saint1977

A metaphor for Saints back four after facing Haaland at the weekend.

Meanwhile, Liz’s chief cheerleaders have got a lot more on their plate. They are seemingly already well on the way to losing the Markle case https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63164654 These people, not least Elton John, have got deep pockets. If they go under, their readers won’t notice any difference with the Express through their letterbox.

Economically the Johnson government wasn’t overly right wing, arguably Brown and Blair were more economically right wing and Osborne/Cameron definitely were. That was a large part of the appeal to the Red Wall eg levelling up agenda, investment in R&D and infrastructure. They were socially conservative which with the Save Big Dog’s Dick crap became populist with the needless C4 sell off, Williamson the moron and Priti Awful but economically centrist. Pity about Brexit and the Big Dog stuff as otherwise I could have comfortably lived with them but they shit the bed over COVID and so many other things through lack of focus and detail. Truss is equally socially populist, probably more so with the tossers she’s appointed, but economically way more right wing. So something that I do agree with Mad Nads on, for the first and only time.

Inevitable - but lack of class and respect when he is still in post. The club will then gag Ralph with an NDA, it stinks. I’ve been Ralph out since Brentford away but the leaking, particularly this week, has been pathetic. It is lower league small town crap. Sack him or STFU. Oh, and sort the forward line out, get a DMC in January. You can hoover up all the youngsters like it’s 2008/9 again but the squad is unbalanced still.

She is really as thick as pigshit. Whether or not people agreed with Thatcher’s policies, she was very bright but capable of being pragmatic and had real opponents who had made the 1970s very challenging for both main parties - union extremists, a much more potent USSR, economy stagnating with inflation soaring and already receiving monetarist-led policies to some extent post-IMF in 1976. The same policies simply aren’t needed today as they were then and there’s no mandate whatsoever for them after the election of a One Nation Tory admisinistration in 2019. The only coup (Braverman) is Truss’s. Liz just had imagined ones that her culture war mates talk about - BBC, NHS, George Osborne/Philip Hammond/Rishi Sunak, all Remainers, scientists, all educational and learning establishments, public sector, charities, other parties, emaciated unions weaker than Mann’s Brown Ale. The biggest opposition she has is Brexit - if you want to grow the economy overnight rejoin the Single Market FFS - and subsequently because of their views on Brexit (and she was a remainer btw) she has the most dense and talentless cabinet you could possibly pick. Whilst Sunak, Gove, Javid, Hunt and others with cabinet experience in pressure situations who can read, write and count sit on the backbenches. By contrast she has selected a lunatic in the Home Office, although lol for finding someone even worse than ‘Priti Awful’ (Alan Duncan), Coffey as Health Minister who doesn’t believe in a reproductive rights, a Business Secretary in charge of enabling the growth of green industries and technologies who doesn’t believe in man made climate change and who has made a fortune out of Brexit (insider trading anyone?), a Skills Minister whose only skill is moving her middle finger up and who can’t speak English, a CoE who doesn’t understand economics. I could go on but it’s depressing how low this country has sank. We used to have Thatcher, Baker, Clarke, Heseltine (my favourite politician), Brittain, Hurd, Howe, Rifkind, Blair, Brown, Mowlam, Mandelson, D Miliband, Burnham, Straw, Osborne, Willetts, Cable, Laws, Hammond as our senior politicians. Had their faults but compare it now. Even Teddy Taylor and Theresa Gorman would have got a go at a cabinet post with this lot and probably done better. It’s like Saints dropping into the National League having been a founder PL member. I guess it’s how Oldham FC feels. Truss is an inverse Corbyn, Kwarteng is an inverse McDonnell, you can decide which minister in this shower is Dianne Abbot or Jon Lansley. The Mail editors are Owen Jones. Let’s make sure the result is an inverse 2019, not 2017 as these cunts don’t deserve any help or hope.

