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The Liverpool vs Spurs game was fun to watch. Scoreline flattered Tottenham a bit. Their second goal was offside, so I can see why Mignolet was upset. Setting up nicely for Saints top 4 push. Liverpool have taken points from Spurs just to jostle for position. As others have remarked, end of season ambitions could be set in the near future, depending on results.

I very much feel the same. GTA San Andreas previously held the crown for "greatest game of all time" for me. GTA V has inherited it. I finished the story mode on the PS3, and mostly do online stuff on the PS4 version, which while still very much in its infancy, is a compelling experience, especially if you're rolling with a couple of pals. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's the best thing ever on every level, but the scope is so admirable and the missions are top notch.

Does anyone else appreciate the irony of the defunct site SaintsForever?

I know several West Ham fans. One group is a family that moved down to the Flower Estates. Their London-based family used to trot down here and refer to it as "the countryside". Nice. I have one friend that use West Ham as a middle name on Facebook. His real middle name is David, and the tramp was born New Forest way, obviously dazzled by the bright highlights of Frank McAvennie's barnet in the 1980s. Another had a dad who was a West Ham supporter, and as someone that'll be using this fixture to brainwash my own scouse daughter into supporting the Saints, I can't really muster any lingering ire for the bloke. Quite liked the West Ham of the 1980s. They were a good team that tried to play nice football, so it was a shame to see Sam graft his percentage-based game onto a traditionally stylish team, but you can't really argue with results and they usually play better stuff these days. Sounds like they're going to park the bus tomorrow, if you believe Allardyce. I'd be prepared for anything. They've got a decent team, can do short or direct, good at set pieces and keeping the ball alive in the box, based on observations from the United game. We're good at most of the things they're good at. Potential own-team bias ahoy, but I think we've got better quality and with Mane back, a healthy slice of unpredictability. Hopefully, that'll reflect in the result. An early goal could fúck up all their plans.

I reckon you'll be in the minority. UKIP is normally a passionate protest vote, if what I see on Facebook is any indication. Lord D is well on-board with the idea of a people's army. He's probably bayoneting straw dummies of Eastern Europeans in his back garden as we speak*. *Joke, Lord D.

Sorry, that's untrue. If we'd elected via party list in the 2010 election, the Lib Dems would have had 152 seats to the Tories 228. Under FPTP, the Lib Dems got 57 seats and the Tories ended up getting 307 seats. If FPTP is keeping anyone in business, it's Labour and the Conservatives. That's why they fought so hard to hoodwink the electorate into keeping it. In our hypothetical "PR 2010" universe, there is no way that the Conservatives would have wielded as much power. Much greater consensus would have been needed, and we may have seen something approaching a true coalition emerge. The Thick of It nails real-life when describing the junior partners in their fictional coalition. "You're basically a couple of homeless guys we invited to Christmas dinner. Don't bítch if we don't let you carve the turkey." As for their performance in the most recent Euro elections, they got trounced, and it was glorious. Historically though, they've held up a good share of the vote and had a proportionate number of MEPs delivered, just as UKIP has benefited through PR in European elections. I can see some semblance of a point in Europe. You're arguing that without FPTP to help them, UKIP have kept pace with the Lib Dems, yet if we'd counted proportionally in the 2010 general election, UKIP would have pulled 20 seats total - ten times less than the Lib Dems. Looking at we are now, that's both an indication of how far the Lib Dems have fallen and how high UKIP have risen in the electorate's estimation. The Lib Dems are going to be on life-support after the 2015 general election, and they've only got themselves to blame for that. Historically, First Past the Post has deprived them of power. Why'd do you think they wanted rid of it?

I've explained them all at length both here and elsewhere. The Lib Dems have lost their votes because they've been seen to betray almost every principle they so stridently stood for. I'm not sure we'll see a bigger political own goal than the one-two combo of holding up pledges to vote against any rise in student fee tuition, only to vote for a rise in student fee tuition. If I had to pick a moment, that'd be it. Not only do they lose the entire idealistic core of young student voters, traditionally ripe for Lib Dem bullsh!t, but they also lost parents of aspiring children. I'm not sure that the government ever realised how universally despised that policy was. I was one of the idiots that voted for them in the last General Election, despite having a few misgivings at the time. They were very quick to chuck their leaders when focus groups told them they had to. They ditched "old man" Ming for young and electable Nick Clegg, sort of got elected and were then destroyed by the Tories, aided and abetted by Lib Dem's own pre-election b0llocks. They went a nasty way about getting into power they never expected to have and accidentally got it, giving their enemies all the ammuntion they'd ever need in the process. They got found out. That's why they're done.

