair, Brown and Mandelson had a slick operation by then too, more so than Labour now, tidy but limited as they are. Both Major and Blair look amazing compared to the last 14 years of chaos - worst economic performance postwar, highest postwar taxes, a disaster hard Brexit with a deal Sunak has had to top up straight away (Boris and Frost forgot to turn the oven on, let alone an oven ready deal), public debt as % of GDP doubled from 2010 and bearing in mind it was far lower for most of the 2000s, local authorities bankrupt, public services non-existant in places, no NHS dentists, NHS waiting lists huge and over 1m vacancies, schools, colleges and universities in financial trouble, SMEs who export crippled by Brexit red tape. Energy bills out of control and water bills set to double after 2025 (can’t blame Ukraine war for that). Tim has a point! No plastic American culture war crap is going to wipe that horrific legacy out. Winter of Discontent+++ Not even mentioned Truss, proroguing of Parliament, PPE VIP £30bn to their mates etc

Hester’s comments are clearly racist, especially the follow-up ones even taking the Diane Abbot ones out of the equation. Hopefully he’s learned from it and I doubt if the party will getting further donations on that scale. Their communications are shambles on this and it reflects a lack of leadership direction and values https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68552407 Some justice really as they went big on the whole culture war crap copying Bannon and Trump like 14 year old kids peering over another’s shoulder to see their homework answers. The result is a 🪃 effect smacking them in their own mouth, and that’s without Donelan’s stupidity we are paying the tab for. The other parties shouldn’t worry if they have a bad day, the Tories are like Saints last season. They might score one but they ship three, four or even five soft ones in quick succession, some own goals. Rather like the four Spurs goals in 5 minutes at WHL v Saints on Sky under Branfoot.

Christopher Hope of GB News - large pinch of salt naturally - saying this morning that up to nine Tory MPs in advanced talks with Reform. Fair to say that they won’t all be independents first…

Don’t forget who pulls his strings though https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68533351 Vote Trump, support Putin.

Went the way of MLT but without the Premier League football career and earnings behind him. https://www.indy100.com/politics/andrew-bridgen-mp-anti-vax Mind you, saying the Tory Party should do more protect its MPs from extremism and manipulation is ironic when they’ve had the likes of Truss as Prime Minister! I’d say they are a leading cause of extremism since Brexit. 30p Lee joins Reform/BNP/whatever they are now in other news

More like ‘Tanglefoot, Tanglefoot, Tanglefoot’. That should make Duckie appear

Feasible that a CEO could take over a role on one day and then the company is sold the next with the buyers wanting to install their own leadership team? Re Michelle Donelan, what an idiot jumping onto a completely and intentionally misleading tweet by the Policy Exchange, another Tory quango funded by dark money (yes, I know quangos are supposed to be public). On ‘Who Funds You?’, from A to E on transparency of funding, they get an E. The entire Conservative movement needs training in this area, maybe just basic 11+ level literacy. Another of their Peers has had to apologise and pay damages over an allegation over a toy 🐙 and alleged anti-semitism over an episode of University Challenge I think it was, filmed months before the Gaza conflict even started. More about the Policy Exchange here which started in 2002 with centrist Tories but got taken over by hard right American money and yet another route for importing their toxic culture wars. No wonder the British public is moving at pace back to a Western European style democracy https://bylinetimes.com/2023/02/13/government-by-think-tank-the-return-of-policy-exchange/