Yep, Truss and Kwarteng are out of step and out of time, bar 160k zealots. This is a good article which underscores why, with Boris’s co-writer of the 2019 GE manifesto hitting the nail on the head - Truss is unelected on this mandate. The Red Wall voted for levelling up and One Nation Conservatism, because Boris wasn’t a typical Tory. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63110539 All the u turns won’t make that go away. I wasn’t happy with Gordon Brown but at least he carried on broadly the platform from the 2005 GE notwithstanding the credit crunch. This by contrast is a coup. The ERG and Bruges Group seem to have less of a problem with this unelected official. The howls at John Curtice were quite funny, they didn’t enjoy it as much as his 2015 exit poll clearly. Not sure how that’s a surprise to them really, but then we are talking about people who chose Truss over Sunak. Not saying Sunak is all that but 2024 GE would have been a contest at least as Starmer isn’t pulling up trees (or needing to). And the economy and society wouldn’t be a smouldering wreck as Rishi actually understands economics a bit. I’d have been a fuck sight happier with him as PM and more of a mandate and right to be there continuing largely a mandate won at a GE. Its like a Soho cinema at their conference, blue on blue now with Braverman and Badenoch clashing about the former’s idiotic ‘coup’ remarks. I see one of the Cornwall MPs has called Braverman out as well and rightly so. Every twat who voted for Braverman in Fareham needs to have a long look in the mirror with some of the moronic, unevidenced and plain stupid things she has said today about Rwanda, benefits inflation etc. Jenkyns has been saying equally stupid things as well - not enough people studying construction and architecture and too many Harry Potter. The Bruges Group got the hump on social media when someone pointed out 245k were studying those disciplines and 0 Harry Potter. But you can always fall back and say you were trying to rile the left - which starts at George Osborne, David Willets and Heseltine onwards these days - when you really you are just post-truth fuckwits caught in a lie.

I’d say that what the constant dripping tap of stories in the background is about to save money. Although most PL manager roles usually have break clauses in at different points in a contract, unless Semmens is even more of an wally than he appears. Either way it is typically spineless and unprofessional from the club, no better than how Les operated. Yes please to Steve Cooper by the way if he gets the push. I know Forest got whacked last night but their owner has brought in 21 mercenaries and expected them to gel overnight.

The bloke needs to go and should have done in the summer, but is being hung out to dry. Wolves have dealt with the issue on Lage clinically but professionally. Clear he’d lost the dressing room and fanbase and their owner and board did what they needed to. Ralph doesn’t deserve the drip, drip of articles and rumours but it’s humiliating him because of the spineless jellyfish in the boardroom. Namely Semmens, I thought he was dreadful at the forum and belongs in the current cabinet. SR need to urgently grow a backbone, show some fucking leadership, press the button on Ralph and Semmens. Appoint a new CEO of their own with some drive/identity/character and new manager who can put their vision, whatever it actually is, into practice on the pitch. Very green so far, and will be a very expensive mistake listening to Semmens. Didn’t he arrive with Gao? That’s two ownership disasters he has been involved with which seem hands off so he can run this club into the ground.

Delivery drivers, store workers as well. Party of blue collar workers my arse. They couldn’t win a GE on this mandate for 35 years so done it by stealth via the swivels anyway. First and probably last time I’ll type this but well done Michael Gove yesterday. Jake Berry will be dust come the next GE and all of these quotes are just further nails in the coffin that will be wheeled out for years to come. Becoming puppets to Minford and Redwood is proving very painful for Truss and Kwarteng. If they cared about city traders and hedge fund managers do much, why inflict a damaging and disruptive hard Brexit on them? Tory party doesn’t know what it is - it’s like Blair stepping down and electing Corbyn in 2007 as PM.

They might as well appoint Daniel Farke to get them out of the Championship in 2023/24 if they wait that long as they will several points adrift at the bottom. This manager is a total busted flush and has all the enthusiasm and spark left of a British Leyland showroom salesman circa 1978. They’ve already left themselves at the stages of snookers by throwing away cheap wins to Wolves (the only one out of 15 games for sacked Lage), Villa and Everton through being as stubborn as the failing manager. SR and Semmens cocked it up in the summer, you’ve changed the coaching staff and 50% of the squad. It’s still total shit and still they cling onto Ralph. Yes, the lack of a striker was a huge fuck up but a new manager bounce might keep them in touch with other clubs by early January to get a clutch of striker and winger loans/signings to have a go at staying up.

Might be a chance for City to rest some players for their upcoming CL games although they will still be far too good. It’s a bit like having Shrewsbury or Burton at home in the Cup inbetween Man U and Sevilla. Give some of your squad depth some game time against non PL standard opposition. Bet Pep doesn’t though and we get their first choice XI

Benitez if he’s up for it - the whole club needs a leader as it’s so anonymous, corporate, bland, lacking backbone and character. He would give some much needed profile and identity because it’s become a soulless club. SMS could be in the Midlands or Home Counties - Reading and MK are very similar to SFC post-2017. Saints have often been better with a big name in charge (Ronald, Hoddle, Lawrie became a big name). SR look very green and naive and Semmens is wilting because of his reliance on Ralph who has failed comprehensively. Rafa likes running a club and he can do that with Saints right now. Players would look up to him and standards would be demanded. Won’t be free flowing football but it isn’t anyway. The club effectively died as having any substance when Gao bought it. The odd twitch since but it’s been abysmal home form since then and since the away form has fallen away the club has become irrelevant as a footballing entity with any identity. Probably young players is the only one but that’s because they are cheap. The academy hasn’t produced anything since JWP/Shaw, a decade now, so any DNA gone there as well.

