Saintandy666

It is fixed to 5 years - but that can be overturned by either a 2/3rds majority vote for an election. Or just a 'No confidence' vote by a simple majority, followed by 14 days in which another government can not be formed. 5 years is too long in my opinion, 4 would be better.

I sadly do not live in a marginal constituency, and my uni constituency is completely unmarginal also (though it is next door to a very marginal one, so that's quite exciting). But in terms of my vote, it'll have to be an on principle one!

Oh, it's certainly nice to know! Well done Dave there. But it is a strategic cock-up and comes across a tiny bit arrogant also. He should have just said 'I'm putting all my thoughts into getting a second term at the moment'. My point on the tories in general now is that if you vote Cameron, he will be gone by 2017/18 and whilst he is a relatively moderate Tory, he will most likely be replaced by a very unmoderate Tory who has attempted to introduce a series of very worry laws which infringe on civil liberties. On Boris, I'm not so sure. He kind of peaked a few years back, and whilst he is popular with the public, I'm not so sure about his levels with the Tory party and whether they would vote for him enmass for the leader. He'll need to clear up his game a bit - show he is a bit more serious before any run, in my opinion anyways.

I think that sadly the champions league dream is over, and I suppose it was always going to be that way as the top squads have just that little bit more quality and depth than us to peak at the right time, and also remain more consistent. But I still think we can finish 5th, and how great it would be to defeat the main defector clubs, Tottenham and Liverpool. The big game about whether we finish above Tottenham is obviously our game against them which is pretty much a must win - as their run-in is probably on a par with ours in that it has plenty of winnable games. Liverpool still need to play Chelsea and Arsenal, but beyond that also plenty of winnable games given their form, but there's not that many games less and we only need 1 more point than them over that period so an extra loss against one of those teams would be huge. But then of course, with lots of big teams to play each other - Man Utd and Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, Tottenham and Man City - the right combinations could put us in with a chance for CL still, but I think we'd need to win at least 6 of a remaining 8 games to be in with a shot. Edit: And indeed... 72 points W6 D1 L1 - puts us in with a decent chance of CL, but by no means a guarantee. http://www.sportsclubstats.com/England/Southampton.html (if we win 7, then we are more or less assured it. It's all such tight margins though and I just can't see it happening)

So, what about Cameron and his no third term intention, repeating Blair's similar blunder. Seems to be a complete and bizarre own goal. Ignoring the presumption that he'll even get a second term, he appears to have kickstarted the search for the next Tory leader in a very public sense, even naming potential successors! Any Cameron second term will now be beset by whispers of when he will stand down to give the next person a decent run, and I can't see him lasting beyond c. 2017/18 now. Question is, would a potential successor then repeat Brown's mistake of no election?! Although this is all without stating that a Tory led government is at present no means a given, quite far from it really. What worries me though is Theresa May. Whilst Cameron is generally a 'moderate' Tory, she is anything but. If she had had her way there would no Human Right's Act, a snoopers charter to spy on us all and a vague and conceived ban on 'extremists' speaking on university campuses. I'm quite worried that a person who seems to care so little for civil liberties could get the keys to number 10 via the backdoor route, and that seems to be what could happen now. Vote Cameron and end up with May.

It shouldn't be hard to spot given the repetitive nature of their posts and those who they seem to enjoy following around to troll.

That's fair - was more responding to the attitude of some that we should have a backup that could actually compete with main one, which would be hard as there's no real rotation in keepers (which also means it's hard to assess as an ordinary fan the relative strength of them, especially if they have no premier league game' time. I wonder if anyone could find a list of backup keepers in the prem!

It's quite difficult to get a top keeper as backup. Maybe if you are one of the top teams in Europe, people will be happy to benchsit - but I think for us it's either gonna be the ageing pro with lots of experience, or the up and coming youth player, as your game time is virtually zero. Not sure we could do much better than Kelvin Davis as a backup.

Oh no.

Draw in Liverpool vs. Manchester United I hope then! Seems to be best option for keeping us in contention for both 4th and 5th! We have a decent run in, but so do Tottenham, so will need to keep winning almost every single match.

This good. Given the other responses on this thread though, I think I am out.

I'm not going to pretend to be the world expert on consent - but as I understand it. The first one is definitely rape, regardless of how long they have been together. If she is unconscious, she can not consent. You should not presume consent because you are married. The second one, assuming that there was enthusiastic consent is not rape assuming that at the time of the act, they both consented and were in a sound mind to do so. It is however a completely ****ty and manipulative thing to do. The third one is admittedly more tricky. For me, it is not rape assuming that they were both intoxicated and that they both consented at the time. It becomes rape if there is a uneven state of mind - i.e one is too drunk to give informed consent, but the other isn't. So, and I urge others to correct me if they think I am wrong, consent either exists or it doesn't. It must be equal (i.e both individuals are at a level state of mind), and it can not be presumed.

Consent either happened or it didn't. If one side thinks the other side is consenting, and then they actually weren't, then it wasn't a consensual act.

False rape claims are a few percentage points max. It's incredibly rare that false accusations are brought and the culture is society is completely stacked against people coming forward due to disbelief or intimidation. The overwhelming majority of rapists and sex criminals get away with it. That's the depressing reality. This isn't to say false accusations do not happen, just that they are incredibly rare. As for anonymity of the accused, I think on the whole it should remain consistent with other crimes.

Just got a darker and then lighter where I was. Sadly nothing too spectacular as it was very cloudy. Of course the sun has come out now, and it's a nice day.

You should stop following my posts like this, it's becoming slightly bizarre. To answer your question, I was 10, but remember it reasonably well as matches go.

Not consciously no, but I think there's wider symbolism in language and traditions like this, and I think stuff like this does matter if full and total equality is to be reached - i.e the way in which language can be male-biased, but I'm sure I'll get laughed down at this point. Congratulations for your marriage next year by the way!

I just assume everyone is a caricature of themselves - all threads on here are created for discussion and debate, so everyone comes across very contrarian when they probably aren't anywhere near as so 'in real life'. And then text never comes off the same as speech does.

I said earlier it doesn't matter either way to me which way people go (which is why I said it is symbolic of) - but just saying that the roots of the tradition are from the idea of a husband 'owning' their wives.

I do never understand why people sling insults around on an internet forum though. It's all a bit serious.

:badger: :badger:

I just assume that no one is that like their internet persona!

Europe would be very exciting! Who remembers Steaua Bucharest - 1-1 was it, Kevin Phillips?!

It's a symbolic part of a larger historical oppression of women though that we are now slowly moving on from. Culture changes and is variable, as I'm sure you know. I'm sure partnerships will survive people not opting into this tradition.

Fair play on selling bank shares to pay down debt. A surprise there. I always thought they might do a bit of that this year, but thought Osborne would use it for a tax cut.