Define "significant". It's basically the places where the Lib Dems have a chance of winning seats, isn't it? No-one would bother to vote tactically if the Lib Dems didn't have a hope in hell of victory in their local constituency. So yeah, if we ignore every Lib Dem vote that happens outside of where they actually have a chance of winning, you could say a significant proportion of their vote was tactical. You just need to forget about the vast number of constituencies where they've no hope. Then it works

So you think at least 3.5m were an informed electorate voting for the Lib Dems trying to keep another party out? I don't have the time or inclination to go through every single constituency, but Lib Dems pulled around 10K votes in both Southampton Test and Southampton Itchen in the 2010 election, over 20% of the votes in a Labour/Tory marginal. If they're getting 20% in a key battleground, it rather scotches the idea that half their voters are voting for them for tactical reasons.

They got almost seven million votes out of the 30m that were cast last election. All 7m voting tactically? Or perhaps they voted for the big policies, like no tuition fees or war, etc.

As a diversion, more like. Have you ever considered becoming a Conservative MP? I see promising signs here.

Bet again. Fair is fair, whatever the result. As it goes though, you're completely wrong about the LDs. They'd benefit to the tune of 100 extra Westminster seats if votes were proportionally represented. Also, not every form of PR loses the link between local MP and the voter, not that the link means much in an era of parachuted-in preferred children.

Have you read "Chavs : The demonisation of the working class"? If so, which parts of the book would you describe as caricature?

What a tube. Needs to concentrate on winning football games, not justifying himself to Alladici

Not really. We moved from deity-ordained (supposedly) autocracy to more representative forms of government, bit by bit, with a little more of the country enfranchised with each change. We still haven't gotten rid of many of the quirks, and if someone were to design a system from scratch, there's no way it'd look like our form of government as it is. I mean, how many other countries have members of the Royal family that actively veto legislation? It is the way it is, but don't mistake that for perfection. We're far from it.

Nice. Obsessed, but nice.

I'm not sure on that one. Depends if you believe that the Lib Dems have had any major success in reeling the Tories in. Most of the time, they were just offered up as the sacrificial lamb. The Tories would do something the Lib Dems expressly said they wouldn't, then all of the ire is inexplicably directed at the Lib Dems. I actually think they've been unwitting enablers of policy rather than any significant road block, and have prevented people from getting as píssed off with the Tories as they otherwise might have been.

Made a series of swingeing cuts, yet borrowed more? Yeah, ace.

That implies that the current system suits us. Look at the trouble it has caused. Parties with a decent majority get to make unilateral decisions despite not having a popular mandate to do so. Then the next lot spend more time and money reversing what the last lot did.

Germany has done alright with PR. Not only is it the strongest economy in Europe, it also has some of the most stringent protection for its citizens, especially concerning data protection. The choice is really between one party running everything and some kind of consensus. Even with this coalition, we've had one party basically running everything, largely on account of the Lib Dems low yield of seats in the Commons. They'd have something like 100 more under PR, and might have been something slightly more than whipping boys and/or political shields if that had been the case.

I didn't realise unplanned pregnancies were such a problem in the Shetland Pony community.

This is like watching a Shetland Pony attempt Becher's Brook. Admirable courage. Questionable judgement.

It wasn't the Lib Dem's first choice. They wanted PR. Wasn't the first choice of the Electoral Reform Society. They wanted PR too. Wasn't the first choice of Labour or Tories. In the main, they wanted to keep FPTP. Have you ever considered The Muppet Show?

It was no-one's first choice, a sop bunged to the Liberals by the Tories. Most that voted yes would have preferred PR. Some who voted no did so because they didn't think AV went far enough. Of course, the real fraud on the British public was to say afterwards "no one is really that arsed about electoral reform. Let's leave it another 40 years". And of course, there were the disgusting campaign posters.....