Agree, they should be calling for manager and CEO’s head as would be the case at any club of similar size and stature. Last 30 or so games on a par with Pellegrino and worst of Branfoot era - and I was old enough to remember that. Difference was we had a fanbase with some backbone to stand up to the people running the club back then.

Great news and another fellow relegation fighting side Fulham 2 down to Newcastle with 10 men so hopefully Newcastle can turn the screw and dent their goal difference. It’ll be a season of fine margins with such a desperately poor Saints squad. As Ralph is still there I’m guessing SR believe he could get Saints back up at the first attempt next season so long odds at staying up with the severe lack of goal threat in the side.

It’s Friday so I gave you a laughing emoji instead 😉

Agree with Lighthouse, Starmer is a different proposition. As New Labour were to 1980s Labour where Kinnock was saddled with disarmament and to a lesser extent Clause 4. Re Corbyn and Truss, I guess the comparison is in the fact that neither would have been close to being selected by their parliamentary party yet got the activists excited. To a certain extent true of the Miliband brothers as well. Unions engineered the wrong result there with some disastrous consequences, as Miliband’s rule changes let Corbyn in (plus Beckett putting Corbyn on the paper ‘for diversity’). Ed Miliband had some decent ideas but couldn’t communicate them despite the odd breakthrough eg Squeezed Middle. Not sure he has the people skill. IDS was another one as Tory leader. Part of the reason for that is that to build credibility for office there is a period of relationship and confidence building with key institutions nationally and globally. Blair, Brown, Major, Thatcher in her earlier days, Cameron and Osborne all did, Sunak too. Boris was well known to them and played the rebel in public but different faces to different audiences. Truss and Corbyn are outsiders and that’s what they want to be. Both are also stuck in ideologies, and ways of thinking which have past their peak a long time ago, yet they can’t fathom why they don’t work and it’s everyone else who causes them to fail (Truss now, Labour old left 1983 and 2019). Editing further the other aspect is that the other PMs sought to change certain aspects - Maggie’s labour reforms, City deregulation - but also knew where to be pragmatic eg channel tunnel investment by financial institutions, brokering the Single Market. There’s a certain level of trust (rather than Truss) required which I don’t think your Corbyn’s and Truss’s see the need for. Blair/Brown and BoE independence too, that’s consultation over time. She’s felt the need to distance herself in the campaign from Sunak’s orthodoxy but most leaders once elected make a realistic assessment and prepare before lurching like last Friday. Any change to PM other than death should be a GE now. I wasn’t comfortable with Brown’s non mandate but at least the policy direction was broadly similar as was Cameron/May initially. What people especially in the Midlands and North voted for in 2019 with Boris is unrecognisable and that’s wrong.

They were appalling comments and indefensible. By all means politicians of other parties and experts across different fields can pick apart what him and Truss are doing because it’s reckless in the extreme and gambling with our futures in the slim hope of staying on after the 2024 GE. But it’s got naff all to do with the bloke’s ethnicity. Starmer did the right thing by suspending them but he is going to have to take further action because he has got some right hotheads left over from the Corbyn era. If a budget can trigger those sort of unforced outbursts then I dread to think the reactions will be to some of the cultural warriors like Braverman, Badenoch and Jenkyns in the cabinet and the likes of Lee Anderson on the backbenches when they actually go fishing for some reactions.

That’s what I’d set out if I was him. Need to stretch Everton at the back and round them in midfield where Saints are vulnerable minus Lavia. If we play slow and they sit in with the extra height and power it’ll be like playing Burnley when they were better under Dyche. And we know how that often panned out. All the crap from Ralph about AMN not being integrated - cut it out get him in the side, we need some muscle in there and JWP should be up for it after being sent home by England. Mara is a wildcard but no point buying him and not using him, Edozie has played for England unders in the week so maybe keep him for 60 minutes if Mara is tiring or not impacting the game. Mara looks to be positive and try something different, get a shot away. What Stu used to do pre Covid. Aribo offers something different as well, how Ely could be preferred - dear me. Ely would be a good in a slow league but Aribo has the strength to compete. Only fly in your ointment might be that apparently the Scottish camp had a bug and Che was one affected. So might be on the bench if his energy levels are down.

This is quite interesting so I’ll add a further response. If you are talking about pure macroeconomic policy and orthodoxy then I’d agree that we’ve had a stable period broadly through Clarke/Brown/Darling/Osborne/Hammond/Sunak. It’s the reason the country was able to ride out the credit crunch as debt was only 46% of GDP and businesses could be supported through the pandemic. We probably have a different view of austerity 2010-15. It didn’t touch me professionally in a market environment but when I was doing community work outside of paid employment it was very stark. Huge impacts on literacy, community facilities and paved the way to food banks. Cameron was onto something with Big Society but too far and too fast to replace state investment with cohesion and it just felt like cuts. The real professional hit has been on the professional aspects around moving people and goods between the UK and the EU. We’ve gone from being technical specialists at work to HR managers because of the sheer volumes of changes we’ve had to adapt to over a short time. I get that people wanted more control over this stuff but with the turnover of Home Office and Business Ministers it is constantly changing and since Patel bollocksed the Home Office all of the people there who knew what they were doing have left in droves. Nor has there been the investment in skills to grow our own nor the patience when there is investment to see if it works over a 3-5 year period at least. Now the markets are nervous about this week and so am I - huge decisions to make professionally and personally that will effect what my retirement looks like. The last five-seven years have been unstable but this is something else. Yeah, there is a history of Tories talking and not walking right wing eg Heath and Selsdon Man, Cameron with the EU, Boris’s ‘Save Big Dog’ but actually I prefer periods of orthodox policy to have some chance of planning. There’s always events that you can’t foresee which disrupt things but this last week is a huge own goal, unnecessary and unforced to me. Probably where we are different again. I grew up in the 1980s and understood that before my time the IMF having to sort out Labour’s economic approach in 1976 was one of the main reasons along with the Winter of Discontent as to why not to vote Labour and it probably explains why the LDs are more comfortable. Now it’s happened in 2022 and intellectuals like Minford (studied his work at Uni) and Redwood who have spent their entire careers espousing free market theories and saying listen to the market are now saying ignore it because Truss gave them a job. George Osborne is right, they are hypocrites. Anyway, listening to different perspectives is something we’ve lost the habit of a bit so it’s been interesting.

Egg makes better responses below, although I did say B string Thatcherism as I do know what Monetarism is thank you very much. Truss’s gender (or Thatcher’s) has naff all to do with it as well, I voted for May in 2017 as the Lib Dems were in a mess and Corbyn, never. My issue with Thatcher was rigidly not having any state intervention in the economy which New Labour followed and look what happened in 2007 with the financial crisis, now with energy policy, East Coast Mainline (makes surplus nationalised and loss commercially). I could go on but I’m a pragmatist - if it works better for the public private let it be private. If the market fails for essential population needs, and many have, get it working again for people. Some regulation is needed at times where approprIate. That said about Reagan you have a point on to some extent and the budget deficit for the next Prime Minister is going to be horrific. Fuck all control over the money supply in the economy and interest rates will eat any giveaways as those of us young enough to have a mortgage are about to find out. If you can even get one even judging by this morning’s mass withdrawal of products. Ken Livingstone, Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Benn. Now they are lefties. Michael Heseltine, Ken Clarke, Paddy Ashdown, David Laws and Vince Cable. In your language ‘pinko Remainers’ and if you want to call me one of those go ahead because they are my favourite political figures. Centrist and remainer, and very comfortable about it. Ideology doesn’t put food on the table and I just want to enjoy life without the constant ideological extremes we’ve endured since 2015. At least we agree the budget is a risky mess and I don’t see any plan for growth, just a trip to the casino.

I wonder how a lot of the Red Wall seats which switched in 2019 and some extent 2015 are feeling? Voted in 2019 for levelling up and hazy One Nation Conservatism from an ‘untory’ leader, get unelected B side Thatcherism on steroids 2022. Voted to level up regions, told now that unshackling the City of London will trickle equality to them (in spite of 40 years of evidence to the contrary). Their Brexit is backfiring on them as harder to export and cost of living crisis which impacts us all bar the biggest Conservative donors biting their towns hardest. Restricting freedom of movement straight away has made the skills gaps into a chasm. I wouldn’t want to be one of those 50 or so MPs, that’s for sure.

Kin’ ell. A raised eyebrows emoji doesn’t really cut it in the circumstances.

Alas Digne sold to Villa. Mind you, wasn’t as bad as Claus and Jonah’s mix up at Goodison Park. 4 conceded in several minutes with side of half time IIRC.

I agree, pace is the key, Edozie has to start and AA although he’s been poor again through the middle to run at them. Mara playing a decent part at some stage. If he wants to start with Ely again then time Selles was given sole charge by SR and Rasmus. This is a must not lose game and arguably must win. That will not happen with the current tactics. They can’t have watched the Villa debacle, Ely’s non performances in this league and been at all comfortable. It was as bad as anything under Pellegrino. They may need to intervene and put Ralph on gardening leave if he won’t listen to feedback.

It’s like going back to Pellegrino because Saints are conceding too many goals. Even the IMF agrees that trickle down economics are a myth https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Staff-Discussion-Notes/Issues/2016/12/31/Causes-and-Consequences-of-Income-Inequality-A-Global-Perspective-42986